Physics is Beautiful

Class this morning was made incredible by the excitement of analyzing our roller coaster data, the many creative demonstrations that Bill had set up for us for his lecture, a very interesting guest speaker, and beginning to collect some very interesting data for our interest group afternoon labs.

First thing in the morning, we broke into our Hershey Park groups and downloaded the data we collected on our accelerometers and video cameras to the computers and making sensible graphs out of them. I was really impressed at how well our data came out and how interesting it is to compare acceleration in the x, y, and z direction as well as altitude versus time, especially once we have synced it to the first person video we took from the front car of the ride (which is admittedly mostly the grab rail, but there is definitely some useful information lurking in the background). We really only spent enough time with that to get the data on to Logger Pro, fix up the graphs and save it. The rest of the work for the presentation of Friday will be done outside of class.

After that, Bill gave a really interesting lecture on magnetism and its interactions with electricity. As always, his unique analogies and awesome demos gave me an even deeper understanding (in an enjoyable way) of a subject I was already familiar with. The first demo was one I had already seen; he sprinkled iron filaments on a magnet and we noted the patterns they aligned themselves in. In my high school course, that's as far as we went but because we have access to Penn's numerable resources, today we also got to see magnetic fields in three dimensions with tiny iron particles suspended in oil, forming a magnetic fluid. The shapes formed were more than interesting, they were beautiful. Bill also showed us how a moving current can form a magnetic field, and a moving magnetic field can form a current. The demo he used for this was an electron beam (visible through neon) between two loops of current carrying wire forming a circle. It was all really amazing to look at.

After morning lecture, Doug Smith, a medical doctor gave a talk about Traumatic Brain Injury. The lecture focused a lot on the biology that went hand in hand with the physics of the collisions we endure. It was a very interesting and probably the most applicable talk to our every day lives. I have always known the importance of wearing a helmet, but now I understand not only the physics but also a little bit about the biology behind why that it.

As the day progressed, things just got more exciting. Today was our first day of data collection in out interest groups. First, we used the radii we found with our electron deffraction patterns on phosphorous screens and the De Broglie formula to find the distance between the muclei in our crystal filter. We also played around with the voltage and the location of the beam and got some really beautiful patterns.After that, we hooked a photo multiplier to a counter and a double slit interference chamber that contains only one photon at a time. We adjusted the position of a small shutter by half a millimeter and took new data samples at each place so that we could understand the deffraction pattern that occurs even when only one photon is moving at a time. In esenc, what this means to us is that even though light can be thought of in photons, or massless particles, each of those can behave as a wave independantly of any other photons and with no medium to travel through, which is impossible in large scale mechanics so we do not fully understand whats going on. It's mindblowing.

After class, I had a couple hours to chill in my dorms and get dressed up before our dinner with the Yale ILC group, Charles Ramsey, Madeline Kronenberg, and an admissions councilor at Swarthmore. The food was delicious especially compared to the dorm food, but the conversation was even more satisfying. Although I still don't see myself thriving at a college as small as Swarthmore is, what our guest said about all the options available for courses and the freedom undergraduates have in choosing their own path was really appealing to me and I hope to be able to find that same system at a slightly more busy place with more of a focus in research.

When we got back to the quad, it was already past 10, so we spent a little time introducing our friends from the Yale porgram to our classmates at Penn and then we said goodnight. I am very excitid for tomorrows guest lecture on the physics of neuroscience because those are the two fields that I have the most interst in and I am curious to see how they can be combined.

Tales from the Antarctic

Today Alex and I got up at the usual time to get ready for class. We got our stuff together and then walked over to the dining hall. In lieu of my usual fast breakfast, I went for the slightly more substantial pancakes and potatoes. All things considered, I’ve found the dorm food to be quite good at UPenn which was a surprise considering how bad many adults have told me the food used to be. I quickly polished off my pancakes, Alex also finished his meal, and we went back to our room to grab our backpacks and notebooks for the day. We had about half an hour to spare, so I spent a while catching up on a summer assignment for my English class, and then I spent a little time reading a physics book. The book I am reading right now is called “50 Ideas You Really Need To Know about The Universe”. I enjoy the book a lot because it is excellent at presenting many wildly different ideas in short articles. When I find an article that is particularly interesting, it is easy for me to further learn about the idea that I might not have otherwise been exposed to.

