Physics Blog

I’m currently in Boston for the 2019 March Meeting, which is as exciting, overwhelming, and exhausting as usual! Circling Boston to approach for landing. Keen viewers can see the Boston Commons (just on the far side of the river), the MIT campus (on the near side of the river, toward…

As mentioned earlier, I’m at the APS March Meeting in Boston this week.  There’s so much to say about all the talks that I’ve been to, etc, but in this post I’m just going to tell you about all the amazing Wooster connections! First off, of course, we have five…

Wooster Receives $325,000 Grant from NSF in Support of Summer Research Program WOOSTER, Ohio – The College of Wooster was awarded a grant of $326,132 on Tuesday from the National Science Foundation, extending support to the department of physics’ long-running and successful Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) site.The three-year grant…

I recently returned from a refreshing and productive leave at the University of Oregon in Eugene.  I received my own Ph D in the field of quantum optics at Oregon, and my leave was a great opportunity to continue work with prior colleagues.  However, I am excited to be back…

Wooster team earns a silver medal in the 2018 UPC

Observing geometric phases in the lab New analysis, simulations, and 3D printing expand the scope and appeal of a classical geometric phase. Richard J. Fitzgerald Falling cats and Olympic divers share the ability to twist, spin, and reorient themselves to land on their feet or make minimal splash. To accomplish…

From Haidar Essili: All I can think of to describe my experience in the Standard model’s 50th anniversary conference is to repeatedly yell the word wow, until I have lost the will to do so. I am at a loss of words, but I will attempt to put my flustered speech in…

Spring is a big time for outreach here at Wooster Physics. The Physics Club runs demonstrations for local elementary schools, doing often two outreach visits a week during the spring.  (In the fall, we are usually prepping for this flurry of events — sending letters to the schools and doing…

Congratulations class of 2018!  I’ve attached a few pictures of some of our seniors and professors who gathered for a quick photo on graduation day (pics courtesy of Zane Thornburg).  Special congratulations are in order for Avi Vajpeyi (far left in the second photo), who was selected to be one…

Well, we’re so busy doing things here at Wooster Physics that we haven’t kept up the blogging about all our exciting activities. Case in point — CUWiP 2018! For the last several years, the American Physical Society has been hosting Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP). These are regional conferences…

Scenes from the 2018 APS March Meeting

The March Meeting is always so exciting — there is so much information here! Graphene origami and micron-sized laser controlled robots at Marc Miskin’s talk on Tuesday morning. SO COOL! On Tuesday morning, I went to an outstanding session on Atomic Origami.  There is some truly amazing work out there…

I’m currently in Los Angeles for the American Physical Society March Meeting — the largest gathering of physicists in the world. This year there are almost 11,000 attendees, and more than 55 simultaneous sessions to choose from! The moon setting over downtown LA as the sun rises There are physicists…

This spring, each Wooster Junior physics major undertook a six-week scientific investigation of their own design, as a part of our junior independent study course. Watching their projects come to fruition over the course of the semester was a very rewarding experience for me, and I am happy to announce…

Walking – we all do it. But why do we walk so often? Why doesn’t everyone skip down the block to work? Aside from that being deemed as weird by society, walking is the most efficient way for people to move on earth due the gravity here. We’ve all experienced…

For my Junior Independent Study, I looked into some cool physics videos to find an interesting topic to explore. I found a youtube video about the University of New Mexico Couette cell apparatus for demonstrating laminar flow and decided that watching fluid blend together and then separate out again was an interesting…

The purpose of my experiment was to analyze whether the behavior of an RLC (Resistor, Inductor, Capacitor) circuit is noticeably affected by replacing the inductor with an oscillating spring. Common inductors take the form of solenoids which are helical coils of wire that are wrapped around a core. This core…

This project uses an electronic circuit to demonstrate something called stochastic resonance. Stochastic resonance (SR) is present many places in nature–from dictating the timing of ice ages to aiding in fish hearing. So, what is it? SR is simply when a random noise signal serves to boost the strength of…

Solar sails utilize the change in momentum of photons as a means of propulsion. This allows spacecraft with solar sails to significantly reduce their mass, since they do not have to carry onboard fuel (in comparison to traditional rocket-based spacecraft). This project aims at designing a program to display the…

I have always thought that one of the most outdated technologies we currently employ in the large scale is propellers for ships. While this isn’t a critical fault in our world it does lead to a lot of inefficiencies. Modern trade ships and super-tankers use millions of tons of fuel annually….