Hershey Park

Today was the day I have been looking forward to this entire last week. Through some mistake with our alarm clock, Alex and I slept in until 7:50-10 minutes before we were supposed to be outside of the front gates. Luckily for us, our friend from one room over, Onur, is also in the physics program and he realized that we weren’t up so he woke us up. He was even kind enough to grab us some food for breakfast while we quickly got our act together by getting dressed, throwing cameras, cell phones, books, and iPods into our backpacks and headed downstairs. Thanks to Onur, we made it onto the bus in time and we had food to eat on the bus.

The next couple hours of hour day were not as adrenaline packed as the first 10 minutes, but they were still relatively enjoyable. Once I was settled I ate a light breakfast with the intent of filling myself up but not being so stuffed that I’d feel sick on the rides later. After my breakfast, I popped open a book and read for a good part of the ride. They also had a movie playing about the famous scientist Richard Feynman that I watched and found quite interesting. The movie was basically a biography of Richard’s life and it detailed how he became interested in science—which eventually led to him taking part in building the atomic bomb.

In the World War Two class that I took last year, I was the head of the prosecution in a mock war crimes trial with the defendant President Harry Truman. Through this two week long trial I became very aware of the various ethical aspects of dropping the bomb, but I have not yet had the opportunity to learn much about the development of the bomb. Because of this, I found the movie, which is called “Infinity’ by the way, to be quite interesting as a way of getting inside the head of one of the leading scientists of the time. Additionally, I intend to read the book “The making of the Atomic Bomb” which our teacher, Bill Berner, highly recommended.

Anyways, back to what we did today. Once we got off the bus, getting into HersheyPark went very smoothly. Even though Bill was carrying 50 or so pounds of electronics that easily made him look like a terrorist, the security was friendly and we were in the park in less than five minutes. Inside the park, we established a meeting spot where we got all of our gear for the morning. My group of four got our gear and we quickly headed to our rollercoaster of choice: the SooperDooperLooper.

We got on the ride with two of us looking completely ridiculous. We alternated who got to make the amazing fashion statement of wearing a fanny pack and who got to look highly suspicious by wearing a vest that held the camera in it. Although we looked ridiculous, we set up our 3-dimensional accelerometer, fastened our gear down and got ready to ride. The ride we rode lasted about two minutes for each run, and we went on a few times in a row to get several sets of data to make sure it was accurate. After we had gotten several sets of data, we returned our equipment to Bill and got ready to enjoy the next several hours at the park.

The roller coasters at HersheyPark were a lot of fun. Though I didn’t keep track of how many rides we went on, we tried every kind of ride you can imagine. We tried wooden coasters, smooth metal coasters, and my favorite, the hydraulically launched Storm Runner. Storm runner was my favorite because it accelerates you from 0 to 72 miles per hour in less than two seconds and you then go flying straight up into the air well over a hundred fifty feet.

Wheeeeeeee!!!

The ride continues by careening down the other side and then doing some fancy loops. We rode several more roller coasters like this that I won’t bother to describe, but I had a really fun time on all of them especially because all of my friends were with me. In the afternoon we were pretty hot so we decided to try a water ride to cool off a bit. While we were repeatedly warned, we all went on the ride in our regular clothes and proceeded to be absolutely saturated with about 10 gallons of water each. After I wrung out my clothing, we headed to some more rides and before we knew it, it was time to head home.

As a last fun thing in the park, I went with Julia and watched her get a cool-looking design painted on her face. The ride back home went very smoothly just as the ride to the park had. We watched Harry Potter 7 part 1 (which I hadn’t seen yet so that was enjoyable as well). All in all, today was somewhat educational, and very very fun.

Who's got their hands in the air? Oh yeah, me.

Beautiful no?

The Rides at Hershey Park are Sweet

When I woke up this morning, I did not at all expect that by the end of the day I would have such a hoarse voice. Today was our class field trip to Hershey Park, where we would gather data from our respective rides. We had to meet in front of the quad at 8:00 so we could beat traffic into Hershey. We did in fact beat traffic, but the ride to the park was still long. We drove for two hours before reaching the amusement park. Once we arrived, we set up a base camp of sorts in a shaded area near the front of the park. This is where we were given our data collection tools and also where we would meet to leave the park later. Once my group was given a GLX (our data collection tool) and a camera, we headed for the SooperDooperLooper.

