Physics Blog

When I first came to Wooster, I had no clue what discipline I would explore, and didn’t even take my first physics class until the second semester of my freshman year; now, I’m coming up on the end of my second month conducting research at Michigan State’s National Superconducting Cyclotron…

Where do I begin? Experimental physics research has definitely been one of the longest love affairs that I have had, and this is only the beginning. This summer, I was given the opportunity to be a research assistant at CERN, Switzerland, and what an experience it has been so far! At…

Summer Lovin’ – Falling in Love with Experimental Physics I remember the first hour of my research experience very clearly. I had always been horrible at keeping a good lab notebook and now I had been given an extremely fancy lab notebook with my name in silver and “Lehman Research…

My first internship at Wooster has been a highly rewarding experience. Justine and I had the privilege to work with Dr. Lehman and Dr. Jacobs on a Wooster project that has been ongoing for over two decades – The Bead Pile Experiment. The essence of the project is the creation…

We held the 12th annual picnic and pie festival at my house just over a week ago.  (The tradition started the summer after my first year at the College, when one of the summer research students explained that, while she liked to bake pies, she didn’t really like to eat pies.  Dr. Lindner explained…

I’ve started following various science sites on Twitter as a way to keep up on the latest research, and last week an interesting article popped up on Phys.org with the title “Functioning brain follows famous sand pile model”.  Since my current research on avalanches on the beadpile is a essentially an experimental…

One of the Wooster summer traditions is the BWISER science camp for 7th and 8th grade girls.  The physics department has been responsible for an evening of demos for the campers since before I came to the College in 2003, and I’ve taken over responsibility for running our highly-choreographed rotation…

So many things happened in the department in April that I got totally behind. In fact, April was so busy that I’ve only barely caught up here at the end of May.But, some great things happened so I want to post about them even if it is a little behind…

The class of 2015 graduated in style on May 11.  Those of us who have been around a while (that would be just me, this year!) were surprised to find that faculty and students were lining up in the Oak Grove on the north side of Kauke and that Commencement…

Welcome! Our goal is to use this site to share more information about what is going on in the department! Our annual attendance at the APS March Meeting seemed like a great place to start.Four students and I all traveled to San Antonio March 2 to 5 for the biggest…

The scale of Wooster's planet walk is approximately five billion to one. Disks engraved on 3.5-inch brass markers embedded along the west sidewalk of Beall Avenue through campus represent the planets (and circles represent planetary rings). The four terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars are near the sun between Pearl…