tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61168902334002966512024-02-21T22:42:30.182-08:0011 ILC at PennMadeline Kronenberghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00809038721402994691noreply@blogger.comBlogger108125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-32731577958417400862011-08-03T08:02:00.000-07:002011-08-12T01:23:56.888-07:00A Little Physics Goes A Long Way<div style="text-align: justify;">In the four days I have been home, I have witnessed more examples of the ways in which my experience with Ivy League Connection at UPenn has altered the way I live than I ever expected. The month I spent in Philadelphia has changed the way I think about the learning process, applying to college, and the world around me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Since I have returned, friends and family have asked me how my trip was. I feel bad, because in most cases I think they were just trying to be polite and expected my answer to be something like "Oh yea it was really cool, I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot. The end". What they invariably got instead was a ten minute long shpeel about systems neuroscience, single photon diffraction, cosmic rays, Bill Burner's amazing demonstrations, UPenn's dorm food, my amazing roommate, the frozen yogurt in Philadelphia, and a handful of funny stories about the people I met. It was kind of amazing when my parents picked me up from the airport. I almost didn't realize how many stories I had to tell until they couldn't shut me up the entire car ride home.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">In fact, even when I am not asked, nowadays it is hard to get me to stop talking about physics. The month I spent learning from Bill was a real-life, tangible example of learning for the sake of knowledge and discovery rather than a report card and that experience leaves a mark. Now when I look around, I see opportunities to learn and teach all over even when there will be no letter grade at the end. When my friend showed me something on her computer yesterday, I spent about three minutes describing how the liquid crystals in her screen polarize the light differently based on the electrical signals they receive and that is how the image is made. By the end all she could say was "That's great, now let me show you this video." I have found that my colleagues here are a little less eager to learn than those I encountered at Penn.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">That alone was a bit of a culture shock. After spending a month with a group of kids who were willing to sit through lectures for a third of their summer, it is hard for me to imagine that someone would not be excited to learn. Returning to high school is going to be strange. I have forgotten what it's like not to be surrounded by ultra motivated science freaks. Hopefully, I will be able to spread my enthusiasm to my classmates and get them excited about the subject instead of doing the bare minimum to get an "A". Now, I am more excited than ever to go to college where I know more and more people will share my passion for discovery.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So excited that on my second day home I dumped out the cluttered drawer I keep all the college information I get in the mail and sorted it into piles based on how interested I am in attending the college. Many of the letters I found in that drawer I had barely even looked at, but now I have a new motivation to continue to research colleges. I also have enough information to know where to start applying for scholarships based on my conversations with alums over dinner and our meetings with college administrators as well as the discussions I had with my room mate and other people on our floor. Many of the students I met talked about starting their essays for the common app as soon as they got home. Their motivation and organization has inspired me to take initiative and deal with the daunting task earlier rather than later.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The people that I met were inspirational in more than one way. I had been told that I would be meeting people from all over the world, but I didn't really think about what that would entail. I got to talk to people who's lives are incredibly different from mine in some respects, but I also saw that many experiences and ideas teenagers have are universal. Being around so many different cultures opened my eyes and helped me understand how big the world is. The international students that I talked to were absolutely the most driven people I had encountered. Not only are they generally fluent in English (and in most cases, multiple other languages), they are working hard in intensive programs like international baccalaureate in order to broaden their horizons beyond the colleges of their own country. The Ivy League Connection stresses that its goal is to help students realize that they are not limited to California. I now know that I am not limited to the <em>United States</em>. My roommate even offered to help me through the international application process.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is only after I have learned these important lessons that I understand fully what exeptional program the Ivy Leage Connection is. I hope to broaden its impact by getting my fellow classmates involved with it and using the presentation skills I learned during my course to show younger students how fun science can be. I plan on working through the high school to schedule lessons at elementary schools like Fairmont where we can show the kids variations of the demonsrations Bill showed us in order to teach them about the basic concepts of Physics. I believe that learning it from someone who truly enjoys the subject will improve the odds of them getting interested as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is amazing to think that it was in the span of only four short weeks, but my experience at U Penn has opened my eyes to a new way of looking at learning: appreciate the knoledge, don't stress about the grades. I believe this state of mind will not only help me enjoy my final year of high school, It will help me find a college I can thrive in and get me genuinely excited about the process.</div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-57274833940654181352011-08-03T00:27:00.000-07:002011-08-03T00:29:03.378-07:00I Learn Every Day<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The time that I spent in Pennsylvania and on the East Coast in general was valuable to me for many different reasons. First off, my time on the East Coast was valuable to me because it was really fun. I also found that I really learned much more than I expected to during my class. However, I also learned a lot outside of the classroom about college which will be very valuable to me in May when I am signing a certificate of intent to attend a college wherever that may be.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Occasionally, things change so suddenly that we say that they have taken a quantum leap forward. For me, going to class at Penn was a quantum leap because I realized how much more I have to learn about everything. Certainly in my high school environment I have taken the toughest classes I can and I always push myself hard, but when I got to Penn I was reminded that there is always more to learn. From the first day I struggled a bit in class, but always was able to get through it and learn in the process. Something valuable that I learned is that it is OK to be a follower sometimes. At school, I tend to always take the lead on projects and make sure that everyone does their part, but in my lab group of 4 at Penn, all 4 of us were trying to do the same thing. We quickly realized that all of us were competent leaders and that it was actually important for us to learn how to accept the leadership of another even when they were doing the lab differently than we would have. In a time of constant collaboration in business, this was valuable for me to learn. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Another thing that I came to realize during my time at Penn is that discipline is critical to achieving success. One guy in my class is the same age as me but he has taken 6 years of physics classes and knows, at last count, 5 languages. Armed only with my year of physics education and 1.3 languages that I speak (English and some Japanese), I was inspired to realize how much more I can do if I really work my hardest at everything. Certainly, some of the difference is due to opportunity, but I have recently come to realizes how much time everyone wastes. In one of my classes at school, my teacher had us all track where all of our time goes over a three week period. I was shocked to find how much time I wasted and due to that and my inspiration at Penn I have resolved to try to always maximize the time I have. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >To avoid being all bark and no bite, I would like to briefly lay out how I think that the learning I have done at Penn will help me in my future. First off, I intend to be a lot more organized as a student in the future. While I have gradually realized this in high school, Penn presented the immediate need of knowing where all of your materials were and of simply organizing information so that you could use it effectively. I have also learned to manage my time more effectively. During the upcoming school year, I intend to keep track of the time that I waste so that I can become inspired to do something useful with it. Penn also taught me about setting good and achievable goals. In many scenarios, we would have some huge goal to achieve such as measuring the speed of light. We began this process by breaking it down into many smaller goals along the way. For example, we needed to build a laser, assemble the circuits, and take measurements. Each of these goals could be broken down even further into easily achievable goals such as plugging in our oscilloscope and connecting certain wires. I think that I can easily take this sort of process out of the lab by setting goals, say on a project in school, and making things more manageable by breaking the process into easy parts.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I have been handed an amazing opportunity by the ILC to learn tons about physics, college, and life in general. Something that I haven’t mentioned so far is that I definitely plan to give back some of what I have learned to other people. Many people my age blindly apply only to public California schools and ignore the other options out there. While Californian schools are fantastic, a large part of the ILC is exposing teens from California to the fact that there are so many other colleges that may be a better option than UC’s and CSU’s. To give thanks for the exposure that I have gotten, I plan to collaborate with Alex and Julia to make some sort of presentation about considering many options when applying to college to present to other teens our age. If we can help even one person to take a good look at an East Coast school and realize that it is really what they want, we can call our plan a success.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The ILC has really changed how I will go through the college application process. First off, I plan to start very soon so that I can have plenty of time to do the job right and not apply to a few schools last minute. This will help a lot because I plan on applying to some very competitive schools and the last thing I want to do is to present a sloppy image of myself. As I talked about goal setting earlier, I think the college application process will be a great place for me to set goals. While everyone talks about the application process as this giant overwhelming thing, it really breaks down into parts quite easily. Inspired by my time at Penn, I already have a calendar with some important dates in the application process on it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >On a very specific level, the ILC will help me in the college application process because at Penn I have gotten to learn more specifically what I really want to get out of college and what sort of college I want to attend. At the most basic level, I have realized that I want to attend a medium or large sized school because of the huge number of opportunities present at a larger college. For example, Penn has the resources to have hundreds of different clubs and sports that I could try. Furthermore, I have realized that a must at any college that I go to is a strong study abroad program. During an information session at Penn, I was glad to learn that Penn has a strong study abroad program and that many students take advantage of it. I could go on for hours about the details of my ideal college, but the bottom line is that through the ILC, Penn has really helped me to narrow down my college search and for that I am very grateful.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >During this program, I have not been able to say thank you enough. First off, thank you to all of the people that routinely read this blog whether you are family, friends, or simply interested in what we did. Many thanks to Alex and Julia who were extremely supportive during the entire trip and made everything a lot more fun. I’m glad that I got to be Alex’s roommate because he is a fun and supportive friend that knows how to get work done and knows how to have fun. Thank you very much Mario Miranda for your organization, your fun presence, and your great taste in food. I am very grateful that you spent a month of your summer traveling and learning with us, because it really wouldn’t have been the same without you. Finally, I owe so many thanks to the Ivy League Connection and its sponsors. I have learned so much about physics, college, and myself that I can never repay it. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >That’s all I have to say for now, but this program and the knowledge I have learned will stick with me forever.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-1216158496188773922011-08-02T20:56:00.000-07:002011-08-02T21:02:57.976-07:00One of the Greatest Months of My Life<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">It has been less than a week since I departed from Penn, but I feel like I have been away for much longer. My time in Pennsylvania really left a mark on me. Not only was it my home for a month, but it was also a place where I was part of an intellectual community, I was able to branch out much farther than I normally do at home, and I was able to live a completely different lifestyle. Not only was I able to live more independently, but I was literally fifteen minutes away from one of the most populated cities in the country. My experiences at Penn are things that I will never forget and I will continue to be influenced by the lessons that I have learned.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">I feel like going into this program with prior ILC experience gave me a totally different perspective. I was introduced to the world of college exploration last year and I got a good sense of things that I did and didn’t like about colleges. Going in this year, I had a better idea of what to look for in a college that would suit me. Better yet, I knew the questions to ask. When we visited Georgetown and spoke with Bruce Chamberlain, the Senior Associate Director of Admissions, I had several key questions about Georgetown that I was eager to ask. However, he was so thorough that I didn’t even need to ask them. I had planned to ask about Georgetown’s financial aid and the strengths the universities different schools have, but I never had to ask because he had covered those topics thoroughly. He was even able to discuss at great length the opportunities, such as internships in D.C., that are available to students at Georgetown. The same was true of my discussions with Ellen Kim, the Northern California Admissions Representative at Penn. She informed me of how tightly knit the Penn community is and how focused on learning and research the university is. More on that later. Last year I was just beginning to learn about what colleges had to offer in general. Since I got that experience last year, I was able to focus on the details this time around. I was even able to pick up on some of the programs that different schools offer, such as Georgetown’s 3-2 program, which is in conjunction with Columbia where you spend three years at Georgetown and two at Columbia, or Penn’s new major that combines sustainability and engineering that Ellen Kim told me about. This is something that I want to be able to spread amongst my peers. I want to let them know about what college can offer, but I also want to let them know that you need to understand what you truly want out of your college experience when looking at a college.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Not only were the college visitations memorable and enlightening, but so was my course at Penn. The Experimental Physics Academy was the most challenging science class that I have ever taken. Although it may not have had very many assignments outside of the classroom, the class was fast-paced and you had to keep up if you had any chance of understanding the next lesson or lab that was coming your way. We covered topics that I never thought I would have the chance to study while I was still in high school, let alone understand these advanced principles of physics. I had no idea that I would study Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or String Theory while I was still in high school. We covered so many principles of physics, ranging from mechanics and motion to optics and relativity, in just four weeks, that it astounds me that we were all able to keep up. What made it easy was the support of the faculty that ran the program. Bill, Mary, Craig, Ryan, Adam, and Brian were all extremely helpful. Each was dedicated to making sure that we understood the material. It was a top notch learning environment. I didn’t feel like I was taking a class from Bill or any of the TAs. Instead, it felt like I was doing research with them. They always made class an interactive experience and I felt like we were all peers working towards a common goal. I cannot fully express how lucky I was to have been selected for such a great course. I learned skills that will help me work toward my future and, in the process, I learned from people who were truly passionate about education for the sake of education.