We had to walk about half way across the park to reach our ride, but it paid off later when we were trying to find other rides. The name SooperDooperLooper is slightly misleading. The name makes it sound like the loop is the main point of the ride. However, the loop is right after the first hill, which makes total sense with regard to physics, and then after that, the twists and turns of the ride are really what make it. The loop has to be right after the initial drop so that the carts have enough gravitational potential energy to convert into kinetic energy. This kinetic energy is important because otherwise the carts will not have enough energy to make it around the loop. Our data was easy to collect and we only had to spend about half an hour of our time working. Once we collected the data and analyzed it, we returned our equipment and began exploring the park.


Checking the data thoroughly

The first stop we made was at the most intense rollercoaster in the park: Fahrenheit. Since Mike has been to Hershey before and he had already experienced the whiplashing vertigo-inducing Fahrenheit he opted not to ride it. I also decided not to ride because I value the alignment in my spine and neck far too much to ride what looks to be a deathtrap.

Our group divided and Brian and Julia waited to ride the coaster for an hour. Mike and I did several things in the meantime. We rode the Lightning Racer, which is a wooden coaster on which two trains of carts race to the finish, as well as a pendulum ride called Pirate. Mike and I rode on separate trains of carts so we could race and my group of carts won. After several roller coaster rides, Pirate was actually pretty relaxing.

We also had lunch at a pizza shop next to the water ride Tidal Force (which will reappear later). We met up with Brian and Julia after we ate and thankfully they were each still in one piece.

Once we were all back together, we decided to ride Stormrunner, which is the second most intense coaster in the park. Words cannot really do justice to the experience so I will post a link to a YouTube video where you can see what we saw. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DEELm_Dajc) The ride is only about forty-five seconds long and the speed of the carts begins at about seventy miles per hour. I cannot really estimate how fast it was going after the first hill because I was just gripping the seat for dear life, but it was definitely faster than any other ride that I have been on in the past. It was a great ride and was definitely the highlight of my day, despite it being the cause of me losing my voice.

After Stormrunner, we headed to Tidal Force, which is similar to Logger’s Revenge for those readers who are familiar with the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. The ride is just a big cart that holds about twenty and you are dropped down a tall ramp into a pool below, which then causes a “tidal force” that splashes just about everything within a twenty foot radius. After Tidal Force, we decided to dry off by riding Lightning Racer again. Unfortunately we had to return to base camp and attempt to, once again, beat traffic. It didn’t work this time…


Being launched at 70 mph is not exactly calming...

When we returned to Penn, Brian and I discovered that we were late for our movie group’s departure. Because of this we had to go watch Avatar in the lounge instead of going to the real movie theater. Thankfully, all the other people in the room (about six people) were just as bored with the film as Brian and I were. When we finished disc one, we pleaded with Elliot (one of the RC’s that manages the events) to let us leave. He allowed us to leave so Brian and I sought out the other members of our group. Once the seven of us had gathered, we played Pictionary and Taboo in our lounge. It was a great way to conclude an already excellent day.

As I sit here typing this blog, I am also chugging water because I would like to restore my voice to full capacity. This was really the only downside to the day. All the other thrills I experienced today and all the fun I had far outweigh that small side effect. Tomorrow we will all be taking another field trip to Washington, D.C. and I cannot wait to tour the capitol with my friends. Until tomorrow’s blog, I’m signing off.

I thought the heat was getting to me when I saw dancing chocolate...

A sea of Domo...

Physics with a Side of Entropy

Today, class seemed very sporadic. Our topics of discussion were all over the place. First, we began with a discussion about gravitation, which seemed to come out of nowhere. I had learned gravitation in my high school physics class, but we did not spend a very long time on it. We basically only covered a few formulas and constants that we needed to know for standardized testing, but other than that we did not, delve very deeply into the topic. Today was quite different though. Bill was not only thorough in covering the math side of gravitation, but also the conceptual side, despite how vague this subject really is. He explained the inverse square relationships that are involved with gravitational strength and even began discussing Roche Limits. My high school physics teacher told me a little bit about Roche Limits before, but I really wanted to learn more. Today, my thirst for this knowledge was finally quenched. We learned that Roche Limits are the distance within a celestial body, held together by its own gravity, which will disintegrate due to a second celestial body’s tidal forces exceeding the first body’s gravitational attraction. Basically, one object can basically be ripped apart by another object’s gravity if it is pulled upon by a strong enough force. This was my favorite part of today’s lecture.