The walk to class was fairly typical, but every day I enjoy the beautiful campus and casual conversation with my friends. I arrived at class and enjoyed saying hello to all of my fellow students who I now know almost all of. In class, Bill began to lecture us about modern physics. We went over the ideas of special relativity and prepared for our guest speaker. In preparation for our guest speaker, we watched a documentary of the speaker who is named Mark Trodden. The video showed the last 8 years of Mark’s work which began with an idea for how to research the cosmic microwave background. For those that don’t know, the cosmic microwave background is the leftover radiation from the Big Bang. After the Big Bang which was extremely hot, huge amounts of very high energy waves were emitted. Because the universe is expanding, these waves hit the Earth as microwaves. The problem that Mark had to overcome to research these waves was that microwaves can’t travel through the atmosphere without being significantly altered. Therefore, Mark either had to raise the hundreds of millions of dollars for a satellite microwave telescope, or find some other way to get a telescope above the majority of the atmosphere. The idea that Mark had was was to use a weather balloon to carry his telescope to 135,000 feet above sea level which is above 99.5% of the atmosphere and therefore the microwaves strike his telescope with very little interference.

Mark’s story about his attempts at scientific discovery truly taught me about perseverance and why people always say that failing and learning from your mistakes is the most valuable thing you can do. Mark’s first attempt at launching a balloon was from Sweden where the balloon circled the North Pole for a few days and then parachuted back to Earth. While the launch went smoothly, the worst case happened and they found out right away that their telescope was not properly focused and therefore the trip was a bust. Mark’s next attempt was in Antarctica where the winds were more favorable and they redesigned the telescope from their mistakes. This time, they designed the telescope so that they could refocus it after launch and they redesigned the primary mirror which had fractured on the last launch. This time, 6 years after he began the project, Mark’s team finally got the data they were searching for. The telescope was perfectly focused and the data box with their hard drives full of their precious data parachuted down to Earth. Everything went perfectly until the data hit the ground where the parachute acted as a dragchute and dragged the entire several ton telescope for 120 miles and destroyed everything. On a stroke of luck, Mark found the data box which was white and nearly invisible on the Antarctic ice. The project was saved, and the data turned out to be extremely high quality and useful. I enjoyed Mark’s talk very much because he truly showed us what it can be like to be a scientific researcher. Who knows if it’s what I’m cut out for, but I really enjoyed the insight into such an interesting and progressing field.

Black Holes Burn Bright

Week three of Summer Discovery at Penn has begun. We began class today with Craig lecturing about modern physics and relativity. He told us that modern physics is when the perspective of physics changed completely. The lecture today was half history and half concept. First he discussed how Einstein questioned some of the basic principles about light and time. Craig explained that the laws of physics are the same for all observers moving at steady speeds with respect to each other. He also said that before modern physics, people believed that time was a universal constant. Einstein proved that light, not time, is the universal constant and that time is relative. This transitioned into the conceptual lesson of the day, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the resulting equation E=mc^2, where E is energy, m is mass, and c is the speed of light. I really like Craig’s style of lecturing. He’s very energetic and he teaches almost as if he’s telling a story, which makes it very engaging. All of the TAs have great lecture styles, but I think Craig’s is my favorite.