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Learning for the sake of learning seemed to be a constant theme at Penn. Bill told us on the first day that he didn’t want to give us grades or credit because then we would be playing the game for the grade instead of actually “doing science.” This was also resonant throughout my discussions with Sam Gilbert, a grad student at Penn, and Ellen Kim during our dinner at La Croix. Sam told me that even though you have to do work for a passing grade, the emphasis in almost every class he had been enrolled in at Penn was on learning and research. Ellen Kim also told me about how involved members of the Penn faculty (such as June Chu, a Pre-major Advisor) are in helping you find your path at Penn. This is something that I find admirable about a college these days. There are so many universities and colleges that have massive class sizes that are only focused on getting the grade or being number one. However, at Penn there is a strong focus on collaborative thinking and learning as a whole. The word community is tossed around a lot when college is being discussed. At Penn, there really is a sense of community. You have the opportunity to meet people from all walks of life, study with professors and researchers, even as an undergrad, and you can get help or support from almost anyone. I really got the feeling that Penn was a huge family and, for a month, I got to be a part of that family. This is the kind of university that I want to attend. I want to be able to interact with people from different parts of the globe and actually have classes that are taught by professors. Penn helped me come to that decision, and I am very thankful for it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">My experiences at Penn would have been much less memorable if I didn’t have so many wonderful people to share them with. I was very lucky to have such an excellent cohort. Mr. Miranda was an excellent chaperone and I can certainly see why the ILC has asked him to chaperone for six years of the program. Not only was he responsible and on top of things, he was also very knowledgeable. I think of him as a renaissance man because he is able to speak extensively on so many different topics, from architecture to evolution. His wealth of knowledge made me realize the value of a liberal arts education, one where you can learn a little bit about everything even if you are focusing on one subject. Brian and Julia were great as well. Things were a little strained at first because the two of them and Mr. Miranda already knew each other, but I feel like once we got to know one another we were great friends. I was able to get to know Brian really well because we were roommates. He was always fun and (thankfully) didn’t mind when I stayed up late doing my blogs. Julia was great too. She was always lively and brought a special sense of humor to the group. However, my cohort was not my only family at Penn. Soon we befriended four very special people. Fred Kwon, Alison Lui, Abheek Basu, and Onur Soybir were my closest friends throughout the program. Despite how different we all are, we were drawn together and ultimately became inseparable. Fred was always a great person to talk with, either individually or in the group. He was fun and sincere. Abheek shared my dry sense of humor and was always good for a laugh. Alison seemed to have something in common with everyone, no matter how small it was. She could relate to and was friendly with everyone. Onur was extremely sociable. Whatever he did or wherever he went, he tried to include as many people as possible to make it a group experience that we could all share. I especially enjoyed his company because there are so many cultural differences between America and Turkey that we were able to discuss, such as differences in our schools, cities, and even food. I will always treasure the friendships that I made with the other six members of our Clique and I know we will keep in touch. Like I said, we have become inseparable, barring distance.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">My adventure in the east is over. Although I have left Penn, it will linger in my mind for a long time. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to have such a great experience if it weren’t for the Ivy League Connection. This program has grown to such great heights since it began seven years ago and it would not be possible without Charles Ramsey, Madeleine Kronenberg, Don Gosney, the sponsors, and everyone who has supported or been a part of the ILC. This unique program has influenced the lives of so many students, and I am extremely fortunate to have been a part of it. Of course, I also have to thank my parents, who have been supportive of me throughout my life and especially my ILC experience. I would not be the person I am today if it weren’t for the ILC because both of my experiences on the east coast have shaped my decisions in both high school and my plans for the future. I have become more organized as a student, I have decided that I would like to attend an urban campus, I know now that not-so-well-rounded students are acceptable to many colleges, and so much more. This whole experience has changed my paradigm drastically, and to show my thanks, I will continue to spread the word about what students can achieve if they look to colleges outside of California. I would also like to organize a project with my fellow Pinole ILC scholars to spread the word about the opportunities that wait outside of California and that students do not have to fear the college admissions process. This is all information that needs to be given to the students because it can change their opinions about higher education, just as it has impacted ours. I feel like this would be the best way to put all that my peers and I have learned from our respective journeys in the Ivy League Connection to good use.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After two years with the greatest program in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, my journey has come to a close. For the last blog with the Ivy League Connection, I’m signing off. Thanks for everything.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-12555636097786507672011-07-30T23:51:00.000-07:002011-07-31T01:19:49.439-07:00Good-bye Philly, Hello Pinole<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Today was the first day in a month that I did not wake up in dorm room 302 in the NY Alumni building in the Penn quad. I awoke to the sun coming through the blinds in our hotel room and it hit me that it had all ended last night. Although we said our goodbyes to the quad and our friends the night before, waking up somewhere other than the dorm was strange. I really got into a daily rhythm. After the shock of waking up somewhere else, Brian and I got ready to meet Mr. Miranda and Julia in the lobby for breakfast. We ate a quick meal in the restaurant in the hotel lobby. Once we were finished, we headed back upstairs to grab our luggage and then made our way back down to check out. It was time to leave campus.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">We headed to the Philadelphia airport and, although it was early, began to make our way through the sea of people. Once we were through security, we grabbed some Peet’s and walked to the gate. Luckily we were in the first couple of groups to board because we were basically able to walk right onto the plane when we got to our gate. Our first flight was quite small. The plane was actually so small that Brian’s head scraped the ceiling. I actually slept for the majority of this flight, but when I was awake the flight was relatively smooth. After only an hour and a half, we had landed in Chicago.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Our layover in Chicago lasted several hours and we really did not have that much to do to fill the time. We ate lunch at a Mediterranean restaurant (the last meal our cohort would eat together!) and then browsed the magazines and souvenirs that O’Hare International had to offer. Somehow, we made this last almost the entire layover. However, there were complications when we began to board the plane: Brian’s reservation was switched at the last minute to another flight! We thought that Mr. Miranda would have to give Brian his ticket and the three of us would have to fly back without our chaperone. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case and all four of us were able to board the same plane. This flight was a little bit rockier, but it was still ok, even though it was a three and a half hour flight.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">We landed safely and headed to baggage claim, where our families were waiting for us. I walked up to my parents and greeted them for the first time after a month. I was finally home. While we waited for our bags to come out of the luggage carousel, our families spoke to each other and Mario. However, once my bags arrived, it was time for me to depart. I bid farewell to my cohort and left the airport with my parents. Dinner with my parents seemed to be non-stop questions, and I can’t blame them. There were a lot of things that they did not yet know about my journey, even though we spoke constantly. I’m certainly glad to see my real family again.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Now, I sit in my room, just as I left it exactly one month ago. My adventure is over and it is time for me to return to my life here in good old Pinole, California. No longer can I head down the hall to say hi to Fred and Abheek, walk down the street to Wawa, or take a trolley to get to a bustling city center within minutes. Life is different here and I will have to adjust again. Although I will miss all of those things about life in Philly, I am also glad to be back in my own home, in familiar territory. Even though I left Pennsylvania today, I hope to return at some point in the future, maybe to attend Penn. But for now, I’m resuming life here. I’m home Pinole.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-70292819307809633192011-07-29T22:53:00.000-07:002011-07-29T23:27:45.899-07:00The End of Days<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">I write today’s blog with a mixture of emotions. On one hand, I’m happy to be returning home to my family and friends. On the other hand, I’m leaving the “family” and friends that I have grown to know so well over the past four weeks. Tonight, the three of us departed from the quad, departed from our lives at Penn, and watched our Clique wave goodbye to us. The events of today were truly a great way to end the month.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">We began class with our final presentations, our reports of the exponential physics experiments. These were, by far, the best presentations so far. All of the slideshows and presenters were entertaining, informative, and concise. Our presentation on Newton’s Law of Cooling, I felt, went exceptionally well. We had good background information, sufficient data, we came to the correct conclusion, and presented it in such a way that Bill and the TAs wholeheartedly agreed with our analysis and description. Ryan even told us that our analysis was exactly the way he would have taught the topic. This was comforting to hear since we did not have a lot of guidance with this experiment. The research, experiments, and presentation were largely left up to our decisions. To learn that we had come to the correct conclusion and that we taught the class the same way one of our instructors would was a great feeling.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Following the presentations, we had a long discussion on what could be improved in the program and what should be kept on for the next year. It was interesting to hear about what everyone thought about different aspects of the class. For example, I enjoyed hearing the opinions of people that had never taken physics before coming to the program. Most of them felt that the program was a great way to get involved in physics and that it was still a very educational experience, despite the pace. Even the students that have been taking physics for years said that the program benefited them immensely, and I could not agree with them more. I do not have any regrets or negative feedback for this program whatsoever. Everything was run excellently, Bill and the TAs were great, and the overall experience was one that I will never forget. I would highly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in pursuing science, and even to some who aren’t necessarily interested in taking that path.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After lunch, we all gathered in the small lecture hall on the ground floor of the DRL. This was the greatest part of today. We were told that this was Bill’s time to show off all of his best demonstrations. This was absolutely true. We were given quite the show this afternoon as Bill took us through the most entertaining demonstrations of physics he had to offer. He displayed the properties of elastic potential energy by sitting on a gigantic coil that was attached to the ceiling, blew up a small house using the flow of electrons through an unstable environment, and even shattered a wine glass using sound. Bill really pulled out all the stops today, and I couldn’t think of a better way to complete the course. After the demonstrations were over, we were given USB drives with everything that we could possibly want from the program. We received the slideshows from every lecture (guest and regular), well-known physics papers that were written by some of our guest lecturers, and even every single document and presentation that Mary uploaded to Dropbox. We were also given certificates of completion for the program and wooden stars that had C’s on them, as a testament to our ability to accurately measure the speed of light. Once Bill and Mary said all that they wanted to say, goodbyes, thank you’s and even some sorrowful hugs were exchanged between both classmate and staff. I made sure to say thank you and goodbye to Bill and all of the TAs before I left, except Adam, but he left early. It all felt complete after that.</span></p> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvdS3eFAjVZxkdUZNtqMJyFR6wn5VKO1b7DdUYg0sPm8PidkrspAV-W3CNbCcZdT209YBOrkiGy3NDjfJzImvEBxGdumXYF2g-n03IILFVf2QTs0hAnyzCEZZgis3fEfvPZ1Z6CWc1SLA/s1600/Penn+Blog+26-1+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvdS3eFAjVZxkdUZNtqMJyFR6wn5VKO1b7DdUYg0sPm8PidkrspAV-W3CNbCcZdT209YBOrkiGy3NDjfJzImvEBxGdumXYF2g-n03IILFVf2QTs0hAnyzCEZZgis3fEfvPZ1Z6CWc1SLA/s320/Penn+Blog+26-1+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635025029698736674" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">I finally got my picture with Bill</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZAKabeFwcstiS3FOQ2bLdKsvOBqIFHbZeaBCNmGZQXGN_H3-V3Yg0S7HS1goc_qwdp68r6b2tRtzNTPAko_HHEa7DbyO-GaDjb6gMmidq6D8J8URzVObKDUu6FYRGG5jp-R_XadMGYE/s1600/Penn+Blog+26-5+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZAKabeFwcstiS3FOQ2bLdKsvOBqIFHbZeaBCNmGZQXGN_H3-V3Yg0S7HS1goc_qwdp68r6b2tRtzNTPAko_HHEa7DbyO-GaDjb6gMmidq6D8J8URzVObKDUu6FYRGG5jp-R_XadMGYE/s320/Penn+Blog+26-5+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635025045747113570" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Ryan was always a huge help and a pretty cool guy. Couldn't pass up a photo-op.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYwJUomLhL-dXFBfvsDpaHMmPsZHj2exfG-UKN0XbCYyYQc8tjOfSutSKxd00WgDETAs3M1yJ2OvDGD4o4kszC8vKc7b1ZESI0z2QUgvqn9t75FcSF9FHs1AiaZ2jKL7KS4RgBnYBTNmY/s1600/Penn+Blog+26-4+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYwJUomLhL-dXFBfvsDpaHMmPsZHj2exfG-UKN0XbCYyYQc8tjOfSutSKxd00WgDETAs3M1yJ2OvDGD4o4kszC8vKc7b1ZESI0z2QUgvqn9t75FcSF9FHs1AiaZ2jKL7KS4RgBnYBTNmY/s320/Penn+Blog+26-4+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635025044275049938" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">It was sad to say good-bye to Mary. We have grown close.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFhN01aX_d5ZYAfBPahRHTEQj7Jkl-rkAe9NV2OQQudjd5smR1T3BsD91_ULYl_MLNbnPtJzuaIzRJ8_uYij3Rq_FDcI2DyHsmb6IbGbvRpCcMRQE72r-zXcRWGUJQjFlYKOkKZBOBUM/s1600/Penn+Blog+26-3+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZFhN01aX_d5ZYAfBPahRHTEQj7Jkl-rkAe9NV2OQQudjd5smR1T3BsD91_ULYl_MLNbnPtJzuaIzRJ8_uYij3Rq_FDcI2DyHsmb6IbGbvRpCcMRQE72r-zXcRWGUJQjFlYKOkKZBOBUM/s320/Penn+Blog+26-3+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635025039298382994" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Coolest. TA. EVER.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJY6fXq9seHFwqpT0vsTB5KplVwGLg5qJ4p3yTLUBsC6Ukwd_yIarOhONx1WD9HaDR9ygFnNAuiPuODi6KC-1aH3ykjRHlSe1rbqmIvOBo-ouLAAMLXtNnjqnRd5ex-ZVbrPCYuA2IP7U/s1600/Penn+Blog+26-2+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJY6fXq9seHFwqpT0vsTB5KplVwGLg5qJ4p3yTLUBsC6Ukwd_yIarOhONx1WD9HaDR9ygFnNAuiPuODi6KC-1aH3ykjRHlSe1rbqmIvOBo-ouLAAMLXtNnjqnRd5ex-ZVbrPCYuA2IP7U/s320/Penn+Blog+26-2+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635025031325991602" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Bill in serious clothing??</div><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Once we returned to the dorms, I had to finish my packing. Somehow I managed to cram all of the things I brought and all of the souvenirs and gifts I purchased into my suitcase and suit bag. I couldn’t find a scale though, so I am really hoping that my luggage isn’t overweight. If it is though, I can always transfer some items from my suitcase to the suit bag, because that is definitely under-weight. I couldn’t wait to finish packing because I wanted to get as much time with everyone else as possible. Unfortunately, it took everyone quite a while to get everything packed, so we weren’t all finished until about 6:00. We decided to just get sandwiches from the convenience store near the quad and eat light, since we would be dancing later.</span></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">The dance began around 7:30 out in the lower quad. It was actually pretty funny because after about fifteen minutes of music, it began to rain. That was actually one of the hardest rains that I had experienced during my time at Penn. This put the party on hold for about fifteen minutes, but after that, it did not stop for another three hours. The music was loud, everyone was having a great time, and for a while we all let go of the fact that we would be leaving each other very, very soon.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">At 10:10, Mr. Miranda arrived to sign us out. We didn’t actually leave the quad until at least half an hour later. It wasn’t that sign out took a long time, but our good-byes took a very long time. This would be the last time for a long time, if ever again, that the seven of us would be together, so it was all very emotional. I realized at that moment how attached I had become to my friends here. I knew that I would miss them, but I did not imagine that I would be so moved just by having to say goodbye. It truly is like ripping off a bandaid, you just have to do it quickly. Sometimes, that just isn’t possible. We were so unwilling to let go of each other. Several hugs were exchanged between each of us, touching parting words were said, and there was a universal need for tissues by the time we exited the front gates. Ed bid us adieu and we were officially out of Penn’s Summer Discovery experience.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">This past month has been filled with fantastic events that I will always treasure. Whether it was meeting new friends or exploring the college that I may one day call my home, I never regretted coming to Penn, not for one second. I have never been more thankful to the Ivy League Connection, and everyone who supports it, than I felt today. Although I am sad to leave Penn and my new family behind, I am overjoyed to know that I have made life-long connections, and it wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for this amazing program. I am forever indebted to the ILC for all that they have done for me. For my last time in Philadelphia, I’m signing off. Good night, and good-bye Philly.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-17783058651706233072011-07-29T21:31:00.000-07:002011-07-29T23:16:22.680-07:00Out With a Bang<div align="justify">The final day here at U Penn was both incredible and heartbreaking. During class, Bill showed us four hours worth of creative, informative, exciting and occasionally hilarious demos that he himself had designed. Our evening activity, a camp-wide outdoors dance, was especially fun as well (despite the rain). By the end of the night, when I realized the month was really over and I was going to have to part with the group of friends and classmates that I met, I came close to shedding tears.<br /><br /><div>The day started off in a typical manner. Wake up, shower, dress, and say goodbye to my roommate Noor before leaving for breakfast. Our goodbye today however was much more significant because it would be the last time we saw each other before the program ended (her flight was this afternoon). We exchanged e-mails and plan to keep in touch, but it is going to be difficult waking up in the morning without her motivational music. Not seeing her every day is going to be hard to get used to.</div><br /><div>Class began normally as well. We started off giving out presentations about the exponential relationship between variables that we studied. Alex, Brian, Onor, and I gave our presentation about Newton's law of cooling based on the data we collected with our temperature probes in hot water last week. It was interesting giving a presentation about thermodynamics to fellow high school students because not long ago, for my final project in my physics class at ECHS, I taught a similar lesson to a sixth grade class. Needless to say, my presentation today required much less background information and repetition, but I still tried to present the ideas in a similar way - on a conceptual level rather than a repetition of textbook definitions, a technique that Bill has stressed the importance of throughout the course, and is very important to me as well.</div><br /><div>After our presentations and a short lunch break, the really fun stuff began. We moved into a larger lecture room to watch Bill perform the number of demonstrations he had set up for us. Each one displayed a different concept that we had experience with either from earlier in the course or earlier years of science in an exciting way that often exposed new ways of looking at the laws they proved. It was awesome.