Following the lecture, we began talking about our field trip to Hershey Park tomorrow. We were presented with a list of rides that we could use for our tests as well as the parameters for our testing. We will have to chart data on the position and acceleration of certain points on our ride. My group, which is composed of Brian, Julia, and Mike, will be collecting data from a ride called the Sooperdooperlooper. We will have to ride the coaster several times to get different sets of data, and then we are free to do as we please in the park. The trips in this program are the best educational field trips I have ever been on.

We continued discussing Hershey Park until our guest lecturer, Dr. Randy Camien, arrived. Dr. Camien is a Soft-Condensed Matter Theoretician…even after his lecture I am still lost as to what that means. His lecture dealt with topology in physics, which concerns the continuous deformation of an object using stretching. The bulk of the information discussed interactions between light and liquid crystals. He explained, at great length, how and why liquid crystals (which are what make LCD screens work) operate the way they do. Liquid crystals operate by blocking certain colors of light and only letting other types through as they contract and expand. Dr. Camien was very interesting to listen to because he was able to draw analogies and examples from a lot of different places and still relate them back to topology. I find that I am enjoying our guest lecturers very much because they bring a new perspective to our class-wide discussion of physics.

Following the guest lecture and lunch, we performed a lab in which we had to measure the speed of electrons. We did this by using microscopic bubbles of oil that were suspended in a confined space using electric current. By increasing or decreasing the voltage, we could get the bubbles of oil to rise or fall, and our task was to measure how fast these bubbles moved. Once Onur, Mike, Lindsey, and I collected our data, we plugged our values for the velocity of the oil bubbles into Excel. Thankfully, the tables were already set up to evaluate the rest of the data that we would need once we plugged in the values for velocity. So, aside from having to strain my eyes by trying to find a tiny bubble of oil through a microscope, this lab was fairly easy. I’m finding that my new lab group is much more efficient than my old one. However, this could just be because we are all in a familiar space and are used to all the equipment by now. Either way, my group is working well.

The rest of the day was very relaxing. Brian and I hung out in our room for a while after class. Later our group enjoyed dinner together, played some Frisbee afterwards, and then we watched the movie Garden State, with Zach Braff and Natalie Portman. It was a great way to conclude the day, especially after the randomness of class. Moving from one topic to another that quickly can be disorienting at first, but I can certainly see the value in it. It forces me to think on my feet and adapt to a new idea or concept. It takes a while to get used to thinking like this, especially since things are so structured in my high school classes, but I am getting used to it. Despite today’s abnormal level of entropy (the physics term for randomness or chaos), it was still enjoyable and I learned a lot from our lab and two lectures. I love this class more and more each day because I am finally able to be immersed in a subject that I am truly passionate about.

Light, Lectures, and Labs. Oh My!

Today was another day where I was very glad to get some extra sleep. Alex and I slept in until eight and then got breakfast at the WaWa store. I picked up a couple of bagels with cream cheese and filled my bottle with water and then we headed to class. Over the last couple of days, we realized that we have been walking two sides of a triangle to get to class so using our amazing mathematical knowledge we decided that we should start walking along only one side because it’s much more efficient. Even though we woke up later than usual, we made it to class on time and took our seats.

Bill started off the day by talking about Newton’s Law of Gravitation. While it might seem a bit backwards because we were discussing special relativity yesterday, today we were going over very specific examples of how Newton’s Law of Gravitation works. The first thing to note about this law is that it is an inverse square law. What this means is that for two masses at a distance r apart that have some gravity that when they are twice as far apart, they will have four times less gravity. Bill furthered his discussion by talking about the rings of Saturn which clearly display some of the more interesting effects of gravity. One cool thing about Saturn’s rings is just that-that Saturn has multiple rings. There is a gap between these rings because there are meteors and moons that orbit Saturn a bit further out than these gaps in the rings and their gravity pulls the stuff further away from Saturn and clears out gaps between Saturn’s rings.