After lecture, we watched a documentary called BLAST, which was about a Penn cosmology professor, Mark Devlin, and his research into other galaxies. He and his team constructed a telescopic satellite, which they launched from Antarctica, and were able to capture photos of distant galaxies. Eventually, the satellite crash-landed, but the data survived, so it was still a success. Our guest lecture was interesting as well, especially since it was given by the same professor that we just watched a documentary on! Mr. Devlin told us that BLAST stood for Balloon-borne Large Aperture Submillimeter Telescope. He also mentioned that if you want funding from NASA, you need your project to have a good acronym (which if you think about it seems to be the case). He told us a lot about cosmology and explained some of the phenomena that are occurring in the nearby galaxies. For instance, the Whirlpool Galaxy is currently colliding with one of its neighboring galaxies. He also explained that the universe is a fluid that is coalescing and being drawn together. However, the most interesting tidbit of information he gave us was that black holes are some of the brightest things in the cosmos because of all the matter they suck in, which in turn gives off light and energy. He gave a fascinating lecture.

After lunch, we returned to class and were assigned new groups for this week’s lab work. I was mistaken before when I said that this week would be dedicated to studying Newton’s Law of Cooling. Instead, we were put into groups based on what we chose when given a choice of five topics to research. I was hoping to study Ooblek, which is a mixture of corn starch and water that changes properties depending on how force is applied to it, but I was given my second choice, radio telescopes. I am glad I was given radio telescopes though because I am one of the few groups who has the opportunity to study with another Penn professor. My group, which consists of Onur, Berke Tezcan, Faith Waldron, Danielle Ziaja, and Shreya Jain, will be studying under James Aguirre. James has been a professor at Penn for a number of years and recently returned from researching in South Africa. Unfortunately, we did not have time to discuss this at great length, but I plan to ask him about it at some point this week. He gave us a brief introduction to studies involving radio telescopes and we even did a mini-experiment using one he had in the lab. A couple of the advantages to using a radio telescope over a visual one are that you can measure things such as temperature and electrical properties with them. He demonstrated this by observing a fluorescent lightbulb using a telescope he constructed using a Direct TV satellite he hooked up to a frequency scanner and oscilloscope. All the craftsmanship and ingenuity I’ve seen here thus far has really inspired the scientist within me. Today we had a great session with James and I look forward to working with him and the rest of my group as the week progresses.

After class, Onur and I ran to the Penn bookstore and I helped him pick out some music. I let him listen to a couple of my favorite bands on my phone and he actually bought one of the CDs I recommended. Hooray for cultural sharing! I only wish I understood Turkish so I could listen to his music too. Once we left the bookstore, we made our way back to the quad so we could go to the Penn Admission Information Session. This meeting was a great way for prospective students to learn about Penn. The speaker gave an extensive speech about how applying to apply to Penn She then opened the floor to questions. Most of the information was basic stuff and I already knew a lot of it, but I was still able to glean some more information about test scores and other details about the application process. I took extensive notes so anyone who is interested can learn a little more about Penn.

· When you apply to Penn, you apply to one of four schools: the College of Arts and Sciences, the Wharton School of Business, the School of Engineering, or the School of Medicine.

· For the School of Engineering, there is a graduation requirement that all students in that school must design something. The idea is to create something (anything really) that shows ingenuity and innovation using what one has learned as an engineer.

· Each of the schools has its own core curriculum.

· In the application process, Penn reviews GPA/class rank, transcripts/rigor of courses, test scores (ACT/SAT I and II), and extracurriculars.

· Penn values well-rounded students AND well-lopsided students, as long as lopsided students are heavily invested in an area of their interest.

· Penn IS NOT a score choice school, which means they ask for all of your test scores, no matter what the score.

· Penn requires the SAT I and two SAT II Subject Tests OR the ACT with writing.

· The median SAT score is around 2000-2200 and the median ACT composite score is around 32-33.

· Interviews are not required, but they help.

· Penn has many study abroad programs (none were listed specifically, but I’m sure the information can be found at Penn’s website).

This is only the tip of the iceberg regarding admission to Penn, so for anyone interested in applying, I strongly recommend checking out the Penn website or contacting an Admissions Official via phone or email (they love it when you do!).

The rest of our night was spent relaxing and talking about our respective days. Since Brian was assigned the Ooblek group, I had a lot of questions about what kind of experiments he would be doing. Today was another excellent way to start off the week, and I am looking forward to my studies. My only regret is that my time at Penn becomes less and less as the days pass. I just have to make my remaining days count, and that is certainly what I plan to do.