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635006607787392082" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm9kubCE6w3adwJG96kXYZ6vwvU30P3dibK6HRDsjbHDotQQyJek0N_uXLa3V5mamXYZiaCCaMpy1HVmfojcNVH84HfdIphJZqJbSBudXGNwDBsZfA5MqSdLqhcwqQdYy_5lsgO_OPPJk/s320/UPenn+011.JPG" />Above is a photo of the first demonstration. It dealt with how objects float in environments with higher densities and sink when the density of the object is greater. If you look closely, You can see a bubble floating in the tank. He accomplished this by mixing vinegar and baking soda to create carbon dioxide that stayed in the tank because it was heavier than the surrounding air. When he blew bubble into the tank, the increased density resulted in a tank full of floating bubbles. It was really cool to watch. <img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635006602521476146" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUiMfXrA7u0cTADe2yNIlxEcfJL5Xd83q-W_vMP7Cr-YkaeAZBMcelqHzf6Xk1DuLpR-0RbgpLlmywYL9Uzk657F9ZfNz2rO3w0F0rcCmiWnNWbJbtKIZpcb1etW2CklG35RuLfYYpDro/s320/UPenn+021JM.JPG" />This demonstration was designed to show the effects of angular momentum. Because the wheel he is holding is spinning, the stool he is sitting on has the ability to spin, and together they are a closed system. Bill could make himself spin on the stool by changing the angle at which he held the spinning disk. The demo was especially interesting because he informed us that this is exactly how scientists steer the Hubble telescope.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635006598101606258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVtMYH7JStI8t4aUgVXOXZUTrxx3-Pobj9T5PZ6cZ7Szub26RN0s-Tx2XMQwt5gj1rhOLX2NoxT4vPJoGSB8xqvysyfYJ-Jo6DTPHoThDFVjXhv3PIeZpAXLjdNDMPQgDve4C9RnZJTyk/s320/UPenn+037JM.JPG" />Next, he brought out a vandagraph generator and used it to show us the principles of static electricity. The example of his hair strands repelling each other as they picked up a charge was particularly amusing, but my favorite was the example of the stack of pie pans that flew off, one after the other, as soon as the machine was turned on.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635006589321554050" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwen0TaN568di4FmhWyqkMYQK2FYDpdvZvQkVse7iOiaFtPErOph3Vk16s-3bFjQU3TgPrnxZFAoJKl2tkEW8YdnGZITLZ90wohBFC1GSUV8GbbpI8HZGmt_oYLCtaC3ofLY540aJMjKU/s320/UPenn+047JM.JPG" /></div><br /><div>Bill clearly is willing to go to great lengths to provide us visual, palpable examples when he hung himself from the celling on a spring to show us what oscillations look like. He even used a motion sensor hooked up to logger pro to show us the beautiful sine wave that results from harmonic motion in position, velocity, and acceleration. I addition to being highly entertaining, seeing Bill bounce up and down like that was actually helpful in understanding the system.</div><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5635006586224767842" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUL1xPpcsew19Hm3oFFMnkReeE1qxwvMG-PmC8XGPyG961gLXOwHb8zG0uZE8ZPCIy_TuM53_nCkq7OEQbhl2sHOXuXyZzSUCKCKLrafzDOPEVP-INXCwXDN6NlkcmIcvUFm0Bu0lSA5Y/s320/UPenn+055JM.JPG" />Some of my other favorite demonstrations included the one that described projectile motion. He posed the dilemma of wanting to shoot a monkey that lets go of the branch he is swinging from as soon as he sees that he is being shot at. Rather than aim below the monkey as one might initially think to do, parabolic motion says that it is best to shoot directly at the monkey because as the monkey falls, the bullet falls at the same rate. Bill created a rather ingenious contraption in order to demonstrate and prove this theory. He set up a blow gun with a metal piece fitted into the end. When he blows the bullet out of the tube, the metal piece is force out, breaking an electrical circuit that was magnetically suspending a toy monkey in front of the gun. With this setup, the monkey falls at exactly the same time the bullet leaves the tube. Bill aimed his gun directly at his target and hit the monkey every time.<br /><br />The most exciting part was when he exploded a toy wooden house using an electrical current and a chemical mixture that created a reactive gas within the house. He showed us that when the house was electrically grounded with a lighting rod, nothing happened, but when that protection wasn't there, a boom loud enough to make my heart skip a beat and the entire class to jump about a foot in the air. It was quite a memorable demo.<br />When Bill ran out of demonstrations to show, or more likely, time with which to show them, we received our certificates of completion and a thumbdrive with all the links, slideshows, articles and contact information related to what we learned and who we met during the course. It is a huge amount of valuable information that will keep my busy for the remainder of the summer, and possibly year. We said our goodbyes and our "thankyouthankyouthankyou"s to all the teachers and staff that helped us learn the amazing things we learned this week and then went back to our dorms to pack.<br /><br />Once our rooms were depressingly bare, we went out to the quad for the dance party. At first, people we a little shy. I got the feeling that many of them were more comfortable with equations that dance moves, but by the end of the night, we were dancing like crazy, screaming along to the music and enjoying ourselves as much as possible in order to squeeze every last drop out of our final night. By the end, I was exhausted and fulfilled. I knew that I had made the most not only of the evening, but of the entire month.<br /><br />During the past four weeks, I have learned some of the most interesting concepts and met some of the most dynamic people I have ever learned or met before. It has changes the way I look about science and learning and given my some incredible tools that will allow me to continue to discover more throughout my life. I am incredibly grateful that the Ivy League Connection informed me of the program and enabled me to experience the fascinating world of experimental science.<br /></div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-48670485736819951562011-07-29T21:02:00.000-07:002011-07-29T22:04:17.340-07:00Going out With a Bang<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Today was really an interesting and emotional day. From the start, things felt a little bit different, but Alex and I did our usual routine and went to the bakery Au Bon Pain to get our breakfast. In class, we started off by doing our presentations on research that we did a week or so ago. In general, our assignment was to test different phenomena and to determine if they were exponential relationships or not. That sounds a little bit vague, so I’ll give examples of a few of the phenomena that groups tested. My group tested Newton’s Law of Cooling to see if it was an exponential relationship. Newton’s Law of Cooling basically describes how quickly a hot object will cool down in a cold surrounding medium and how a cold object warms up in a hot surrounding medium. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >To test this relationship, we got several cups of water and heated about half of it. The first test that we did tested how a cold temperature probe warmed up in the hot water. We started our data collection, placed the probe in the water and waited for a couple minutes. As soon as we saw the graph of the temperature increasing, it seemed pretty clear that Newton’s Law of Cooling is an exponential relationship. To be sure, we tested our hypothesis out by using the software, Logger Pro, to do a curve fit of our data. The data fit very well with an inverse exponential function and we concluded that the relationship is exponential. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Several of the other groups had interesting presentations such as the group that tested a car that supposedly accelerated exponentially. Exponential relationships are very important in nature, so I was glad to get some exposure to a few of these phenomena. At lunch, I ordered some pizza and then realized that I had about $30 left on my Dining Dollars card. Luckily, Mary had mentioned that people could bring snacks for the afternoon lecture if they had dining dollars left so I bought a bunch of chips and soda to share. When I got back to class, we discovered that Mary had also made all of us cookies to enjoy while we watched Bill’s demonstration show.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Bill struck me from the start as a hands on kind of guy. I was definitely right, because Bill is in charge of making physics demonstrations at UPenn. Bill started off his demonstration by showing us examples of the buoyant force by showing us how regular soda sinks but diet soda floats because it’s less dense. Things quickly got better as Bill blew some bubbles in the air and pointed out that they always sink to the ground. Just as I was about to award him the Mr. Obvious award, Bill mixed up some baking soda and vinegar in an aquarium and then blew bubbles into it. Because the baking soda and vinegar react to make carbon dioxide, which is denser than air, the bubbles floated and bounced around in midair which was pretty cool. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Bill’s demonstrations got wilder and wilder as he began to well, blow stuff up. To demonstrate how well lighting rods work, Bill brought in a scale model of a typical home and filed it with a chemical that quickly converts into acetylene gas. With the lighting rod on the house, Bill shocked the house with an electric bolt but nothing happened because of the lighting rod. When he took the rod off and repeated the process, the house exploded into pieces and made a bang so loud I’m sure every person reading this blog heard it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I loved Bill’s demonstrations, but the several hour show flew by in moments, and soon it was time to say goodbye. Mary showed us a final slideshow of everything we did and then gave us flash drives full of everything we’ve done in the last 4 weeks. Each of our teachers spoke for a little bit and I could once again see how dedicated each of them is to the program. I cannot express how thankful I am for Bill, Mary, Ryan, Craig, Adam, Brian, and everyone in the program for making the last 4 weeks so amazing and educational.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >In the evening, we got to celebrate a little bit. Summer Discovery provided a D.J. for us and we had a fun, informal dance. The dance was really fun, but for me it was overshadowed by the fact that we had to leave at 10 o’clock. Finally, it was time to say goodbye to all of my friends that have made the last 4 weeks the best time of my life. I couldn’t stop myself from crying when I said goodbye to Fred, Abheek, Onur and Alison each of whom have been fantastic friends over the last 4 weeks. While I did cry a bit, I am reminded by one of my favorite people ever, Dr. Seuss, about how to deal with something like this.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened” <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>~Dr. Seuss</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >With modern technology, there’s no excuse not to stay in touch, so I know we will continue to be great friends even as Onur heads back to Turkey, Abheek back to London, Alison back to Florida, and Fred back to Alabama.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Thank you to everyone in this program for making it such a great experience.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-27477926365211169182011-07-28T23:40:00.000-07:002011-07-29T00:19:13.116-07:00A Guided Tour of the World of Experiments<div align="justify">Time has gone by so quickly! I am still in shock that tomorrow is my last day of class. Even thought we are so close to the end, we continue to learn more about the way experimental physics works in the real world. One thing that has changed in the final couple days is that we are beginning to learn about it from many different sources. In addition to the guest lecture today I heard from my fellow classmates (and got to teach them a thing or two myself) as well as some of the grad students that populate the basement of our building, working on some groundbreaking studies with radio telescopes, carbon nano-tubes, and soft matter. </div><br /><div align="justify">The day started off with a very interesting guest lecture about the construction of SNO (Subdury Neutrino Observatory), a huge neutrino detector placed at the bottom of a nickel mine to shield it from unwanted background information. By studying these subatomic particles that can travel the distance between us and the sun in just over eight minutes, we can learn a lot about the nuclear reactions occurring at the suns core currently. It turns out the data also proves the Standard Sun Model, which had previously been questioned because previous experiments did not account for oscillations that can change the "flavor" of neutrinos. The most interesting part of the lecture for me was seeing the journey from the first detector that failed to collect conformational data and the confusion that insued, to the construction of SNO and the steps that led scientists there. That is truly what experiments are all about: dealing with confusion.</div><br /><div align="justify">Another great part of the day was listening to the experiences and findings of the classmates who worked on different interest groups than me. Groups gave presentations on cloud chambers, measuring cosmic rays, using radio telescopes, and a number of other really fascinating things. Something really exceptional about the presentations was not the data they got (although sometimes, when they came really close to the accepted value that was also neat) but the experimental process that each group preformed, and in some cases designed.</div><br /><div align="justify"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634663787423876450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw84PHGB4HmrIYty5KYq7tjytDqtj3KWNnfunp_-B0DfA8Xj_0FeEqVwO_nbHz1kZSkH_gtAFlBBEBzZ3NJ3SYHT_bEJIwWa_iRU6OA4tOd7MIKydwqWFsXrYinx84pDfmkQXaLXBpoTQ/s320/UPenn+001.JPG" /></div><br /><div align="justify">To be completely honest, my favorite part of the presentations was the part where my group got to share our experience with quantum mechanics and electron/photon diffraction. It was a really cool feeling being able to tell a group of people about the data that we collected ourselves and the significance of it, especially because particle/wave duality is such a mind-bending phenomenon that is crazy just to think about, let alone explain. My group faced the challenge quite elegantly and we sat down knowing that each of our peers knew a little bit more about the amazing concept that we could prove with our own data.</div><br /><div align="justify">After lunch, we went on a tour of the grad labs, which gave me more of an idea of what the field of physics actually looks like than anything we've done in class before. Young students with excited smiles and scraggly beards showed us the equipment they worked with and explained to us why they were interested in the field they were currently researching. It was clear it was a lot of hard, and possibly tedious work, but it was also clear that each of them was genuinely excited about what they were doing and confident that the work they were doing was both significant and completely awesome. It was an environment I can see myself fitting right into.<img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634663793671619938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7WZsXuaZDa3-uadgp7I2brXxd-icqCSBQZd6HidJtCNewWWkL104w43E6XMgnPR1Sw_DsAzH8l13-LU-O_mezobTu0Ku9669H83X3uWi2vgo4tyHQJmdvOTDsR-p-CxE3y2FVmOiwybM/s320/UPenn+025.JPG" /></div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-9880449155870315622011-07-28T21:44:00.000-07:002011-07-28T21:47:55.191-07:00Our PENNultimate Day<div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Today was exciting from the start because we began our class with a talk with Rick Vanberg. For the first few minutes I munched on my bagel and listened, but soon his talk became quite captivating. The first thing that Rick talked about was the standard nuclear model for the sun. Based on the observations of nuclear activity on small scales, scientists came up with a model that accounted for the gravity, high pressure, and high nuclear activity in the center of the sun. One problem was that the accepted model at the time predicted a large number of neutrinos would be released for every fusion reaction in the sun. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Because there are so many reactions every second, scientists predicted a certain number of neutrinos per second would hit each meter of the Earth’s surface. To test this model, a scientist filled a large vat full of liquid and then waited for a while. Although the experiment was underground, neutrinos are tiny and have no charge so they very rarely interact with the matter in the way. When the neutrinos strike the liquid, they are absorbed and they change the atom that they strike into a different element. When he took the measurements of the number of neutrinos that he detected, he found that there were only about 28% of the neutrinos that there should be. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >To solve this conundrum which either implied that our model of the sun was totally wrong or that we didn’t understand neutrinos, a Russian scientist stepped up to the plate. Communicating through the veil of the Iron Curtain, this scientist published several papers where he claimed that we misunderstood the neutrino. To test this claim, a project called SNOW was developed. Snow basically consisted of a huge neutrino detector built to detect all kinds of neutrinos unlike the past models. To filter out background radiation, SNOW was built 2 kilometers beneath the surface of the Earth in a nickel mine in Ontario. SNOW ended up successfully measuring all of the neutrinos that came from the sun and we learned that the neutrinos were being morphed into other flavors and that the nuclear model of the Sun is actually correct.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Next on our schedule were the student focus group presentations. Each of us spent 4 days last week with our groups researching a subject that we picked. My group studied a non-Newtonian fluid called oobleck which basically means that it is a material that behaves both as a solid and a liquid. The peak of our presentation was on Monday when we used the oobleck in a demonstration. Because oobleck acts a solid when it’s under pressure, each of us could run over it. Today, we showed some graphs of how objects decelerate when they hit oobleck compared to when they hit water. The graphs were neat because you could really see how the oobleck gave away for a moment and then hardened and stopped the incoming solid whereas the water allowed the object to easily pass through. It would be way too much to talk about every other group’s presentation, but they covered many amazing topics such as quantum mechanics and radio astronomy. Each group had a unique perspective to offer and we all learned a lot from each other.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >When we returned for lunch, we got to do something pretty interesting. We split into groups and then visited different parts of our building and the one across the street. We got to go into research labs and listen to brief talks by the researchers themselves about what they were working on. The first lab we stepped into was a lab where a grad student and a professor from UC Santa Barbara (WHOO California) were developing technology for better mammograms. Because current mammography methods require the breast to be squished tightly between pressure plates so that the waves could get better images, these researchers were searching for a way to do mammograms with near infrared light. The advantage of this is that the discomfort of the plates could be avoided and therefore more women might show up for their mammograms. I was impressed by how applicable this research seemed and that it truly was for a good cause. We heard many other talks about great stuff like carbon nano tubes and grapheme. These researchers were researching grapheme so that they could manufacture tiny detectors for things such as bomb detection. Overall, I was very impressed by how passionate these researchers were about their areas of study.