The next thing that we talked about in class is our upcoming field trip. Tomorrow, we will be visiting Hershey Park which is a large amusement park. There, we will bring along all sorts of weird looking electronics that will take an hour or so to get through security to convince them that they are science tools and not weapons. These strange looking electronics are really data loggers and 3 dimensional accelerometers. On our field trip, our job is to bring this data logging equipment along with us on a ride and take data of the acceleration on the ride we choose. In order to choose which rides we ride, we formed into 8 groups of four people each. Each group was then assigned a number, an in the interest of both fairness and geekiness, Craig used a random number generator to choose which group would pick which ride they would analyze first. To the surprise of many of us, the first group to choose did not choose a huge roller coaster but instead chose the Merry Go Round. Each group after continued to choose, and we were pleased to get our second choice, the Sooper Dooper Looper. While spell-check did not like the name of that roller coaster, I am really looking forward to spending time tomorrow riding and analyzing its motion. Of course the day will not be all work, because Bill encourages us to get our data collection finished before lunch so that we can have several hours after lunch to play and enjoy the park.

After our lunch break, we returned to do a lab. For those that are familiar with the foundation of chemistry and physics, we repeated the Millikan Oil Drop Experiment. The basic idea of the experiment is to spray tiny atomized droplets of oil into a chamber where you can see them with a microscope. Then, you can apply an electric field to the droplet to see how quickly it moves in one direction, flip the field and then see how quickly it goes that direction. With some logic and a bit of fancy math, we were able to calculate the charge on each electron. What impressed me so much was that Millikan came up with this extravagant experimental design and got such accurate data that it was used for many years. This was a fascinating lab to repeat, and it was much more interesting than the 5 times I have read about it in science classes.

I’m sure I’ll have an extensive blog about Hershey tomorrow, but for now it’s time for me to rest up for the big day. Goodnight.

I've Never Though of Oil as Beautiful Before...

Just to mix things up this morning, I actually got out of bed early so I had enough time to grab breakfast with my floor at the dinning hall (the blueberry pancakes today were almost as good as I get them at home) and then return to the quad to collect up the lab data that was due today. It was a nice, leisurely start to my day.

The first lecture of the morning was about Saturn's rings and what they tell us about the way gravity behaves. Bills presentation explained Newton's Law of Gravitation only after we understood the general concept based on what er know about the way Saturn looks (and also, the way the position of the moon affects the tides). It was a short talk, but there was a lot of really valuable and accessible information packed into it.

We then took care of some logistics. We went over the lab that we would be performing that afternoon (measuring the magnitude of a singular charge) as well as some information we needed for tomorrow and the weeks to come. Mary showed us pictures and gave a short shpeel of all the rides available for us to analyze at Hershey Park. We split up into the groups we would be working with for the acceleration experiment, discussed our options, and got familiar with the accelerometers we will be using tomorrow while we waited for our guest speaker.

They also discussed with us the options we had for the groups we are going to break up in for next weeks afternoon labs. These groups are not chosen based on who we think we would work best with, but rather, which group in investigating a subject we are interested in. We are going to be studying and experimenting with the same subject for the entire week in order to really be able to get into some investigative labs and theories. Some of the options that seemed especially cool were radio wave astronomy, wave/particle duality, and Non-Newtonian fluids. I am still having trouble deciding on just one topic because they all seem extremely interesting,

When our guest speaker showed up, things really picked up. His name was Randy Kamien and he is an expert on soft condensed matter. He started his lecture off with a magic trick where he unlinked together two solid rings (he later admitted that, in fact, one was not solid he was just covering the gap with his hand). He tied the trick into his lecture about topology (which he described simply as the science of counting) by telling us that the trick was magic because the ring originally intersected at one spot that you could count and it is impossible to change that in a loop. He went on to talk about liquid crystals in display screens and how lights ability to pass through the screen depends on the orientation of the molecules in the liquid crystal. To be honest, I don't think anyone understood all of what he was saying (he started involving fourth and fifth dimensions in his hypothetical looped path situations) but I could tell that he did a good job of making it much more accessible than it could otherwise be and I learned a lot of really cool stuff the things I didn't fully grasp only sparked my interest in physics more. Once again, we ate lunch only after all of our questions had been asked so we ate a little late, but it was definitely worth it.