An Intro to Quantum Mechanics

Today was an especially exciting day in the physics classroom for a number of reasons. First of which was that our morning lecture was on a particularly fascinating and thought-provoking realm of physics: the Theory of General relativity. It was only a few moths ago, towards the end of my physics course at El Cerrito, when I first started really understanding the concept of motion bending time and space. The explanation I was given back then was that it was impossible to go faster than the speed of light and that the speed of light never changed, which allowed me to understand the vague concepts, but didn't offer any real-world explanations as to how we know that or why that is.

The morning lecture today discussed some of the experiments that were performed with rotating mirrors and other methods of diffraction that measured the speed of light and proved that it is a constant. We also watched a video depicting one of Einstein's thought experiments that explained that things that are thought of as simultaneous from the viewpoint of a stationary observer are not perceived that way from one who is in motion. It was all very fascinating and it definitely helped to further re enforce my understanding of relativity.

Another reason today was particularly exciting was that we heard from a guest speaker named Mark Devlin, a graduate from Princeton who did graduate work at our very own UC Berkeley and is now a major player in the UPenn faculty. He studies cosmic background radiation, energy left over in the universe from the big bang. Before he came to talk with us, we watched a documentary about some of the research he has done in the last ten years. The film showed Delvin and his crew of fellow researchers and grad students launching extremely sensitive microwave detectors with huge focusing parabolic mirrors and a Helium 3 refrigerated heat sensor. They launched BLAST (Balloon-borne Large Aperture Sub-millimeter Telescope) using a huge balloon that inflates to the size of a football field instead of launching it with rockets because it allowed them to perform the experiments using only 1 or 2 percent of the funds. They chose to do most of their launches in Antarctica where there are fewer thing to hit and the winds are circumpolar so after a week or so, if all goes well, the balloon should drop the telescope back off where it was launched.

That's in theory. However, the movie described the mechanics of actually launching the thing, and showed the perils and possible disastrous situations involved on attempting to collect data in Antarctica. It turns out, it's tricky business and the methods used to reduce error are really quite amazing. I recommend checking out the movie "BLAST" it is very entertaining and informative and definitely worth an hour of your time.

The talk given right after the movie was even more so. While the film focused of the mechanics of the experiment, Delvin himself talked to us a little bit more about the physics behind the data collection and the implications of the analyzing that they were able to do with it. He discussed how we can learn about the formation of stars by recording images of galaxies billion light years away, and therefore studying light that is reaching us just now but was originally emitted billions of years ago. It was really cool hearing about what Delvin did from the formation of his experiment to the collecting and analyzing of data.

It was especially cool because after lunch, we got a taste of how we are going to be experiencing that process first hand this week in the first day of our special interest groups (which is the third reason why today was particularly interesting). I ended up in my third choice which was quantum mechanics where we will be studying the diffraction patterns of electrons and singular photons and discussing what those patterns tell us about the way the world works on a sub atomic level. Even though it was not my first choice, it is clear that I am going to learn a lot and that every day of the four-day course will be packed full of interesting material and experiments. Today we set up a laser beam in a photon multiplier and we could hear the electrical signals hat were being sent as singular photons were interacting with the electrons. It was very cool and I was actually sad to return to my dorms.

I only had a few minutes after class to gather my things and tidy my dorm before we all met in the quad to go the the admission session regarding Undergraduates at UPenn. The admissions councilor who came to speak to us was very friendly and told us very useful information about the four undergraduate colleges, the admissions process, what specifically UPenn is looking for in perspective students and other useful and interesting information. I'm surprised how many of these information sessions I can go to and still learn something new. It's incredible.

Afterward, we ate dinner in a particularly crowded dining hall and threw a football round. I went back to my dorm and looked over some of the information about what we will be doing tomorrow in our photon/electron lab before I went to sleep. I can honestly say I am excited for class tomorrow.