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I am in shock that tomorrow will be my last day here at UPenn, but who knows; maybe I’ll be able to spend another 4 years here.</span></p></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Y-lvBEMQ94ZceXfH-BVctt3x-_AWP-Pw8f3zbJUssj9EKW4_gcgQD5gBKlF-_-bQlJynNyMAzBYEzTVlFK5q0QTjP5n6tW1raa92KCb0UN6Zy0NjtTKNq48eTiZxPJC5WYl8iJQd/s1600/Photo_42B138BC-FBB6-11AF-7004-01FADA4AA1BB.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Y-lvBEMQ94ZceXfH-BVctt3x-_AWP-Pw8f3zbJUssj9EKW4_gcgQD5gBKlF-_-bQlJynNyMAzBYEzTVlFK5q0QTjP5n6tW1raa92KCb0UN6Zy0NjtTKNq48eTiZxPJC5WYl8iJQd/s400/Photo_42B138BC-FBB6-11AF-7004-01FADA4AA1BB.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634630802441125442" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Thanks to Alex for capturing Julia's momentary lack of enthusiasm.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-73218454043110961082011-07-28T20:52:00.000-07:002011-07-28T23:03:36.148-07:00The Day is Almost Here...<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Today was much less intense than the past couple of days. We began with a lecture from a well known particle physicist, Rick Van Berg. Rick primarily designs detectors for particle physics experiments. He has done a lot of work in the Cern Laboratories in Switzerland, home to the smartest scientists of this age and the best particle accelerator in the world. Lately, he has been working in the SNO facilities in Ontario, Canada. SNO stands for Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and it too is one of the best research facilities in the world. His lecture was actually all about Neutrinos, which is a basic particle that usually travels close to the speed of light, can pass through most matter unaffected, and is electrically neutral. He discussed the origins, discovery, and research of neutrinos and it was all fascinating. For instance, the SNO facilities are basically giant clean rooms, much like facilities in which they produce computer chips in. Professor Van Berg told us that if even a teaspoon of dust were to be introduced to the facility, every project would be ruined. I always find the stipulations that are put on certain research environments interesting. I like seeing all the effort that scientists and researchers are putting in to reduce their possibility for error as much as possible. Professor Van Berg covered one of the more difficult and complex lectures, but his was much more understandable than some of our other lectures.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After lecture, we continued with our presentations. I was very excited to watch these demonstrations because I wanted to see what kind of work my friends and peers had been doing for a week. I was also anxious to see how our data and experiments would stack up against theirs. When it came down to it though, our topic was quite different than most of the other groups’. While most of the other groups were doing experimentation for the majority of the week, we were being given lectures about radio astronomy and the tools used to study it. This was completely understandable though. Although we did not do many experiments, we needed to know how everything worked before we could understand what exactly we were doing before we could actually do it. This really made our presentation stand out because our data section was short, but our general and background information was much more extensive than the other groups’. Mary told us at the beginning of lunch that she though our presentation was a nice change from the rest and that our information was plentiful and well-organized.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Following lunch, we split into four groups to tour different labs around DRL. I didn’t realize that there were so many different kinds of research going on in the DRL. We visited medical labs, cosmology labs, and even soft-condensed matter labs, which deal with matter that has both the properties of liquids and solids. Mostly, we spoke to grad students that were doing research in the lab. They were able to tell us all about the projects they were working on. One of the most interesting projects we saw (in my opinion anyway) was a machine that was being developed that would use near-infrared waves to sense tumors. The research was mostly focused on improving scans for breast cancer, but it was also applicable to scanning other tumors and also brain activity. It was truly amazing work. Of course each of the labs was showcasing the best of what they were working on and each of them told us why their specific field of research was one of the best. It was interesting to hear about the different research styles and opportunities that all of these grad students have. It was even better to hear that undergrads are also allowed to study in these labs and perform research. Our visits to these labs were truly enlightening because it gave me an even better glimpse of what kind of research opportunities I could potentially have in college.</span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmv8hZTDaKjyMvEeKKTfwK4txWCx3eQFTn6A1elf_iYXIkeyWiv9FyCGgFxC924NkFPrPbIEu9-0ieFrVjQjPkkqTMdm8w_o7-XqzW_fRBPoTf8qg4RRuqoRZ-ajnUrgXdV9OEoqjd0P8/s1600/Penn+Blog+25-3+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmv8hZTDaKjyMvEeKKTfwK4txWCx3eQFTn6A1elf_iYXIkeyWiv9FyCGgFxC924NkFPrPbIEu9-0ieFrVjQjPkkqTMdm8w_o7-XqzW_fRBPoTf8qg4RRuqoRZ-ajnUrgXdV9OEoqjd0P8/s320/Penn+Blog+25-3+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634647200770858978" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Sample data collected by grads and undergrads</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE7CWrZ2I7t-jqqSVJqKlM0SFDAJcy4Y86gFnwkE3H1NfgnIcbso-kNsnweBLP3s_d5rFLMcY9SXYzC8mzNbQNu4gctUKz0I2U65rbpFGDH2SEUPaUrI5HVtvL7gHj-YpIEuaTuX2LTlw/s1600/Penn+Blog+25-2+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE7CWrZ2I7t-jqqSVJqKlM0SFDAJcy4Y86gFnwkE3H1NfgnIcbso-kNsnweBLP3s_d5rFLMcY9SXYzC8mzNbQNu4gctUKz0I2U65rbpFGDH2SEUPaUrI5HVtvL7gHj-YpIEuaTuX2LTlw/s320/Penn+Blog+25-2+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634647203226268402" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Professor Van Bern discussing ATLAS, another project he worked on</div><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">After class, I continued packing a little bit. I’ll finish tomorrow before the room check, but it’s definitely not something that I am looking forward to. Once 6:00 came around, my floor and our RC, Carlos, went out to Bobby’s Burger Palace for a group dinner. Apparently the Bobby, after which this restaurant is named, is THE Bobby Flay. I didn’t realize this until we walked inside and there was a whole section of the counter dedicated to Bobby Flay marinades, spices, and cookbooks. The food was amazing as well. It was just a burger and fries, nothing too extravagant, but it was just so delicious. The burger was cooked to perfection and the fries were perfect. I couldn’t imagine a better way to come together as a floor. We all took a group picture out front, but we only had time for one shot because we had to be back at the quad as a group before a certain time. Unfortunately my camera was not the one used, but my friend and floormate Sachit’s. He will be uploading the picture to Facebook soon and I will be sure to use the shot in my reflection blog.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5tNyJhgAV1Pf2Nw7E4yStTuli93bjC8rmdKm9HXmQ3dglBC49vLb1NhmmWLsp0ai2nVNU6ybIuiFhLLtBOiqIXA8H307jNAdh4x7Ph7OSDBoWh0YRmGeMOrUINhJBmZK40G5oB2C-eek/s1600/Penn+Blog+25-4+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5tNyJhgAV1Pf2Nw7E4yStTuli93bjC8rmdKm9HXmQ3dglBC49vLb1NhmmWLsp0ai2nVNU6ybIuiFhLLtBOiqIXA8H307jNAdh4x7Ph7OSDBoWh0YRmGeMOrUINhJBmZK40G5oB2C-eek/s320/Penn+Blog+25-4+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634647192163082466" /></a></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span">Everyone approves of Bobby's</span></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">We returned to the quad and got as much of the group together as we could. Since this is our last full night here at Penn, we wanted to enjoy our final moments hanging out in our lounge-like dorm. Although Fred, Abheek, and Julia were busy, Alison, Brian, Onur, and I still had a great time. We talked, we laughed, but most importantly we just enjoyed each other’s company. Being together in the dorms and lounges is what I’m going to miss the most about being at Penn. These nights were often the highlights of my days and I will always treasure the moments I’ve had in our little family of seven. The end is near.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">One day remains.</span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyn8jhMuEvuQ3qKeyWu8IzzGqiT-Vu1U7-v-u2PyMV8oyIv6DVODCtVotlVePqCKRyWNt2ua0JILsyb2biHnX9gco1ZfC2POBQsOW9XuwyLUufzEV8RCdVeTeu8CrexirVxlDQC0EepF8/s1600/Penn+Blog+25-1+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyn8jhMuEvuQ3qKeyWu8IzzGqiT-Vu1U7-v-u2PyMV8oyIv6DVODCtVotlVePqCKRyWNt2ua0JILsyb2biHnX9gco1ZfC2POBQsOW9XuwyLUufzEV8RCdVeTeu8CrexirVxlDQC0EepF8/s320/Penn+Blog+25-1+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634647204568676322" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">A different take on Vettriano...</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-35640279420230516062011-07-27T20:59:00.000-07:002011-07-27T22:24:11.150-07:00A Unifying Theory<div align="justify">We got right to work today with a morning lecture about nuclear physics from Ryan, one of the very helpful and knowledgeable assistant teachers. The first couple slides were about the history of nuclear energy and the discovery of x-rays. Ryan went on to explain the physics behind alpha decay, beta decay, and gamma radiation (during this part of the presentation, our previous lecture about the standard model came up again and it was necessary to recall the concept of leptons and quarks). The remainder of the lecture was devoted to explanation of applications of radiation that are highly important both within and independent of the realm of physics. We discussed the benefits and waste products of uranium mining, the breakthroughs and limitations of radiation as a cancer treatment, briefly touched on the subject of mass spectrometry and how radiation can be a helpful tool in studying the origins of the universe. Towards the end, the lecture transformed into more of a discussion that was so lively and obviously relevant, that I found myself more engaged than I had been during any previous first-thing0in-the-morning lectures.</div><br /><div align="justify">After Ryan's talk, we were given a short break to let the information soak in a little and to give us time to prepare for our presentations of the Hershey Park Rides. It was a very different experience hearing from groups of fellow classmates as opposed to professors and teachers. Each group went on a different ride, so the data was unique in that regard, but each team's presentation and analysis of data varied greatly as well. Some groups were able to record videos and sync them to their data, others calculated the resultant total acceleration based on the x, y, and z values they collected. One group even had a three dimensional animation of altitude v. y acceleration v. time. By the end of the day, I had learned a lot from my fellow class mates about creative ways to handle data in a way that makes sense to your particular experiment and goals.</div><br /><div align="justify">When all the presentations were over and we returned from our lunch break, we prepared for our guest lecture by watching "Elegant Universe", the PBS show on string theory. As I was watching, I realized that I had seen parts of the show before; my fifth grade teacher played if for our class. At that time it had come out only a few months ago. I remembered the movie distinctly because it was a moment in my life when I realized both how incredibly cool science could be, and at the same time, how very little I understood about the complexities of it. Watching the film this time around, I understood many more of the concepts, but the sense of wonder was not lost. </div><br /><div align="justify">Only mo<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwrRvhKZAoue8xYt0Ot05hmYYGrUePhifHdI0vAUms4J2QvXXZBAq_Rb7g8zQAfa0LUQenKMNo4tkOc1I_12tAclZ4IMG9EyZ__7Rjg2fww0ureY-X_yJArslnO30TYcZuztCaQj_siI/s1600/UPenn+014JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634254126505491634" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwrRvhKZAoue8xYt0Ot05hmYYGrUePhifHdI0vAUms4J2QvXXZBAq_Rb7g8zQAfa0LUQenKMNo4tkOc1I_12tAclZ4IMG9EyZ__7Rjg2fww0ureY-X_yJArslnO30TYcZuztCaQj_siI/s320/UPenn+014JM.JPG" /></a>ments after watching the program he was quoted in, we got to hear from string theorist Burt Overt himself. He described to us, in much greater detail than the movie, the basic concepts of string theory, the implications that the theory has, why it makes sense in the real world, and the ways in which it can be tested. </div><br /><div align="justify">The basic definition of string theory is the hypothesis that the smallest components that make up the universe are not particles but tiny strings that vibrate at different frequencies to create different kinds of matter. The mathematical calculations that have been done suggest that such a theory means that there must be 6 other dimensions besides the three spacial dimensions and time. The concept of extra dimensions is a hard one to grasp, but it made more sense to me today than it ever has before when Dr. Ovurt did a demonstration with a rolled up piece of paper. Another implication of string theory he discussed was the concept of supersymmetry,<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik-rLmVC3xE4nJsVvlhFjBCs618Iq8T8M_GQHKEhqGyqA6wX1JrLquXunUgje8s7xnGFnPyEbsYR0KnDvm5rqWXOuXeo4GaltgLeEcDhdMWyjdVupVqN4ImZN_CyW4zzazhGWdyylO1oQ/s1600/UPenn+006JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634260819253867698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik-rLmVC3xE4nJsVvlhFjBCs618Iq8T8M_GQHKEhqGyqA6wX1JrLquXunUgje8s7xnGFnPyEbsYR0KnDvm5rqWXOuXeo4GaltgLeEcDhdMWyjdVupVqN4ImZN_CyW4zzazhGWdyylO1oQ/s320/UPenn+006JM.JPG" /></a> meaning that for every particle, there is a so-called "sparticle" that also exist. These particles have yet to be found because they do not appear in low-energy circumstances, but Ovurt has high hopes that CERN will provide the environment necessary to make significant breakthroughs in the subject.</div><br /><div align="justify">It was fascinating listening to an expert talk about a field that is at the very outer edges of the scientific frontier. The fact that people in the class asked questions that no one in the world has answers to, but that Ovurt is actively working on discovering was almost too much to comprehend.</div><br /><div align="justify">After class, we had a few hours to wander campus before we went out to dinner w<img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634253449559071634" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4GaIJjUvGhBOqAM89ctU0CKv74r2R6t0ZSZuy4ju_jZwyk0iCtk4RYfPRo_BmYY6oZEV2rN7CYZTdT9n9F28xjDTTBNTzO-hgp-wQt9vlTy-lTCZcfyUUgxmdW-n7x7I_Z6ukt353uZY/s320/UPenn+023JM.JPG" />ith Mr. Miranda and the Yale chaperone<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hbrYpu0PAM7qmLSQqBH7eAJBPv3YKh7EAwo4POddBd4zxyZOlTl_fX8Zc9-buG8tzvEP9rGtonLN95LFtwveLAbeGOknTDEPVS6-13Ln5nqpO5nKW5uG1aMjZufSaMyo-waGsGWvrLk/s1600/UPenn+026JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634254130748102818" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_hbrYpu0PAM7qmLSQqBH7eAJBPv3YKh7EAwo4POddBd4zxyZOlTl_fX8Zc9-buG8tzvEP9rGtonLN95LFtwveLAbeGOknTDEPVS6-13Ln5nqpO5nKW5uG1aMjZufSaMyo-waGsGWvrLk/s320/UPenn+026JM.JPG" /></a>. We ate at City Tavern, a place I had been interested in visiting since our initial tour of the city. The food they serve is all based on the typical cuisine of the taverns of the 18th century that our country's founders used to eat. While we munched on some sweet potato pecan rolls (apparently one of Thomas Jefferson's favorites) we discussed not the past, but the future: our plans for senior year, applying to colleges etc. When dinner was over, we visited an ice cream parlor, a great end to one of my last days here at Penn.</div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-79390113789964689382011-07-27T20:53:00.000-07:002011-07-27T23:12:50.029-07:00Today Was Truly a Rollercoaster...<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Our final days in class seem to be getting more and more complicated. Today we began class with a lecture from Ryan on nuclear physics. The subject material was confusing at first, but he was able to make it accessible. He told us that this was one of the most important topics that is almost never covered in high school physics classes. Since this is an issue that will invariably affect all of our lives. Nuclear reactors and energy has been an issue for several decades and, with the approach of peak oil and the need for alternative energies, will continue to be an issue in the coming years. Since this is a prominent issue, people my age need to be informed of just how nuclear physics works so they can make informed decisions. With that said, I found his lecture to be quite informative. One of the points that Ryan made that I found quite funny was that a plate that one microwaves several times over a long period of time will be more radioactive than a cell phone. Since there is a lot of worry over the radiation given off by cell phones, I found it ironic that people don’t even realize that there is a bigger danger right in front of their noses. This just demonstrates why people need to be informed about nuclear physics. I found that it fit the situation perfectly.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After Ryan’s lecture, we did our presentations on our Hershey Park rides. Our group was the fifth to present (out of eight) and I would say that ours was one of the better presentations. Each of our PowerPoint presentations had their strong suits, whether it was creativity, enthusiasm in the presentation, or being strong in data analysis. One group even produced a 3-D model of their coaster in a graphing application on one of their member’s Mac. All of the groups kept their presentations entertaining as well. The group that was assigned the Great Bear filled their presentation with bear puns (it was almost un-bear-able). I had a great time watching all of the presentations and it made me look forward to the presentations that we will be giving tomorrow.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Our guest lecture followed lunch. Today we were visited by Dr. Burt Ovrut, a string theorist who teaches Theoretical High Energy Physics. String theory </span><span style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"">is <span class="apple-style-span">an active research</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> framework</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">in</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> particle physics</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">that attempts to reconcile</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> quantum mechanics</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">and</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> general relativity</span><span class="apple-style-span"> and is a contender for the theory of everything, a manner of describing the known</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> fundamental forces</span><span class="apple-style-span"> and</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> matter</span><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="apple-style-span">in a mathematically complete system.</span> That was the definition that Dr. Ovrut gave. In layman’s terms, string theory is the theory of how everything in the universe is tied together by basic elements called strings. In his lecture, Dr. Ovrut discussed the possibility of other dimensions that are parallel to ours and are unreachable, different particles that may exist, such as gravitons and sparticles, and even membranes, which separate the dimensions. The lecture was extremely difficult to follow. The pace of the discussion was non-stop and you either had to keep up or get left behind. I would like to understand string theory better someday, but before then I will definitely need to work a lot harder, and I am prepared to take on that task.