When we returned for our afternoon labs, microscopes and perfume-like spray bottles filled with watch oil was waiting for us on the table. We recreated the experiment Millikan performed in order to find the charge of one electron. By looking at the speed of minuscule oil droplets falling through space and comparing it with the time it took them to rise when a known voltage was applied, we found that the average charge was very close to the accepted value of 1.6x10^-19. It was really fun looking through the microscope and timing these tiny droplets of oil illuminated on a black background. My eyes did start to hurt after a while (I can only imagine how Millikan must have felt) but the little specks of light moving around in the microscope was actually quite beautiful.

After class was over, I hung out in my room with my room mate and a couple other girls from our floor, One of them played a couple pop songs on the french horn that she brought. She was very talented so it was good fun listening to them (it is not easy to make a french horn sound that nice). Afterward, I grabbed some dinner and met up with Brian, Alex, and one of their floor mates and we watched another movie in the lounge before bed.

Modern Physics is Mind Blowing

It was hard to get out of bed this morning. I think I hit the snooze button about 4 times. It all worked out though because instead of walking to the dining hall, I grabbed a quick bagel at WaWa's (the Philadelphia version of a super seven-eleven) and ate it in the shade of the huge tree in the center of the quad. It was quite relaxing.

When my morning picnic was over, I walked to class with one of my current lab partners who is from LA. We had a nice chat about how interested we were in attending Penn as an undergraduate. It was very cool hearing his opinion of the place.

The class was lecture heavy today, which is not to say that it was boring. Whatsoever. In fact, today was probably one of the most interesting and thought provoking days of the entire course. We started out with a concept that is slightly counter-intuitive: particle/wave duality. Ryan, one of the student teachers, set up a very helpful PowerPoint in order to aid our understanding. We discussed the uncertainty principle and all that in entails. He showed us a diagram of Shrodinger's thought experiment involving a cat in a box. As long as the cat is in the box, you know where it is, but because it's in the box with a breakable vile of poison, you can not know if it is dead or alive, and so, for all intensive purposes, it is both dead and alive. It was a very strange scenario, but it definitely helped the entire concept make a little bit more sense.

After we all got headaches from wrap our minds around the concept of light as both a wave and a particle, Bill set aside an hour or so when we might normally do a lab to talk a little bit about what our past labs entail. He stressed that data is not important unless it is contemplated, analyzed and discussed.

The next lecture was a guest speaker by the name of Mark Trodden who is an expert in the field of cosmology. He talked a lot about galaxies and how he uses them to better understand gravitation, even applied to life on earth. He also discussed interesting concepts like the Doppler Effect, Hubble's constant, and dark matter and energy. He basically told us the entire story of scientist's current theory of the creation of the entire universe in less than two hours. I was fascinated by it all and how the study of the universe can be both humbling and helpful in appreciating just how special life on earth is. It's a touch of psychology mixed into physics.

We were released to go to lunch only about five minutes late, but almost everyone stayed behind at least thirty more minutes to ask fascinating questions that received equally as thought-provoking answers.

When we returned from our late lunch, we separated into lab groups to wok on labs as usual, except today, not only did we get to decide who our partners would be, we also got to decide what our experiment was going to be about and we were able to set it up ourselves. The only constraint put on us was to investigate the relationship between two non-linear variables and determine whether or not the relationship was exponential. Brian, Alex, and their floor mate Onour and I chose Newton's law of cooling. We graphed the curve of temperature vs. time of a probe first starting in hot water then cooling to room temperature, then starting from ice and warming to room temperature. Next we used two probes, one in the ice and one in the boiling water and switched them to see how their curves intersected. It was my favorite lab so far because of how independent and exploratory it was. Next Friday, once we collect our data and organize it, our job is going to be to give a presentation to the class about our findings, which sounds interesting, but not nearly as interesting as it will be to hear all the other group's findings.

After class, I took another quick nap before dinner, followed by what is becoming a fairly routine game of ultimate Frisbee. I'm proud to say I've improved quite a lot since the first day. Today was especially cool because we played with some students taking art classes here at Penn who were very fun to talk to (they were stressing about finishing their Mona Lisa).

