Physicists Are Not Afraid to Get Their Hands Dirty

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 set up for the lab we are going to perform tomorrow to measure the speed of light got my blood pumping.

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.

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.

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 together. 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 are 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.
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.

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).

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.

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.

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 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 stopped 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.

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 some 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 amount 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 into the mixture, it proved even more difficult to yank a foot out.
Bill wrapped the day up nicely with a demonstration of how a pro does it:

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.

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.

Once I got myself dried off and cozy, I relaxed in my room for the rest of the night.

Ocean City

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Atlantic

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ocean City, We Barely Knew Thee

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 Zombieland 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 Zombieland and it was a funny movie. Once we did arrive though, I was anxious to get into the water.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.

A Breath of Fresh Air

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

"Excessive Heat" Didn't Stop Our Fun

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Brian is the Luigi to Fred's Mario

This can't handle this cut-out because it's bi-winning

Alison's best nerd face

Pay no attention to the severed hands in the background...

Running is Relaxing?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Goodnight.