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After lecture, Brian and I headed back to the dorm. He began his summer assignment for AP Lang and I decided to begin packing so I don’t have to do all of it on Friday afternoon. It was actually kind of sad because I felt like I was taking apart different pieces of the home that I have built over these three weeks. My desk is much cleaner, my closet and drawers are nearly empty, and my suitcase is about half full. I know I will be glad that I started packing today, but when I was taking down the wall mount I had made for my lightsaber, it was quite saddening. It is still hard to believe that I will be returning to California soon.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Around 6:20, we met Mr. Miranda in the office so he could sign us out for dinner. Much to my surprise, we dined with Ms. Nardone again, the Yale chaperone. We ate dinner at an old fashioned restaurant at Penn’s Landing that was set to the theme of an older Philadelphia, around the time of the Founding Fathers. The attire for employees, decorations in the restaurant, and even the meals felt like they were ripped straight out of a history book. I enjoyed the venison medallions with a starter called mushroom toast. The toast was basically just marinated and grilled mushrooms over a piece of bread that was toasted to the consistency of a crouton. It was delicious and almost as good as my entrée. I had never had venison before this meal, and it is one of the best kinds of meat I’ve ever had. We also got the chance to get to know Ms. Nardone a little bit better thanks to this dinner. She’s a very interesting and knowledgeable person and I think the Yale group is very lucky to have her as a chaperone. After dinner we stopped by an ice cream parlor called the Franklin Fountain. It is the Philadelphia equivalent of Fenton’s in California. The ice cream was truly amazing and I wish we could have gone sooner. The parlor even had a section in the back with shelves full of vintage soft drinks, including bottles of RC Cola, Dr. Pepper, and several brands I had never heard of before. At first I was sad that I would miss the talent show to go have dinner, but I had a great time and I wouldn’t trade it at all.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6rrJUGAfd9Y0jH0YCtZ3A_oYZvsgbxtAdBGHdu2_kyuAHaHTlOUygsqPZmvF4wVfS7_SeFDys7To7crXoAc5PqJrKfu3FNLBLEC5j-1iE_9qCoEH4MnelQ7WxgkxM3dCMRkGc1Renx4/s1600/Penn+Blog+24-1+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh6rrJUGAfd9Y0jH0YCtZ3A_oYZvsgbxtAdBGHdu2_kyuAHaHTlOUygsqPZmvF4wVfS7_SeFDys7To7crXoAc5PqJrKfu3FNLBLEC5j-1iE_9qCoEH4MnelQ7WxgkxM3dCMRkGc1Renx4/s320/Penn+Blog+24-1+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634281335286856962" /></a></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" >A true colonial...kind of...</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqMh7bbofh5J4c3qukqu-k4UIrv3k4g2RFoQHFKtM3C898NXhS6GRSl8ybFg43prhDqm-HJGYOWzrXWvpEpvfsNKcLcfzFCSl-RqqK_melg_aYAh8MwT69V5IKGCwDgb_nQLKtWHgBSRs/s1600/Penn+Blog+24-2+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqMh7bbofh5J4c3qukqu-k4UIrv3k4g2RFoQHFKtM3C898NXhS6GRSl8ybFg43prhDqm-HJGYOWzrXWvpEpvfsNKcLcfzFCSl-RqqK_melg_aYAh8MwT69V5IKGCwDgb_nQLKtWHgBSRs/s320/Penn+Blog+24-2+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5634281332998801794" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Ice cream in a Chinese take-out box...I approve</div></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">When we returned to campus, we had a meeting in the lower quad to discuss our last few days in Summer Discovery. Ed told us that normal rules would still be enforced, even though some people may think that everything is basically over, and that he didn’t want us to be sent home prematurely just because of something stupid that might be done on the last day or penultimate day. He also told us about our check-out procedure and that our rooms need to be clean by 5:00 on Friday afternoon. We were also given an evaluation form to evaluate the program as a whole and even the Summer Discovery staff that we interacted with the most. After that, the night was pretty laid back, which was more than welcome after the mind-boggling guest lecture and traumatizing experience of packing from earlier today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Two days remain.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-40898455492432243402011-07-27T20:02:00.000-07:002011-07-27T21:32:02.810-07:00Time's Flying<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I stepped into class today with a couple of bagels from the campus bakery and took my seat. I’d have to say that today is the first day where it’s really hit me that I have to go home in only a few days. It’s hard to walk anywhere on campus without seeing a few Ben Franklin quotes, and I think one of the ones that has stuck most is, “When the well is dry we know the worth of water.” I’m realizing now that I only have a few days left here so of anything I’ll try to appreciate them more than any of the others instead of whining about it. Anyways, I was in a very receptive mood for Ryan’s lecture on radioactivity and I think I learned a lot from it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Ryan first discussed the development of what we know about the atom and how we learned it. This stuff was mostly review for me because of my chemistry classes, but it honestly amazes me every time how scientists such as Thomson and Rutherford pieced together an accurate model of the atom while everyone else thought they were crazy at the time. It also impresses me how each of these atomic models built on the last but did not totally discard. Thomson proposed that there were positive and negative charges in the nucleus and Rutherford discovered that the nucleus is actually a dense positive center. This model was improved on by Niels Bohr where he theorized that electrons orbit the nucleus much like planets do the sun. This was later revised, but the ideas of each of these scientists were still kept in some form.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The next part of Ryan’s lecture was talking about the uses of nuclear energy and a few common misconceptions about it. One of the first things he summarized is how a nuclear reactor works. By packing together fuel rods near each other, the excess neutrons from an atom fly out and then hot another atom which produces a couple more neutrons for each one that hit it causing a chain reaction. Then, what surprises a lot of people is that this energy is simply absorbed and used to boil water. From this point on, the power is generated just as it is in any other power plant; the steam is used to drive a turbine which turns a magnet which creates a current.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >One of the first misconceptions that Ryan sought to debunk is that many people think of radiation as dangerous and very negative. What many people don’t realize is that radiation also has many applications that are very beneficial to humans when controlled properly. One of the biggest areas radiation is used to benefit humans is in the medical industry. As I believe Ryan pointed out, the acronym MRI is really missing a letter; it should really be NMRI which stands for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging. MRI machines use carefully aimed radiation to get something like an X-ray of your body, but 3 dimensional and with a low dose of radiation. Furthermore, radiation can be very carefully aimed at malignant tumors in the body to kill them before they mestastethize. Although this treatment is not always successful, it can help in some cases and is certainly a good application of radiation.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The day only got better as we got further in, because the next part of our day was about string theory. We watched a brief movie on the fundamentals of string theory, and then talk to one of the leading experts in the field, Burt Ovrut. The fact that Burt truly talked to us and didn’t have a lecture prepared made his talk extremely valuable because we could easily tap his brain about any part of the subject we were interested in. The basic premise of the talk was that string theory proposes that the universe is full of tiny vibrating strings that when struck at different frequencies act as the ‘particles’ we commonly observe. I will avoid trying to dump a huge amount of information here, but the reason that string theory is so important is because it could unify all of physics as we know it. Today, physics is a shattered mess of quantum mechanics, general relativity, and a bundle of different forces. String theory is intriguing because when you work out the complex equations, there are simple solutions to these complicated problems. For example, string theory predicts only one force instead of the gravitational, electric, magnetic, strong, and weak forces as we know them today. As Bill always says, it’s only philosophy until there’s solid evidence, there is little evidence to support string theory today. However, the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland may well find evidence for or against sting theory, and guess what college physics program helped develop some of the detectors for the LHC. That’s right, scientists at UPenn helped. It’s very exciting to be around a place where there is so much progress going on.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-1141739534809418322011-07-26T21:37:00.000-07:002011-07-26T22:11:39.902-07:00Traveling at the Speed of Light<div align="justify">Class today was very laid back. We started off the day with our speed of light lab. Since we had already set up our circuits, all that was left to do was line up our laser with a mirror across a dark hall in such a way that it bounced back and hit our second photo receptor just right (the first sensor was placed next to a beam splitter in front of the laser. Both receptors were attached to an oscilloscope so we could determine the delay between the two waves (it came out to about 8 nanoseconds). Because we knew the length that the light had to travel from the first sensor, to the mirror and back to the second sensor, we were able to measure the speed at about 3.4 x 10^8 m/s, which is not too far off the accepted value. We were given two hours to collect our data and make our calculations, but because my group finished early, we had about 30 minutes to kick back before our guest lecture.</div><br /><div align="justify">It was good we were given that time because after a short break, I was able to give all of my attention to Ken Lande when it was time for his lecture to begin. Dr. Lande spoke to us about the energy crisis, how long our current consumption of petroleum can be sustained, and the effects waste products such as CO2 emissions are having on the environment. </div><br /><div align="justify">Once he convinced us that an alternate source of energy was necessary, he discussed possible solutions. I was surprised at how inefficient the current sources of green energy are. For instance, in order to power the united states with exclusively solar energy, an area twice the size pf Pennsylvania would need to be covered with solar panels. Even more shocking was the amount of land that would be needed to grow crops for bio fuels to power the country: 1/6 of the area of the United States, which would not leave very much room for agriculture. We also discussed fission reactors, but after the disaster in Japan, people are hesitant to rely on something so potentially hazardous. Additionally, in order to rely on fission reactors for energy, we would need to increase the number of plants we currently have by a factor of five. Dr. Lande maintained that the most promising alternate energy source is wind turbines. Only half a million wind turbines would provide enough energy to free us from our dependence on fossil fuels, which would only cost about $200 million a year (only a fraction of what we spend on automobile gasoline).</div><br /><div align="justify">I appreciated his lecture for its practicality in the real world, in fact he often teaches classes at Wharton school of Business because there is so much money going into alternate energy sources. No wonder too, it is arguably <em>the</em> most pressing issue the world faces today. Me and Brian discussed its importance and the lecture in depth as we walked to lunch.</div><br /><div align="justify">When we returned, we were given time to do whatever it was we needed to get done. For me that was working with my Hershey Park group on making a PowerPoint for our presentation tomorrow. We wrote up an analysis, slapped a couple graphs of the data we collected, added a video and called it a day.</div><br /><div align="justify">After class, I went with a book and read for a while by the coy pond. It was very relaxing and it allowed me to sit back and let time move a little slower for a while. With only three days left, I want to get everything I can out of the time I have.</div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-14347398709322198672011-07-26T21:14:00.003-07:002011-07-26T21:14:59.285-07:00Energy<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Yesterday I talked about how building our light-speed measuring device tied together many of the concepts we’ve been learning, but today was even better because we actually operated our device and got values for the speed of light. The first thing we did was to take our laser in the hallway, remove as much light from the hall as possible, and to set our mirror a ways down the hall from our laser. The next step took a lot of fine tuning, because the laser was far away from the mirror which was small, any tiny adjustment to the angle of the laser would throw it feet away from our target, the mirror. After plenty of trial and error we got our laser beam aimed perfectly so that it the beam split in half where one beam immediately entered the oscilloscope and the other beam went down the hall bounced back and then entered the oscilloscope. In order to keep our data as clear as possible, we did several things such as re-concentrating the laser beam onto our sensor after it had hit the mirror and bounced back. Once we got the whole system set up, taking our measurements and understanding what they represented was actually relatively easy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By reading the time difference between the wave leaving the laser and immediately hitting the oscilloscope and the one that travelled, we had a time measurement for how long the trip down and back the hallway took our light beam. We recorded this data and then measured the distance down the hall and the distance back to our sensor. As I said earlier, the technology we used was complicated, but the idea was simple because all we had to do to calculate our value for the speed of light then was to divide the distance we measured by the time it took to get our speed value which ended up at 3.4*10^8 meters per second. We measured the distance after we got our time values so that we would essentially be doing a ‘blind’ experiment so that we couldn’t change the numbers to better fit the already known value of approximately 3.0*10^8 meters/second. For two days of high school students working, I was quite impressed by how close we got to the actual value. Once again, many thanks to Bill, Ryan, Craig, and Mary for guiding but not pushing us through the experiment.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Once again I was excited to listen to another guest speaker, Dr. Ken Lande. I was particularly excited to listen to him speak because he was speaking about one of the topics I am most interested in – solving our energy problems-. I have had a passion for energy conservation since I was much younger and I changed all the bulbs in our house to compact fluorescents. Ken began his talk by painting the picture of the sad state that American energy supply is in today. Nearly as pressing as the budget deficit deadline, the world is approximately at the date of ‘peak oil’ where the most oil is being extracted per day and the extraction can only decline from here on out. Obviously this is a huge problem, because while our oil supplies are dwindling, our appetite for oil is not. Additionally, climate change has presented a huge need to immediately begin weaning ourselves off of fossil fuels. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >While the first part of Ken’s talk was quite frankly depressing because of the seemingly unsolvable crisis of fossil fuels, Ken soon shifted his talk to possible solutions to our energy need. The main possibilities for our energy supply as Ken sees it are photovoltaic panels, solar thermal concentrators, wind turbines, bio-fuels, wind, and nuclear power. I suppose I am biased towards solar energy because I live in California where we have tons of intense sunlight, but Ken presented his best idea as a blend of wind power and nuclear power. He presented a very well-developed argument because we already have the technology to make millions of wind turbines, and wind is also a close second to fossil fuels such as coal economically. While it’s a painful reality to face, it’s important to realize that all change in the world is driven by economics, so the fact that wind is comparable in price to fossil fuels makes it very appealing compared to solar which costs nearly 3 times as much as coal. Additionally, Ken argued for nuclear power because although it isn’t renewable, we have a massive amount of energy that we can harvest from uranium and plutonium. Although nuclear power is currently frowned on because of the meltdowns in Japan, there are much safer reactor designs that are possible, and either way nuclear energy is a must because the problems of climate change and literally running out of fossil fuels will force alternatives. Additionally, Ken pointed out that for the number of deaths associated with mining for fossil fuels compared to those from nuclear meltdowns, nuclear is safer. In a sense, the stigma associated with nuclear power vs. coal is like that of airplanes vs. car crashes. Although the deaths due to car travel per mile are literally orders of magnitude higher than those for plane travel per mile, people make a bigger deal out of plane crashes because they are so conditioned to accept car crashes but plane crashes happen rarely and are therefore a big deal. I don’t mean in any way to say that nuclear meltdowns are a small matter, but based on the safety statistics and energy demand, it is a good alternative.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I was very impressed by Ken’s lecture and the thoughtful questions that my fellow students asked. I have been interested in this field for a long time, and today only wet my appetite more.