UPenn on Ice

Sundays have become my favorite days of the week here at Penn for the sole reason that they are the one day I occasionally get to sleep in past 9 o'clock. Today was no exception. Those of us who were going ice skating got to stay in till 10 at which time we are at a little cafe that sold some delicious croissants. At 11 we met in the quad and loaded up on the school buses that took us to the rink. After a short drive (very short compared to yesterday) we arrived, got our skates on and hit the ice.

We had managed to convince the two European guys on Brian and Alex's floor who had never skated before to join us on the trip, so we tried to teach them. Two of the RC's who came with us played ice slating sports so they helped instruct them as well. They mostly stuck to the walls in the beginning but by the end of the day they could skate fairly decently and even joined in the congo lines we made, only causing one major pile up (that fortunately injured no one). They also avoided any collisions with the multitude of small children that are always present at the edges of the rink.

Since the rink in Oakland shut down, I haven't been able to skate very often at all so I am really glad it was one of the activities they offered for our day off. We had a lot of fun messing around on the ice and teaching the two newbies was also quite entertaining. The ice also gave us a nice break from the sweltering heat. It was the first time I actually started shivering since I left the Bay Area.

Once we got back, we got some lunch at a Mexican restaurant on campus where we sat and watched the Woman's World Cup as we ate. We left when it went into overtime to check out some shops on campus. I bought a CD for a dollar at a nifty bookstore we found. We spent a lot of time checking the place out actually. It was quite cool. It even had store cat that let me pet it.On our walk back home, we passed by the restaurant we had eaten at and stopped to watch the penalty kicks through the window. We walked away disappointed when the American team lost.

When we got back it was almost 6, so I had just enough time to do some lab surveys, lay around and enjoy some prime Sunday free time before heading down to the dining hall before it closed, playing some Frisbee in the quad, taking care of the laundry that's started to pile up, and watch a movie in the lounge before getting to bed to get some rest for another eventful week.

Skating

Today was a day of rest and relaxation. Alex and I were all too excited to set our alarm clock for 9:15 when we woke up and got ready for breakfast. Before breakfast, I had the pleasure of doing one of my least favorite chores-laundry-. After I got my laundry started, I caught up with my friends and because the dining hall was closed we headed to a bakery on campus. At the bakery I got a bagel and a delicious chocolate croissant to enjoy for breakfast. After breakfast we headed back to the dorms where we waited for our bus to arrive. When the bus arrived, we signed in and got on board for the short ride to the ice skating rink. While some of the ride was through the city, we got to see a bit of the countryside as we drove to Southern New Jersey. We arrived at the ice skating rink several minutes early so we had time to get our skates on before the rink was open.

The minute the ice rink was opened I hopped into the rink and wobbled around for a bit. Soon enough, I remembered how to skate decently and I started doing some laps with my friends. One of our counselors used to be on a speed skating team, so I asked him for some pointers on my skating form. He was very helpful and spent about half an hour coaching me to become faster and more comfortable with the extra speed. There’s not a whole ton to say about going skating, but I had a very fun time and it was a fun way to get some exercise.

Once our two hours of skating was up, we got back on the bus and headed back. We convinced our counselors to take us again next weekend because we had such a great time. Once we were back we decided to go out to lunch at a local Mexican restaurant. The Women’s World Cup was playing on several screens, so we watched the last 20 minutes of the game. While I’m not an avid women’s soccer fan, I was still disappointed to see the U.S. lose. That said, I have several friends from Japan who were very excited for the victory because it was something for Japan to unify about after the terrible earthquakes and resulting tsunamis ravaged Japan. Once the game was done, we decided to check out the used bookstore next door. I can spend hours in bookstores, but we only had a few minutes so I impulsively bought a book to learn Spanish. I’ll see if I have the follow through to actually do anything with it, but I’m becoming very interested in learning other languages and living in California, learning Spanish would be quite pragmatic. In school I’ve studied for four years trying to learn Japanese which I today found out is commonly recognized as the most difficult language for an English speaker to learn along with Cantonese. While I fully intend to continue studying Japanese, I would like to try and learn a language that shares more roots with English such as Spanish or Italian.