After the game, we walked down to Seven-Eleven for some refreshments, then back to the quad where the weather was nice enough, even by 9:30 that we could just lay on the grass for a while before heading back to our rooms to sleep.

Not Enough Time in the Day...

Today seemed to fly by. Ever since I woke this morning, things seemed to be non-stop. I felt rushed while walking around campus, it felt like our activities came and went, and even time just sitting talking seemed to be fleeting. However, this didn’t make the day any less enjoyable. I still had a great time in class and after class.

Today Mary (one of our class TA’s) announced that we would be cutting back on the amount of labs we do in class. The reason we had been doing two labs per day in the beginning was to make sure that everybody had the basic knowledge that we would need for the rest of the course. Looking back at what we had learned, it makes sense. Mechanics is the very first step to a physics class and optics really helps us understand perspective, which can help us with our observation in other labs. Now that we have covered the basics, we are ready for the more intense labs, such as measuring the speed of light. Today we discussed waves and particles. This lecture was a lot different than the others because it was more theoretical than the rest. With our other discussions, we had been learning about things that could actually be measured and tested accurately. With waves and particles, there is a lot of guess work involved because we are dealing with things that are either invisible or too minute to see. Despite these obstacles, Bill and Ryan explained particle physics (a small part of it anyway) with extreme detail. Near the end of the lecture, Bill informed us that we would be performing our own research on a topic of our choosing next week. This project will be done in groups and we have to assemble a presentation upon its completion. We then got a fifteen minute break from the lecture to choose our groups and topic. I will be researching Newton’s Law of Cooling with Julia, Brian, and Onur. I am very excited about working together and learning about a topic that I have never studied before.

After the break, we had our first guest lecture. Dr. Mark Trodden, a professor here at Penn, came to talk to us about astrophysics and cosmology. Dr. Trodden received his PhD at Brown University and now teaches at Penn, as well as lectures other universities. I had never dealt with astrophysics or cosmology before today so this was completely uncharted territory. I was very lost at first, but with careful note taking, I was able to get a slight handle on Dr. Trodden’s lecture. The majority of the lecture revolved around light, energy, and how the two interact and behave in space. He also discussed the movement of galaxies and a few aspects of the big bang theory. One of the most interesting things that he said today was that the galaxies are accelerating, and that is proof of a big bang. The idea is that if the galaxies are accelerating outward, there had to be something to propel them outward in the first place, which is where the idea of a big bang comes in. Dr. Trodden was very thorough and was able to cover a massive amount of information into only an hour. That is something I really admire about college professors – they can talk at length about almost anything and still manage to make even the most complicated of topics interesting and engaging.

Dr. Trodden giving his lecture.

After the guest lecture, we had lunch, and following lunch was another brief lecture. We did not really cover any new concepts, but it was more an explanation of how we would have to conduct ourselves while researching our new topics. This research will be much different than the other labs that we have done. They will give us the materials, but we will have to come up with procedures and tests to run on our own. They are giving us complete control, which is something I’m not quite used to in a lab setting. Immediately after Bill gave us our instructions and guidelines for the project, we went into the lab to perform our first tests. We observed how fast thermometers would adjust to different temperatures after being placed in or removed from hot and/or cold water. Our graphs showed exponential changes in the changing temperatures of the thermometers. We have only taken a few steps, but I am already looking forward to this project.

After class, Brian and I returned to our dorm and reorganized our room. We maximized our floor space and made a few more areas for guests to sit. Since our room is the biggest out of all of our friends, it is kind of a central hub. After organizing, we went to dinner with Fred, Alison, Julia, Abheek, and Onur. Afterwards we decided to get a little exercise and throw around our Frisbee. Somehow we wound up in a game of ultimate Frisbee with another summer program at Penn right now. We won 15-10 in the end. We all went to get victory slurpees at 7-11 again. We decided to make it a tradition that whenever we play an intense game of ultimate Frisbee, whether we win or lose, we grab a slurpee after the game. We spent the remainder of the night relaxing out on the quad, and later in our new lounge when it got too dark.

Although everything that happened today seemed to go by so fast, I still had a great day. They say time flies when you are having fun. Today I experienced that first hand, and I loved every speeding minute of it.