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-2978865558964583362011-07-26T20:51:00.001-07:002011-07-26T22:43:42.442-07:00Speed of Light Confirmed<p class="MsoNoSpacing"></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: medium; ">We got it working! Our contraption that we had hoped would measure the speed of light actually worked this morning. Well, I shouldn’t say that WE got it working. Apparently the same problems that were occurring with our apparatus were also present in several other groups. Because of this, Bill and the TAs stayed after class several hours yesterday to diagnose and fix the problems with our machines. Apparently the problem was with the scanning range of our oscilloscopes. This was a relief because it meant that we did not cause the problem. Once we did the final checks on our circuits and oscilloscope, we moved our cart with our apparatus on top into the hall. We had to place the laser and light-receiving diode at one end of the hall and put a mirror far enough away so that we could get a decent measurement. We placed our mirror about fifteen meters away from the laser. Once we had everything aligned correctly, which actually took a while because the laser was so small and the mirror was so far away, we began taking our measurements. We measured the wavelength of the laser at two points: one about two centimeters away from the tip of the laser and the other at the diode when the light was bounced back by the mirror. The oscilloscope showed us both wavelengths on different channels so we could find two peaks in the wavelengths and measure the time between the peaks. Our first time was about two-hundred nanoseconds, which means that is how long it took for the light to go from the laser to the diode. We divided the distance traveled by the light by the time it took for the light to travel that distance, because velocity is distance divided by time, and our answer was not what we were looking for. Our results actually told us that the laser was travelling at twice the speed of light. After much trial and error, we asked Ryan what we could have possibly done wrong and he told us that there was too much noise in our data. He helped us get a stronger focus on the wavelengths of the oscilloscope and once he did that, the rest was easy. We found two peaks, measured the time, and came to the correct result, 3*10^8 . Well, we actually got 3.06*10^8, but the difference is negligible. Ryan actually did not believe us when we told him that our measurements were not that close to the actual result. Apparently other groups were getting results around 3.20*10^8 or 2.8*10^8, which is understandable because there are several errors that could occur. We did it though. We measured the speed of light. </span></div><span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcCqCaabBchqFW3mQG8dccroML2W8gw3OF_spy6OOOsSU6Iy4w9eyb2q35WWreDB0h8o3MAFwZKIeEW9NY3t3ER_HL60kxVqT42kafJd7Okqdsk6RbD9cF-e_uxBbwLrtVZ-k7P1tfRY/s1600/Penn+Blog+24-2+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIcCqCaabBchqFW3mQG8dccroML2W8gw3OF_spy6OOOsSU6Iy4w9eyb2q35WWreDB0h8o3MAFwZKIeEW9NY3t3ER_HL60kxVqT42kafJd7Okqdsk6RbD9cF-e_uxBbwLrtVZ-k7P1tfRY/s320/Penn+Blog+24-2+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633901863406969266" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Believe it or not, that's a tape measure...a deadly tape measure...</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpo1xrtX7YzGT5qManI6PhK3JubuaI2r7EvVhhMH5EttQ6B09ipT6TIpn_8uB9Qx7Vwl2fqwlhZMh4rXajbAIdTYHr7SA4fimMsi4JSkFyIGXtx78kVSdpQgh7Q3lJHXYqEzh5ZKF-ic/s1600/Penn+Blog+24-1+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbpo1xrtX7YzGT5qManI6PhK3JubuaI2r7EvVhhMH5EttQ6B09ipT6TIpn_8uB9Qx7Vwl2fqwlhZMh4rXajbAIdTYHr7SA4fimMsi4JSkFyIGXtx78kVSdpQgh7Q3lJHXYqEzh5ZKF-ic/s320/Penn+Blog+24-1+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633901865174081970" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Bill helps us with our oscilloscope</div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><o:p></o:p></span></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After our lab, we were given a lecture by Penn professor Dr. Ken Lande. Dr. Lande focuses his research in experimental astrophysics and the investigation of fusion energy. His lecture was one of the most interesting yet. He discussed the energy crisis and the different options we have in fighting it. According to Dr. Lande, our options for alternative energies include photo-voltaic solar light converters, solar thermal concentrators, wind turbines, bio-fuels, and nuclear power. The most viable solution of these choices at the moment is the implementation of wind turbines. This is because they are cheap to produce and construct (relative to the other choices) and they are the most efficient form of capturing natural energy. I was very interested to hear about what Dr. Lande said about the best form of alternative energy was because I had to debate that very topic three years ago in Forensics. He also discussed the use of nuclear power, primarily fission reactors. The US has only one-hundred and two fission reactors that we use for twenty percent of our energy needs. France has many more reactors and supplies 70% of its energy needs using fission. It is astonishing how politics can get in the way of what could possibly end one of the most significant issues of the century, certainly of my lifetime. I asked Dr. Lande about the use of IFRs (Integral Fast Reactors) and whether they were more or less safe and about their efficiency after the lecture. He told me that this style of fission reactor was incredibly efficient and was proven to be safe, but because of the political climate and decisions made around the ‘70s the project was put on hold indefinitely (thank you SO much former President Carter). I enjoyed Dr. Lande’s lecture very much and it was clear that Bill had been saving one of the best for last.</span></p> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPJGxcLYjAiF_2oO0s46EqG6z_VmruWyPjDK2V6ql1LVovHaIXp3Qgn39ApvMQq8ZBlvnm4mNGQZ9ZBU_TJmzcwg-lULUrQUeOM1K56HFxRiyIi0t-J5uR6ZfOcTkRcm7r3VeRVm4V98c/s1600/Penn+Blog+24-3+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="text-align: justify;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPJGxcLYjAiF_2oO0s46EqG6z_VmruWyPjDK2V6ql1LVovHaIXp3Qgn39ApvMQq8ZBlvnm4mNGQZ9ZBU_TJmzcwg-lULUrQUeOM1K56HFxRiyIi0t-J5uR6ZfOcTkRcm7r3VeRVm4V98c/s320/Penn+Blog+24-3+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633901859764256114" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Dr. Lande presents a possible solution to the crisis</div><p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After our guest lecture and lunch, Brian, Julia, Mike, and I met back at DRL to begin our PowerPoint presentation on the Sooperdooperlooper, the roller coaster we had to analyze during our time at Hershey Park. We did not finish the PowerPoint at the labs because Mike had to commute back home and we preferred to finish at the dorms. We decided to include some history on the ride and a detailed description of what riders experienced while on the coaster. In addition to these, we had to type up descriptions of the physics behind the ride, which is the real meat of the presentation. We conclude our presentation with our graph data on the different accelerations of the carts as well as the altitude throughout the ride. Following our graphs, we will show the video we took of the ride, even though the protective bar on the cart obscures most of the view. Due to the low quality of our video, we also included a link to the YouTube video that shows the ride from a first-person point of view. The video is much better than ours and I think it will be a great way to conclude the presentation. I have a lot of confidence in our presentation as well as the data we will be presenting.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After putting the finishing touches on our PowerPoint, I headed down to a large field near the DRL to play in what was supposed to be the staff vs student ultimate Frisbee game. This wasn’t exactly how it played out because there were only three RCs. It was still a great game, regardless, and I definitely had a lot of fun. I even got to know a couple of the RCs better that I had not had the opportunity to meet previously. I also surprised myself in this game because I was a lot more useful to the team than I usually am. Usually I just hang around the other team’s goal, unnoticed by the other team for the first few goals of the game, and wait for my teammates to get the Frisbee. I can usually get a few goals this way because I am relatively open and already near the goal while everybody on the other team has to run back to play defense. Instead, I was much more mobile in this game. Although throwing was still my Achilles heel, I was playing more offensively by intercepting and blocking throws, in addition to my usual strategy. It was a great game concluding game of ultimate Frisbee and I will miss playing such a fun game with my Penn peers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">The rest of the night was basically just spent lounging around the dorm. Fred, Onur, Alison, Brian, and I were all quite tired from our intense game of Frisbee so we did not feel like doing much of anything. We all sat around in my dorm listening to music, sharing our favorite videos on YouTube, and playing a game called QWOP. In this game, you control an Olympic runner and you have to control his thighs and calves using the Q, W, O, and P buttons in order to make him run. It is nearly impossible to control the runner, but it is incredibly entertaining to watch. We also ordered Insomnia Cookies and had them delivered to the dorm. It was quite the evening, even though we didn’t do much of anything. We just enjoyed each other’s company.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Three days remain.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-22095306302629041482011-07-25T19:24:00.001-07:002011-07-25T20:47:43.939-07:00Oooooobleck!<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Maximizing the amount of sleep I get lately has been one of my top goals. Last night I got plenty of sleep and felt energetic and ready to head to class. I grabbed a quick breakfast to eat on my way/in class and then walked over to our class with Alex because Julia had already left. Alex and I were a little early today, so I had time to say hello to my friend Mikael before class began. Today was unique because Bill tied together many of the ideas we have been studying in the last few weeks into one large goal for the next couple of days – measuring the speed of light-. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >To be a bit more specific, over the last several weeks, we have studied mechanics, optics, learned to use oscilloscopes and many other neat things. These topics are being united in a way because measuring the speed of light we will need to use our knowledge that we gained here to put together a device that is essentially a laser that sends out a beam of light that we split, reflect, and carefully time how long the pulse takes to return to our oscilloscope which we learned how to use last week. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >To be honest, actually walking into the lab and seeing the dozens of wires and pieces of equipment that we had to hook together I felt like we wouldn’t be able to actually create the device that we needed to. With some excellent teamwork we actually managed to put together several of the circuits before we asked for help. Our teachers all have a nice approach to helping us where they try to steer us in the right direction and only interfering if we’re totally stuck. Today, Mary helped us several times when the wiring diagrams got a little overwhelming or we otherwise got stuck. I was very grateful for her help as well as Bill and Ryan’s and sooner than we expected we had constructed our light-speed measuring apparatus.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Next up, we were lucky to get to hear from another one of Penn’s faculty, Dr. Phil Nelson. Something that I’ve found great about the UPenn faculty we’ve gotten to listen to is that while they are very well educated and deeply into very specific research, they have all been excellent speakers as well. Phil spoke today about light and color. The first thing that he did was demonstrate how our eyes combine colors to make other colors. He showed us a pure yellow slide (which he proved was only yellow by shining it through a prism) and then showed us how he could overlap a red slide and a green slide to create an identical looking yellow. However, the mixed yellow could be separated back out into red and green. Then Phil began to throw some questions at us, why do our brains combine these colors instead of sorting them out? Can electronics make superior vision? And what are the applications of this knowledge?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Phil began to answer his first question by speaking about a man named Thomas Young. Young made many very accurate predictions about color and our eyes almost 200 years before his hypotheses could be confirmed. Perhaps the most consequential hypothesis that Young made is that the response of the photoreceptors in our eyes to light is equal to the Intensity times the Sensitivity. Thus our photoreceptors must sacrifice some clarity in order to be sensitive to a wider range of colors. For evolutionary reasons, humans have evolved to have three different types of photoreceptor cells that each specialize in decoding what we call red, green, and blue light. Because these photoreceptors are tuned to these colors, our brains must guess when something is in between these colors and that is where the red and green look yellow. Our brains see that the red and green photorecetors are reporting the same amount of light and ‘average it’ to yellow. Phil then talked about the many applications of this knowledge. Perhaps the most obvious is that LCD and Plasma screens each use different combinations of red, green, and blue light to make every color they display. The other applications are countless, and once again I was impressed by how articulate and relevant Phil was.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >In the afternoon, it was time for my group to present what we have been working on for the last several days. As a brief synopsis, we have been experimenting (playing) with a mixture of cornstarch and water called oobleck. Oobleck is classified as a non-Newtonian fluid because it behaves as a fluid when you move something slowly through it, but it behaves as a solid when you quickly try to move through it. This has some interesting results, because you can slowly sink your hand into it and it’ll get wet and covered in oobleck, but if you punch it as hard as you can you’ll probably end up breaking your knuckles. Today, my group displayed these properties by making four huge tubs of oobleck and then having the entire class run across the surface. Watching them do this was a bit of a cruel natural selection process because the faster students made it out unscathed while those who hesitated sank in and then had to struggle to get out. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Overall, today was a lot of fun because I worked hard with my group in the morning and overcame obstacles, I enjoyed hearing another incredible lecture, and I had fun making a mess in the afternoon.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Oh, and my favorite thing that Bill said today was about how earning a PhD is beneficial, “By learning everything about something, you learn something about everything.” I don’t know if my educational interests will take me in the direction of a PhD, but I thought that quote really summed the idea of a PhD up nicely.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-4096043213469454432011-07-25T19:24:00.000-07:002011-07-25T21:56:38.352-07:00Man-made Quicksand in the Rain<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Even though it had only been three days, while I was walking to class it felt like it had been a very long time since I had last been in the DRL (David Rittenhouse Labs). Today’s class was challenging, to say the least. We began class with Bill explaining how exactly we are going to measure the speed of light. In order to measure the speed of light, we will split a pulsed laser beam right at the tip of a laser pointer. Half of it will signal one channel on our oscilloscope. The other half of the beam will travel the length of the room and will be returned by a mirror. A lens will focus the returning beam on a photodiode that is connected to the second channel on our oscilloscope. The separation between Channel 1 pulse and the Channel 2 pulse indicates the time taken by light for the round trip. That doesn’t sound too complicated, right? In practice, however, it is pretty confusing. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In order to get all of the apparatuses set up, a series of circuits have to be made, certain wires have to be connected in just the right places, and all of the pieces have to come together and work in unison so an accurate measurement can be obtained. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">As Bill went through the procedure in his lecture, it seemed easy enough to follow, but this was not the case when we had to assemble everything. Progress was slow. We managed to get the laser working, but after that we were having trouble making our circuits. Thankfully Ryan, one of the TAs, was able to point us in the right direction and we were able to get everything connected so that it should have worked. However, it did not work for some reason. We spent the rest of our time in the lab making adjustments to the oscilloscope and our circuits, but to no avail. Before we could find the correct arrangement, it was time for our guest lecture. We will have to figure out our problem(s) tomorrow in class. Thankfully we get two days to do this lab.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">Our guest lecturer was Dr. Phil Nelson, who is</span><span style="font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""> </span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:13.5pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">a part of Penn’s </span><span class="Apple-style-span">Nano-Bio Interface Center, and the</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span class="Apple-style-span"> Institute for Medicine and Engineering</span></span><span class="apple-style-span">. His lecture was about light and its erratic behavior. The lecture was actually half bio-physics, half optics. He began by combining different colors of light and splitting white light into a rainbow by using a prism, but as the lecture continued he began talking about how our eyes and brain perceive colors. He explained that color is of vital importance our survival because it is a major factor in how we identify things in our environment. He also said that our eyes omit a lot of information and that they only pick up certain spectral colors. What I found the most interesting was his discussion of photons. He told us that </span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" >photons arrive at random, no matter how hard we try to make a steady light. Their average rate corresponds to what we think of as brightness. In class, we have mostly been referring to light as a wave. We have acknowledged that it was also a particle, but this was the first time that we had every really analyzed light in that respect.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVY7WyUCTyBsGKx3WkgfDTNR68lowXcviAcyte4NkqKASIqnZ0nlxPY_nIpSSI2-xVOLZFv7Dhr58TDkjNWkBveD3HTajFebW6d_NcB3PcAAnmFaOQh1MSvBTuWM8AgQpRnLP_VCExMg/s1600/Penn+Blog+23-3+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqVY7WyUCTyBsGKx3WkgfDTNR68lowXcviAcyte4NkqKASIqnZ0nlxPY_nIpSSI2-xVOLZFv7Dhr58TDkjNWkBveD3HTajFebW6d_NcB3PcAAnmFaOQh1MSvBTuWM8AgQpRnLP_VCExMg/s320/Penn+Blog+23-3+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633519128162650882" /></a></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span><span class="Apple-style-span" >Phil Nelson discussing the interaction of different spectras of light</span></span></div><p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" >After lunch, we returned to the labs for the most fun part of the day. The ooblek group was finally going to get to show off what they have been learning for the past week by preparing small pools of the mixture. They prepared four tubs of the muck and, when it was all ready, they had people run across it. Most of the class ran across, save about eight or so people, and it was very fun to watch. I didn’t run because I was taking pictures and videos for almost the entire time, but it was fun nonetheless. Some decided to just run across, while others just walked across to see what it would be like to try to get out of quicksand, which is basically what ooblek is. We spent the entire second half of class outside the DRL playing in ooblek and it was one of our best sessions in class thus far.</span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXIAGfH9RAkPK6JbVqoZZR_j6v_TSfc4mLJCb9vh-b_e6ZgjXr2QbmXK-TL66iiGwFr9NBbuIOm1HvK4aL6EV4J2x7jrBx_S0OS1ucNdKqw-QGCBSGZJLvq7f0lr-Y71v2VbfcwebDIgs/s1600/Penn+Blog+23-2+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXIAGfH9RAkPK6JbVqoZZR_j6v_TSfc4mLJCb9vh-b_e6ZgjXr2QbmXK-TL66iiGwFr9NBbuIOm1HvK4aL6EV4J2x7jrBx_S0OS1ucNdKqw-QGCBSGZJLvq7f0lr-Y71v2VbfcwebDIgs/s320/Penn+Blog+23-2+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633519127984573394" /></a></span></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Run!