After my impulse buy, we walked back to the dorms where I have finally been able to get some rest. I’ve hung out with my friends for a few hours playing games and such and now I’ve had a bit of quiet time. One thing that I’ve had to get used to here is always having a roommate. While I appreciate and get along with Alex very well, I go out of my way to find a bit of time each day to relax and be alone with my thoughts. I’m ready for another week of hard studying and tons of fun with my Philadelphian family.

Ice Skating in Ninety Degree Weather

Today was an excellent day. Although we didn’t have much planned, we were all very excited about today because we would get to go ice skating. We started today by going to a restaurant/bakery called Au Bon Pain. Most of us got different food and we were all very satisfied by our various baked goods. I got a bagel and croissant, both of which were baked to perfection. We did not have much time to eat though because we had to be back at the quad by 11:00 so we could meet our group to head to the ice rink. We met with our peers in the quad and boarded the bus on time. We were New Jersey bound.

The drive was surprisingly short, which was pleasant after yesterday’s two and a half hour drives between D.C. and Philly. We only had to drive for about fifty minutes, give or take, to get to the rink. Normally, the rink is not open before 12:30, but we were about half an hour early and they let us in anyway. We all got our skates and hit the ice fairly quickly. I had only been ice skating once before, and that was three years ago, so I expected it to take a while to get back into the swing of things. However, after going skating around the edge of the rink for only about ten minutes I was doing well. This was Onur’s and Abheek’s first ice skating outing, so we showed them the ropes and they picked it up rather quickly. The RC’s that accompanied us to the rink were both very experienced skaters and were very impressive. One of them (his name escapes me at the moment) used to do speed skating in college, and it showed today through the elegance with which he skated. We skated for about two and a half hours, but the time seemed to fly by. Skating was my favorite part of the day because I was able to do something I would not normally be able to do at home with great friends. I even decided to be daring and pull out my camera while on the ice to snap some pictures of my friends skating so I could get some pictures for the blog.

We decided to visit the hockey shop before skating...it got violent.

Abheek and Julia seem to be speeding based on the blur.

Alison and Fred skate towards the edge for a break.

Brian gracefully glides past...

We got back to Philly at about 4:00 and went to get a late lunch at Qdoba, a Mexican restaurant similar to Chipotle. Most of my friends were transfixed on the TV in the corner of the restaurant because the FIFA Women’s World Cup was playing and they were all anxious to see who would win, Japan or the US. We walked around campus for a while after that, visiting a CVS and a small bookstore, before returning to the dorms.

Upon our return to the dorms, we realized that it was getting late. Despite having a late lunch, we decided to grab dinner only a few hours later because we wanted to make sure we weren’t hungry later that evening. We made a quick trip to the commons and ate dinner. When we got back we decided to toss around Richard’s aerobee (which is a Frisbee with a hole in the middle for better aerodynamics). I plan to ask Bill about why an aerobee flies so much better than a regular Frisbee tomorrow in class. Throwing the aerobee made me reminiscent of my time at Cornell because Andrew Woo and I were fond of this activity ourselves. After about an hour of throwing and chasing the disk, we decided to retire for the evening. The remainder of our time was spent in the dorms hanging out and talking. We even showed each other our home towns and schools via Google Maps. Eventually, we all separated again and our day came to a close.

Today was an enjoyable day. It feels like the weekend flew by. It is funny to think that we have to go to class tomorrow when it feels like the weekend just began. I am perfectly ok with this though, because tomorrow we get to organize our data from Friday’s lab in the Logger Pro data recording software. We also get to continue our experimentation with Newton’s Law of Cooling. I’ve never looked forward to any class as much as I have with the Experimental Physics Academy. I love it because I’m surrounded by peers that share my academic interests and curiosity, and because I am getting the chance to research science that I would never get the chance to do otherwise in high school. On that note, I have to get ready for class tomorrow. I’m signing off for now.