</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzm9eOtmdb0jyF45fP_y01Q2tdIz_CacmkiC8TMyInOk-PixSHc4udo-Lt3JNwjsrnbnu6EDV0R-8a6-Cv2nIFqt2ne8RiUY-FWYXJJvPkP16tSteebySE4Xk1qgtmxXChfgNZGBV_pHc/s1600/Penn+Blog+23-1+AE.jpg" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; " onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzm9eOtmdb0jyF45fP_y01Q2tdIz_CacmkiC8TMyInOk-PixSHc4udo-Lt3JNwjsrnbnu6EDV0R-8a6-Cv2nIFqt2ne8RiUY-FWYXJJvPkP16tSteebySE4Xk1qgtmxXChfgNZGBV_pHc/s320/Penn+Blog+23-1+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633519124932494178" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Brian helps Bill mix the ooblek</div><br /></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After class, Onur, Brian, Julia, and I returned to the dorm and began our PowerPoint presentation on Newton’s Law of Cooling. It was actually easier than I had anticipated. We already knew everything we needed to know about the law, so we just had to organize our thoughts, data, and pictures. We finished preparing the presentation in about an hour. Now we just have to decide who will be covering which part(s) of the presentation and rehearse our information. I am confident that we will be able to do this with little difficulty.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">A quick dinner was next on our agenda. Onur, Fred, Brian, and I headed over to the commons, while Julia went to go play squash with Abheek. When Onur and I exited the commons (Brian and Fred left dinner early to go to the gym), we discovered that it was raining. This was different rain than what we have been getting though. This rain actually fell for a good hour, maybe more! I am unsure of the exact time, but I do know that it was very refreshing and it got rid of the humidity in the air. It was actually such a welcome occurrence that Onur, Abheek, Julia, and I hung out in the middle of quad for the duration of the rain. It reminded Abheek of his home in London, just as much as it reminded me of rain back home in the Bay Area. It was a nice change, especially after that massive heat wave last week.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">The rest of our evening was spent lounging in our dorm. Fred and Onur hung out for a while and we watched funny YouTube videos while we listened to music over Onur’s speakers. We are all well aware that our time together is getting shorter. Fred even began packing up clothes that he didn’t think he was going to wear in the next four days. It is sad to think about the fact that our family will be disbanding so soon, but our strong friendships and memories of the fun times that we have had over the past three weeks will make it easier to deal with. I look forward to the next few days, both because of class and the last few nights with friends. Tomorrow is another day, and I’m ready to face it, even if it means dealing with that confounded contraption we are using to measure the speed of light. On that note, good evening.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-50026401139752961162011-07-25T12:36:00.000-07:002011-07-25T22:14:01.066-07:00Physicists Are Not Afraid to Get Their Hands Dirty<div align="justify">I am continually forced to rethink my definition of "most exciting class ever" with Bill's physics course. You'd think roller coasters would prove hard to beat, but literally every class brings something new to get excited about. Today, it was more than something; it was everything. Even just the <em>set up</em> for the lab we are going to perform tomorrow to measure the speed of light got my blood pumping.<br /></div><br /><div align="justify">Admittedly, the first hour of class was incredibly hard to follow. Despite Bill's exceptional ability to eloquently explain complicated topics, describing how to build a circuit with a light-sensing diode or a laser controlled by a transistor and connected to function generator is no easy task.</div><br /><div align="justify"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBhiSzNK107YO3UjnIs4zvvB3iHJ82kh1aLg8Zwix8KD_XArYkLIuUxqAsCpg0tfV6v7-wPn1_HBnTvrcbQSn81NeJMnuHcEPVIsjYsLDRkLky-Sa3gmPexOqvYB6lT_3fTa7CYIbFvo/s1600/UPenn+016+JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633472718951528258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVBhiSzNK107YO3UjnIs4zvvB3iHJ82kh1aLg8Zwix8KD_XArYkLIuUxqAsCpg0tfV6v7-wPn1_HBnTvrcbQSn81NeJMnuHcEPVIsjYsLDRkLky-Sa3gmPexOqvYB6lT_3fTa7CYIbFvo/s320/UPenn+016+JM.JPG" /></a>Consequently, it wasn't until we broke up into our new lab groups and got to fiddle with the wires and the circuit boards that the diagrams we were given (on the left) started making any kind of sense.</div><br /><div align="justify">At first it was confusing and slightly frustrating, especially because Bill specifically told us that he had it all set up last night so everything was working perfectly, but disassembled it just so we would have to put it back to<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzjuzD257UqaEIRQfFDPFAsRoP9rITUcoD4YtrlTmJ-BtmNRKx8kPrNVXAX8yDvQt1kIhmBF7B2zK5sc_CY-ZhpEnN2E1Ecmdr3rTh9x41qrkSMmgQAC8eki_BMUnOAqFy4twUs5FXOg/s1600/UPenn+012JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633468234841120370" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAzjuzD257UqaEIRQfFDPFAsRoP9rITUcoD4YtrlTmJ-BtmNRKx8kPrNVXAX8yDvQt1kIhmBF7B2zK5sc_CY-ZhpEnN2E1Ecmdr3rTh9x41qrkSMmgQAC8eki_BMUnOAqFy4twUs5FXOg/s320/UPenn+012JM.JPG" /></a>gether. Once we transformed the diagrams and mess of wires and banana plugs into the mechanisms we would be using to perform our experiment, I understood why he did it. Even before the experiment began, I already felt a sense of pride and ownership regarding the data we ar<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwB7YX3i6xyW70ViRkM2Xst8JFU7GouI_IMh4MyLgqnhgm9_8mlFB1WN4WdFWx0aZidg8vNYXytTSBE1DdtMepC5CNSp5Max0hhBkGeFsr7v2bdctF2kxl8z1qR7OI7_5Ol6U8AbLtewU/s1600/UPenn+014JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633518790667824258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwB7YX3i6xyW70ViRkM2Xst8JFU7GouI_IMh4MyLgqnhgm9_8mlFB1WN4WdFWx0aZidg8vNYXytTSBE1DdtMepC5CNSp5Max0hhBkGeFsr7v2bdctF2kxl8z1qR7OI7_5Ol6U8AbLtewU/s320/UPenn+014JM.JPG" /></a>e going to collect with the gadgets that we built ourselves. Not only that, but we have a much deeper understanding of how our tools work and therefore what the numbers that come up actually mean.<br />Each week it seems we delve even deeper into the realm of what experimental physics actually feels like. In this further step, not only are we collecting our own data, but we are building our own tools with which to do it and it feels amazing. If this ends up being what I do for a living, I will have no objections.</div><br /><div align="justify">After the lab setup, guest speaker Phil Nelson spoke about the physics of human and superhuman color vision. He began with a puzzling paradox about yellow light. First he showed us pure yellow light, visible in a spectrum created by shining white light through a prism. Next he showed us a square of yellow light made by a projector. When he diffracted this yellow light with the prism, he did not get yellow light, instead he got red and green. The question that he posed was why our eyes were unable to distinguish between the two (true yellow light versus the red/green mixture).</div><br /><div align="justify">To explain this phenomenon, he described to us the way our eyes perceive color. Specifically, that the photo receptors in our eyes are capable of distinguishing between blue, green and red wavelengths. These can be expressed as curves showing how many photons of each particular color are sensed. The reason we are unable to distinguish true yellow from the mixture now becomes clear: our eyes can only measure the relative presence of green and red light. Therefore, because yellow neighbors both green and red on the spectrum, true yellow light contains traces of wavelengths from both red and green and so is indistinguishable to our tri-color sensitive eyes.</div><br /><div align="justify">He went on to suggest that if we create a machine with the ability to detect more than three discrete wavelengths, it proves useful in a number of fields. Spectral karyotyping, for instance, uses such machines to detect subtle differences in stain colors of chromosomes, allowing scientists to conduct studies regarding genetic mutation, cancerous cells, and the genetic history of evolution. Superhuman color detection also allows scientists to maps the connectomes of mouse brains. When Nelson mentioned this, it really got my attention because I had seen the images he had displayed before on a podcast - the very podcast that got me interested in neuroscience in the first place. I was not aware when I watched it however, how interdisciplinary the sciences that were used in developing the method were. In fact, it is remarkable how often the guest lectures tie into my prior knowledge, and also to each other. I am slowly realizing as the weeks progress that it is very difficult to find scientific research that is independent from a network of other fields, which to me is what makes science truly spectacular.</div><br /><div align="justify"><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><br /><div><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633377917111115010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmJ1yrVHXlcpOQc1ydpeuqIgNB3DP7xsx8mLaut1Jo3tGkRIDKd5W7jZ9EnleDPX2nJQ9hQWgj5xJLGAciAEFCSOvvu2Ip2HMnSx7qVe14g3EN2GuiMb4uJ-7zcSoJFbe9SkJJNSuYIL8/s320/UPenn+037JM.JPG" />We took a long break for lunch today so that the Non-Newtonian Fluids group could set up their "demonstration". Really, it was more like two hours of the entire class playing with the vats of "oobleck" that they brewed up. The stuff is surprisingly entertaining. We ran our fingers through<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEHnlqtvBEkQtOnhpml2AOaL3UECvJm7AvJ2znuAW51yTRkoTUUrWseDbai2WYCr2lML4EULSKXjqP5OrLxOywKBxFmwfBvyYLhCHa4DH_NuCV1BSGDrgAsXAyBzxFshMtMmdmp2Y8oNI/s1600/UPenn+033JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633514215500245922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEHnlqtvBEkQtOnhpml2AOaL3UECvJm7AvJ2znuAW51yTRkoTUUrWseDbai2WYCr2lML4EULSKXjqP5OrLxOywKBxFmwfBvyYLhCHa4DH_NuCV1BSGDrgAsXAyBzxFshMtMmdmp2Y8oNI/s320/UPenn+033JM.JPG" /></a> it, slowly at first sow that it flowed like a liquid, then quickly so it ripped like a solid. If you moved fast enough, you could form it into a ball, but once you sto<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisjXjDmUmjhcbdqqVl_jCTU827X-RFkX09UOc36YiXxlBw7PRwOhLgAN7rYDsotyjQKHwI4X9ky_3NOszp_hrT5ymEvPCGglgYY-dS8jGkeh5PnLRMSDidq2UMSS5AZGIBM9KWcm_J_i4/s1600/UPenn+033JM.JPG"></a>pped applying pressure and just let it sit in your hand, it would melt away and slide through your fingers. Needless to say, it wasn't long before we were all covered with the corn-starch/water mixture. To demonstrate the unique principle of more applied force creating a larger resists to that force, we punched it and slapped it and threw stuff at it, and then we started to get really creative. Bill dropped a bowling ball into one of the vats and the effect was counter intuitive (as non-Newtonian fluids often are). Instead of the six pound ball creating a splash in the tub of liquid, it almost bounced off the surface before slowly sinking in.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWVKQa89iE25masKyWZEJ4EyO7-gVks9FY5UxISFBmzfBpxVtXn5tpntWjs1Fd76ToCa-nUAbgR4zCO8cgNbqD427vDiCOsF01uSxvygZpmjLdx8pWWyRfibcO_eCN6Xao-3n_vFzB8NU/s1600/UPenn+050JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 251px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633381290593804178" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWVKQa89iE25masKyWZEJ4EyO7-gVks9FY5UxISFBmzfBpxVtXn5tpntWjs1Fd76ToCa-nUAbgR4zCO8cgNbqD427vDiCOsF01uSxvygZpmjLdx8pWWyRfibcO_eCN6Xao-3n_vFzB8NU/s320/UPenn+050JM.JPG" /></a><br />Of course, the next step was to line the three containers up and have people run across it. The different techniques that people used to stay on the surface varied greatly. Some students hopped from tub to tub like hopscotch. This worked for som<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfsKsIIt8wQzXEYPohIYJKSY4Trmbds3xHX76VVRwCyTG_M-FfBaIq6xKY7YdWkLuElOswa3Setgs7-Koi-9Pl5UIt351w2ZLG6NIfBPIdg5FuADPvlem_K-T15pDg1HjhVI-A-0-dy5k/s1600/UPenn+049JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 215px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 172px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633516835216664354" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfsKsIIt8wQzXEYPohIYJKSY4Trmbds3xHX76VVRwCyTG_M-FfBaIq6xKY7YdWkLuElOswa3Setgs7-Koi-9Pl5UIt351w2ZLG6NIfBPIdg5FuADPvlem_K-T15pDg1HjhVI-A-0-dy5k/s200/UPenn+049JM.JPG" /></a>e people, but when I tried it I found that the time between jumps was so long that I started to sink in as I prepared for the next jump. The easier thing to do was to continuously stomp on it, as if you were smashing grapes while running across. A surprising am<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4gFk5ZTUhglT7GQw5VmsJwY-e8NHRyMWxdvGlRSJuTlwvM8v47_18b6cJRl5xWR5Mt8s4a-jggTKdLE88t0ypWp9HXr_exzpsHGwd-BbWw13FeZdTlt3ZxYoOp7k6HbuA970AiBpQ8Us/s1600/UPenn+054JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 268px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 160px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633377924862112338" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4gFk5ZTUhglT7GQw5VmsJwY-e8NHRyMWxdvGlRSJuTlwvM8v47_18b6cJRl5xWR5Mt8s4a-jggTKdLE88t0ypWp9HXr_exzpsHGwd-BbWw13FeZdTlt3ZxYoOp7k6HbuA970AiBpQ8Us/s320/UPenn+054JM.JPG" /></a>ount of students chose to walk through it to see what it felt like. The trick to walking is to move as slowly as possible, because as hard as it is to get something to move quickly <em>into</em> the mixture, it proved even more difficult to yank a foot out.<br />Bill wrapped the day up nicely with a demonstration of how a pro does it:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitabjxr1S0CkQwoPAG_Oy29ZQRrV2dpuBrZBfDRJfyhRnzy8wMC2cRWp471Obay4wMaKD7ChamlmHNoPoGfm-UcbJb8Zn51KQOR7dM89HZL4mbKt6xEiC99GbhsWFKfomHrhgi0yaBkOk/s1600/UPenn+061JM.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633518106664442722" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitabjxr1S0CkQwoPAG_Oy29ZQRrV2dpuBrZBfDRJfyhRnzy8wMC2cRWp471Obay4wMaKD7ChamlmHNoPoGfm-UcbJb8Zn51KQOR7dM89HZL4mbKt6xEiC99GbhsWFKfomHrhgi0yaBkOk/s320/UPenn+061JM.JPG" /></a><br />When the excitement was over, I returned to the quad and rested for a while before going out to famous cheese steak restaurant Pat's King of Steak, for Emily, the Texan on our floor's birthday. I have to say I was disappointed with the quality of food they served there. For such a famous place, the sandwiches were just not tasty. I much preferred the random little shop we found in our first couple days in the city. But we ate cake, sang happy birthday, and got to see more of the city it was an altogether pleasant experience.</div><br /><div>As we walked off the bus, we were surprised to see it had started raining in the time it took us to make the trip home. Instead of retreating into the dorms, I took of my sneakers and played some Frisbee in the wet grass. Even though I got soaked, the air was warm enough that I didn't freeze to death like I would have back at home.</div><br /><div>Once I got myself dried off and cozy, I relaxed in my room for the rest of the night.</div></div></div></div><br /></div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-29338634976016491262011-07-24T21:00:00.000-07:002011-07-24T21:01:19.090-07:00Ocean City<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Today was one of those days that went by really fast. I was on my feet right away as I ran over to the store to get some bagels and milk. We had to wait about half an hour for the buses which was upsetting because I could have been sleeping but at least it was time spent with my friends. Then we loaded onto the buses, did a headcount and went on our way. I went on the bus intending to read my book, but one of our counselors put on the movie “Zombieland” and I decided to watch it for the second time. Zombieland is yet another one of those movies that is stupid but entertaining. It did its job as an entertainment source and the next time I looked away from the screen I was looking at Ocean City, New Jersey. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Ocean City strongly reminded me of the West Coast and specifically Santa Cruz, California. Even though my first impulse was to run straight into the water, I managed to wait about 2 minutes for my sun screen to ‘dry’ and then dove straight into the water. After almost a week of 90 plus degree heat, touching the cold ocean water felt liberating. I helped out a couple of my friends that were hesitating on the shore by dunking them in the water. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >I waded into the water until I couldn’t touch the sand anymore and then I tried to body surf some. I had a lot of fun playing with my friends in the ocean and after we swam for about an hour we walked onto the boardwalk and found a pizza place. The pizzas that they served at the restaurant we went to were literally the biggest I have ever seen. They were 26 inches in diameter and loaded with toppings, so we figured one was plenty to feed the six of us. Besides being massive, the pizza was really delicious and of course filling. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >As soon as we finished our lunch and we were ready to go back into the water the predicted weather finally arrived. I was glad that the weather forecast was inaccurate as usual, because the forecast predicted thunderstorms all day, but we didn’t get any until the afternoon. It was still disappointing that we couldn’t swim any more, but we decided to spend some time on the boardwalk. On the boardwalk there was a plethora of shops and restaurant s so we decided to look around at some of the close by shops. I went into a couple of T-shirt shops and looked around but eventually realized that I wouldn’t want to wear any of the shirts in the store because they were all ridiculous.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Finally, it was time for us to head back to Philadelphia on our buses. We popped in another movie, but I was tired so I didn’t really pay that much attention to it. As I just said I was mentally tired, but I still had some energy left to burn off so when we got back I decided to go to the gym with my friend Fred. Sometimes I like working out alone, but it’s a lot easier to stick with an exercise schedule if you do it with a friend. Therefore, I really appreciated Fred pushing me to go to the gym with him so that I could avoid gaining my ‘Freshman Fifteen’ before my freshman year of college. After the gym we went to dinner at the 1920 dining commons where we usually go and I had a nice sandwich on a roll. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >After I got back to my dorm, my evening wound down a little bit which was nice. I called my sister and had a long chat with her about her summer work and my stay here at UPenn. A little bit later I also got to talk to my mom and hear about her vacation with my dad (Clearly making the best of my absence). I have enjoyed my time at UPenn so much that it has flown by faster than I can believe. With only 6 days left, I intend to make the most out of these last moments.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-31874233166679650092011-07-24T20:59:00.000-07:002011-07-24T21:41:19.163-07:00The Atlantic<div align="justify">Today's day trip was probably my favorite of all. We drove down to Ocean City in New Jersey after a quick breakfast from Wawa. As soon as we got off the bus and lathered on some sunscreen, we ran for the waves to avoid boiling in the heat. It occurred to me that I had never swam in Atlantic before. It was an altogether different experience than the beaches back in California, especially the always cold Ocean Beach in San Fransisco. The first things I noticed was how ridiculously crowded the beach was, but I suppose the people come with the sun.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">We had a lot of fun messing around in the waves which were a little more violent towards the shore than those in the Pacific making for some prime body surfing. We spent a couple hours battling the ocean and getting salt water up our noses before we got completely exhausted and hungry.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">It's a good thing too because the pizza place we found on the board walk served 26 inch pizzas. That is the size of one of my mountain bike tires. I had to fold my piece in half just to eat it, but six of us managed to finish it off so it must have been delicious.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">After lunch, we had about thirty minutes to look at some gift shops, grab a delicious gelato, and soak up some sun before we had to leave. We planed on leaving at four, but we bumped it up to 2:30 on account of the storm clouds brewing ominously in the distance. I am still getting used to the crazy extreme east coast weather. It is rather bizarre.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">I was sad to leave so early but I really enjoyed my time at the beach and if I were to become an undergraduate at Penn, I can totally see myself making the trip to spend some time in the ocean when I get a chance.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">When I got back to the dorms I washed up and took a quick power nap to recover from all the swimming we did. When I woke up, I headed down to the dining hall for dinner. On my way back I bought a Thai Tea tapioca drink from Beijing, a restaurant next door to the quad. It was almost as good as the tapioca drinks the ASU sells at our school carnivals. I definitely appreciate all the great food that is available for us right here on campus.</div><br /><br /><div align="justify">After dinner, I did some laundry and got some rest for the start of our final week of class. I can not believe three weeks has gone by so quickly.</div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-22548367634334492282011-07-24T16:10:00.000-07:002011-07-24T20:05:05.880-07:00Ocean City, We Barely Knew Thee<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">The long-awaited trip to Ocean City had finally arrived. We awoke this morning at a quarter to nine and prepared for our big day. We all gathered our towels, sunscreen, and plenty of water and headed to the Jersey shore. The drive was a little longer than I had anticipated. I looked up the drive on my phone yesterday and Google Maps approximated that it would take a little over an hour, but we had time to watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Zombieland</i> and then still have another twenty minutes worth of driving (which would put it around two hours worth of driving). I was really hoping we could have gotten to the beach earlier so we could beat some of the crowds. However, I was ok with the drive taking a bit longer because I had never seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Zombieland</i> and it was a funny movie. Once we did arrive though, I was anxious to get into the water.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">We arrived at the boardwalk and our first stop was the surf shack right next to the entrance. I waited for Brian to get swim trunks while the rest of the group went to set up camp. It was more difficult to find camp than I originally hoped. In the sea of umbrellas and lawn chairs, it was impossible to see anything or anyone that resembled our group. We decided to set our things down somewhere and just join them later. We ran into the water and started our search for our friends. We found them pretty quickly and began our aquatic shenanigans. Although I can’t swim, I was still able to have a good time in the ocean. Today, I learned that the Atlantic Ocean is much rougher than the Pacific. The waves were higher, stronger, and faster than anything I have ever encountered on a beach in California (but then again I am not one to frequent beaches, so that isn’t saying much). The rough waves made it that much more fun though. While most of the swimmers decided to body surf when the big waves rolled in, I would just let each wave carry me as far as it could. I fell down a couple of times, but we were in shallow enough water that it was safe. We stayed in the water for about an hour before we decided to get out, dry off, and get some lunch.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">We walked onto the boardwalk and browsed our options for lunch. There were a lot of smoothie, candy, and fish places, but not too many restaurants. We managed to find a pizza shop that served huge pizzas. There were two options for ordering pizza: by the slice, or a whole pizza. We opted to go for the whole pizza and just split the bill. Whole pizzas at this restaurant are a whopping twenty-six inches in diameter! That’s about as big as the tire on a mountain bike. It was insanely big. The shop even had a challenge that they offered. The challenge was that if one person could finish one of these pizzas in “x” amount of time, they would get “y” amount of free pizzas (ex. If you finish a pizza in forty five minutes, you get twenty-five free pizzas). I was tempted to try it, but before I could give it much thought, they informed us that the challenge was only available on Tuesdays. This probably worked out in my favor…</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After lunch, we learned that we had to return to the busses at 2:30 due to thunderstorms off the coast. This was saddening because I had hoped to get more time in the cold ocean before having to return to the humidity of the mainland. We used the remainder of our time to look at some of the shops that they had on the boardwalk. They had things such as mini golf, sweets shops, and a lot of custom t-shirt shops. I tried to buy a shirt that had Charlie Sheen’s face on it that said “Winning”, but they were all out of that design. Luckily I was able to get a shirt with an equally amusing design. I found a shirt that read “Cool Story Bro”, which is a phrase my sarcastic friends and I like to use every now and then when we feel like giving each other a hard time. I think my friends will really get a kick out of it. Soon enough, it was time to return to Penn.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif""><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">On the ride back, I decided to relax and listen to some music. The ride back seemed to go much faster than the ride there…that is until we hit traffic from the Phillies game. That added another half hour to our travel time. When we got back, I tried to get my things back to the dorm as quickly as possible so I could be one of the first on my floor to get a shower. I really did not want to have to wait for all the other guys on my floor so I was trying to seem inconspicuous and move quickly at the same time. Luckily I was one of the first in the showers. After I cleaned up, I waited for Onur, Fred, Alison, and Brian to do the same so we could go to dinner. We ate at the commons tonight, which actually wasn’t bad because the food was better than it has been the past few times I had been there. After dinner, our group disbanded and we went to do different things. I returned to the dorm, Brian and Fred went to the gym, and Alison went to study. Onur stuck around with me and it was nice to have company. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Although the day was not as exciting as I had originally hoped, we all still had a good time getting pushed around by the Atlantic and touring the boardwalk. Our final week is beginning. The next couple of days in class will be spent in our three different lab groups (one from Hershey, one from our special interest groups, and another from our exponential change labs). We will be preparing presentations on our respective topics and will have to present them over Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. The last leg of the race is here. I feel very prepared to present all of the material this week and I feel confident that my groups will do well.</span></p>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-7301580523891623442011-07-23T21:18:00.000-07:002011-07-23T22:16:45.593-07:00A Breath of Fresh Air<div align="justify">Today was the most relaxing day so far. I got to sleep in almost until noon to catch up on some of the sleep I've been missing this week. When I Finlay got out of bed, I picked up some pastries from Starbucks. After that I returned to the quad and laid down in the grass of the quad until I couldn't stand the heat any longer.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">I have run into a dilemma here at Penn; it is hard to motivate myself to do any physical activity when it is almost 100 degrees outside. Today, I found the solution to that problem. I utilized the gyms lap pool and cooled off while raising my heart beat a little. The facilities were very nice and the girl I shared lane with was nicer (I didn't think to bring goggles so I may have drifted into her lane a couple times, but she was very understanding).</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">After swimming, I explored the campus with some floor friends. We found a restaurant called "Hummus" and I got a really delicious falafel that rivaled the ones I get at Jerusalem Cafe back at home. On our walk back to the quad, we stopped and watched a pair of musicians playing an interesting type of music. It was a sort of psychedelic fusion of blues and jazz. One man played trombone, harmonica and sang while the other was on drums. It was mesmerising. We spent a good 30 minutes sitting on the grass listening to them before we made our way back to the quad.</div><br /><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">After dinner, I played a sort of photograph scavenger hunt that some girls in the camp organized. I was on a team with Brian, Alex, and some of our floor friends. We had to walk around campus and capture photographs of another doing silly and embarrassing tasks. The team who captured the most ridiculous moments from the list won. It was a great team building experience. It also gave us a chance to really get to know the campus better. My favorite moment was when Alison from my floor asked a woman who walked by how to turn on the fire hydrant. </div><br /><div align="justify"></div><br /><div align="justify">We returned to the quad by 11, which is sign in time, to watch Dazed and Confused before getting to bed. We'll need our sleep for tomorrows exciting day at the beach.</div>Julia Martienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01348287195481969272noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-63466929676275501532011-07-23T20:18:00.000-07:002011-07-23T22:37:16.936-07:00"Excessive Heat" Didn't Stop Our Fun<p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"">For me, today began late, but it still seemed like a very long day. Brian and I woke at 10:00 this morning with the intention of going to Center City as soon as possible. However, we would later learn that we could not leave campus until 2:00. This did not matter much because we took a while to actually get moving. Shortly after waking up, Brian went to the gym. I hung out in the room for a while and then cleaned up so I could go grab some breakfast. I decided to go to Au Bon Pain for breakfast, since the commons are not open on Saturdays. I grabbed bagels for Brian and I, then headed back to the dorm. Upon Brian’s return, we ate breakfast and then got ready to head to Center City with Fred, Alison, and Onur. This was when we headed to the office and found out we couldn’t leave until 2:00. Since that was only an hour away, we couldn’t do much. First we went to get sandwiches for lunch. We ate outside in on a lawn near the quad.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>After lunch, we decided to say goodbye to Chandler, one of the RC’s in the lower quad. He will be leaving Penn to return to Indiana tomorrow. We played Frisbee with Chandler a lot and he took pictures of our group a few times, such as on top of the Rockefeller Center. He was a cool guy to chat with and we will miss him.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">When we were finally allowed to leave, we signed out and headed into the bowels of the Philadelphia trolley system. The trains were packed today, which is to be expected since it was Saturday and everybody wants to get off of campus. Once we got off the trolley, we headed to Love Square immediately so we could get to the souvenir shop long before they closed. This idea was executed in vain though because the shop was in fact closed. We arrived to a sign on the door that read “Store Closed Due to Excessive Heat.” That is too ridiculous to lie about… We were still able to enjoy the square despite the shop being closed because we waded in the fountain for a while, which was quite refreshing. The rest of our time in Center City was just spent walking around the city and visiting a few of the malls. I bought a nice watch, Fred and Alison got hats, and Onur got a poster. I also bought some swim trunks for tomorrow’s trip to Ocean City, New Jersey. We had yet another great day in Philadelphia, despite the insane heat and humidity.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">When we got back to Penn, we went to dinner at the Chinese restaurant next to the quad, Beijing. Alison and Fred had a lengthy discussion about the differences between Chinese and Korean table manners. For instance, in Korea it is rude to refill a cup or glass before you are finished with your drink. It is the opposite in China, where it is seen as insolent if one is to completely finish their drink. Unfortunately I would seem very rude dinner as per Chinese customs because I was making up for the lack of water I didn’t have earlier today by drinking glass after glass at dinner. I always enjoy talking about how our backgrounds are different and the discussions that follow. It really puts things into perspective about how things can be so different when people really are not that far away geographically.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">After dinner, we joined in on a scavenger hunt that some of the Summer Discovery students organized. It wasn’t a scavenger hunt in the traditional sense where we had to find things, but actions that we had to perform. Our groups had to do things such as approaching random people and pretending like we had known them previously and asking someone that we did not know for a piggyback ride (we stuck to people in the quad for our actions). There was a long list of tasks and we didn’t finish within the two hour time frame, but it was certainly a fun way to spend two hours.</span></p> <p class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Tomorrow we travel to Ocean City for a fun day at the beach and boardwalk…with thunderstorms. This won’t put a damper on my spirit (pun intended) because I actually like the rain. I just hope that the storm doesn’t get too severe because we will probably have to leave early. Either way, tomorrow is bound to be fun and I am looking forward to my last Sunday with my friends.</span></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PUswTa6nhDrZ9IiYgWFn598OL13_nkFcDggfCQ02iMeeHsIxnYAs4CHIdq0WoPsfEftPhe-XFjIicO8zGs_kFZoRMfvGrYPG1NuJ1gwJz_6qnZoFuA3_hRzJwQczi8Ope1wF1hHYZzU/s1600/Penn+Blog+21-1+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6PUswTa6nhDrZ9IiYgWFn598OL13_nkFcDggfCQ02iMeeHsIxnYAs4CHIdq0WoPsfEftPhe-XFjIicO8zGs_kFZoRMfvGrYPG1NuJ1gwJz_6qnZoFuA3_hRzJwQczi8Ope1wF1hHYZzU/s320/Penn+Blog+21-1+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632787134419427170" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Brian is the Luigi to Fred's Mario</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieohZcgqSyIvMGxVVkX2xi05RNBx1xY8pj1kXbf36m2ZkUYWMT4oHBUEKgUzl5LjVMZxW5-8Vkfo-Zd4IHif_NuNgq1fdcDudAzsUHXXeJG6U4hawR7xqSFm-QgDGslCysLkuTmuQwwkg/s1600/Penn+Blog+21-2+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieohZcgqSyIvMGxVVkX2xi05RNBx1xY8pj1kXbf36m2ZkUYWMT4oHBUEKgUzl5LjVMZxW5-8Vkfo-Zd4IHif_NuNgq1fdcDudAzsUHXXeJG6U4hawR7xqSFm-QgDGslCysLkuTmuQwwkg/s320/Penn+Blog+21-2+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632787137548056610" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">This can't handle this cut-out because it's bi-winning</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrJtK2RgiClMnm3-0-rmWxOfS9-zXkN6LkiV7O5ImD7RCJifZpMnpo6-wc56Ow7lx07rHtyr951A910DaxdITVMTQVEXCzkImQZX1KB8kLEUDACirx_OmuBnagb8iXjGICGjMmFInZRs/s1600/Penn+Blog+21-3+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOrJtK2RgiClMnm3-0-rmWxOfS9-zXkN6LkiV7O5ImD7RCJifZpMnpo6-wc56Ow7lx07rHtyr951A910DaxdITVMTQVEXCzkImQZX1KB8kLEUDACirx_OmuBnagb8iXjGICGjMmFInZRs/s320/Penn+Blog+21-3+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632787130728451266" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Alison's best nerd face</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCnXmWTXL1UxXGWgTElvN2KR_YdkcN8W_KzJHfoW4jxEurf1-W5DapH9DHCTtM06KX4Pe1hUQKU5ufJqQM4iceth3F5K7aZPopIaQrNVCwduE9BQo4RQe0lcHiyAhK1eRciSUxmPgNUaE/s1600/Penn+Blog+21-4+AE.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCnXmWTXL1UxXGWgTElvN2KR_YdkcN8W_KzJHfoW4jxEurf1-W5DapH9DHCTtM06KX4Pe1hUQKU5ufJqQM4iceth3F5K7aZPopIaQrNVCwduE9BQo4RQe0lcHiyAhK1eRciSUxmPgNUaE/s320/Penn+Blog+21-4+AE.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5632787130461587170" /></a><div style="text-align: center;">Pay no attention to the severed hands in the background...</div>Alex Elmshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07940470623192761959noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6116890233400296651.post-1277946845229836352011-07-23T20:17:00.000-07:002011-07-23T21:38:46.158-07:00Running is Relaxing?<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >For the one day of the week with no scheduled activities, today was really busy. Alex and I caught up on a bit of sleep by sleeping in past our usual 7 o clock wake up. I was energized from the extra sleep, so I got some shorts on and then headed over to the gym as fast as I could. I burnt of my energy by setting the treadmill as fast as it would go and then sprinting for about 15 minutes. I really enjoy the gym here at UPenn because it is free, clean, the equipment is brand new, and the staff is all very friendly and helpful. I finished my workout by trying out an elliptical runner, lifting weights, and then stretching out to make sure that I’m not sore tomorrow.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >By the time I was through at the gym, it was past 11 and Alex was on his way to a café sop I had him grab me a bagel. Soon enough, it was time for lunch, so I went and got a hoagie with my friends at the local store. I cleaned up and then got ready to go with my friends to Center City, Philadelphia. The sign-out process is pretty easy, and we quickly caught the next train downtown. As soon as we got off the train, we decided to go to Love Square to cool down a bit. In Love Square there is a large fountain that we played in for about half an hour. The water felt great, and it’s a cool place because it’s a nice park in the middle of a very dense city. After the fountain we still wanted to cool off some more so we found a nearby frozen yogurt place. After I took a copious amount of samples, I decided on a mixture of orange sherbet and blueberry. Finally, we headed back in to the heat and decided to do some shopping which I don’t generally enjoy, but I went anyways because it’s somewhat fun when you go with friends. We went to a large mall in the middle of Philly and started browsing through the various stores while a couple of the others actually bought stuff. After looking through a few reasonably priced stores, I couldn’t help but take a peek in one of the really expensive suit stores. The suits there were pretty nice, but not worth their price tags which were often high enough o be the down payment on a nice car. We left the mall and then went to some other smaller stores on the street. My friends Fred and Alison both found cool hats that they bought.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >We left Center City at about 6:45 in order to be back with some time to spare before we had to check in. We checked in and then decided to go out for dinner because we don’t have meal plans on Saturday so we have to eat elsewhere. The restaurant we chose is actually only about 500 feet from our dorms and it’s called Beijing. Beijing was a nice Chinese restaurant, and the meals are served family style so we each chose a dish that we liked and then shared it with everyone else. We got pork chops, fried rice, lo mein, and a hot pot dish. I enjoyed the food and conversation a lot, and luckily there are some leftovers for tomorrow. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >The final part of my day was energizing but eventually relaxing. I ran around with my friends on a scavenger hunt around the campus for a while which was quite fun. Eventually we got tired and settled into our dorms where we are now. I’ve been relaxing and studying a bit of Italian and reading a book for school. Tomorrow should be a lot of fun in Ocean City although the weather forecast is not great.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Goodnight.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0