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Fall 2012 Volume XLVI, Issue 3 the SPSVolume XLVI, Issue 3 Observer Fall 2012 The the SPSVolumume XLVI, Issue 3 Observer Fall 2012 Editor Devin Powell Failure in Physics .................................................................................................... 3 Assistant Editor Kendra Redmond My First Visit to a Job Fair ...................................................................................... 5 Editorial Assistants Galileoscopes in Classrooms ................................................................................. 6 Elizabeth Hook Tracy M. Schwab Beyond Borders, with a BANG! .............................................................................. 7 Copy Editor Special Feature: PhysCon 2012 Cynthia Freeman Students & Stardust: Experiencing the 2012 Quadrennial Physics Congress ... 8 Art Director Tracy M. Schwab Solving NASA's Problems .................................................................................. 9 SPS President Biased Results .................................................................................................. 10 David Donnelly Texas State University The Physics of Physical Comedy ..................................................................... 10 SPS/Sigma Pi Sigma Director Chandeliers and Space Gas ............................................................................. 11 Toni Sauncy Photos and Quotes .......................................................................................... 12 SPS/Sigma Pi Sigma Assistant Director Reflections on the Sigma Pi Sigma 2012 Quadrennial Physics Congress ....... 14 Thomas Olsen Experiencing Another Continent .......................................................................... 15 Society of Physics Students Cool Stars in the Summertime ............................................................................. 16 One Physics Ellipse College Park, MD 20740-3843 What’s Cooler than Being Cool? Ultracold Physics! ............................................ 17 (301) 209-3007, Fax (301) 209-0839 www.spsnational.org Elegant Connections in Physics: Connecting Worlds Through Tides .................. 19 PhysCon 2012: Stay Connected .......................................................................... 24 The SPS Observer (ISSN 2160-1305) is the magazine of the Society of Physics Students. Published quarterly by the American Institute of Physics. Printed in the USA. Standard postage paid at Columbus, OH. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The SPS Observer, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740- 3841. About the Cover More than 120 schools were represented at the 2012 Quadrennial Physics Congress held in Or- The American Institute of Physics is an organization of 10 physical science societies, representing more than 135,000 lando, FL, November 8-10, 2012. See the special congress section beginning on page 8. scientists, engineers, and educators, and is one of the world’s Image credit: Ken Cole. largest publishers of scientific information in physics. AIP pursues innovation in electronic publishing of scholarly journals and offers full-solution publishing services for its Member Societies. AIP publishes 13 journals; two magazines, including its flagship publication Physics Today; and the AIP Conference Proceedings series. AIP also delivers valuable resources and expertise in education and student services, science communication, government relations, career services for science and engineering professionals, statistical research, industrial outreach, and the history of physics and other sciences. AIP Member Societies: American Physical Society • The Optical Society • Acoustical Society of America • The Society of Rheology • American Association of Physics Teachers • American Crystallo- graphic Association • American Astronomical Society • American As- sociation of Physicists in Medicine • AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, Interfaces, and Processing • American Geophysical Union Other Member Organizations: Sigma Pi Sigma, the Physics Honor Society • Society of Physics Students • AIP Corporate Associates 2 | The SPS Observer Fall 2012 Pathways Failure in Physics by John Mather of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, a speaker at the 2012 Physics Congress What a Nobel Laureate Learned from his Failed Thesis Project ailure is the essence of progress, in a particular way; if we never fail, then f we just aren’t trying very hard. But "failure" isn't real, like a proton is. It's only a label. And it seems a little un- necessary for a physicist to decide that a certain subset of all the possible configu- rations of the natural universe qualifies for that label. Abstraction aside, though, the failure of my thesis project on its first flight was pretty darned important to me. The project was conceived by my adviser, Paul Richards, and I worked on it at “...failure is an the University of California, essential part Berkeley, along of research.” with two other grad students: David Woody and Norman Nishioka. It was a balloon-borne, far-in- frared spectrometer designed to measure the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), and it was quite ingenious. The CMBR was predicted in 1948 and would become the strongest proof yet that the expanding universe theory is correct. (The name “big bang” implies to most people that there was a time before time, which is linguistically meaning- less and not implied by the observa- tions.) But to know that the CMBR is a predicted remnant of the big bang, Top: Dr. John Mather delivers his plenary talk, "The James Webb Space Telescope: Science we needed to confirm that it has the Opportunities and Mission Progress," at the 2012 Quadrennial Physics Congress, November right spectrum and that it comes almost 9, 2012. Bottom: Dr. Mather answers questions from students following his plenary talk. Image equally from all directions, not from a credits: Ken Cole. local source. The CMBR had been discovered in interferometer immersed in liquid helium from Berkeley and the balloon base, we 1965, but its status as evidence of the to suppress thermal emission from the in- prepared it for launch. The launch was early universe was a little uncertain, strument and enable sensitive detections. successful. The payload went up and up, since a number of faulty measurements After working on the project for what and then let down 2,000 feet of unrolled had already disagreed dramatically with seemed like forever, in the fall of 1973 we cable that should have allowed the the predicted 3 kelvin blackbody spec- decided that it was time to try a launch, payload to observe the sky, not just the trum. Our payload was to rise above 99 which our team had never done before. balloon overhead. percent of the Earth's atmosphere to get David and I drove the payload to the Imagine our chagrin when the instru- a look between the atmospheric emis- balloon base in Palestine, TX. With help ment did not work. There was nothing sion lines using a polarizing Michelson from Paul and professional engineers we could do except sit in the control Fall 2012 The SPS Observer | 3 room and watch the data come in. The because the detector preamplifier was motor that was to move the interfer- too cold. David, Paul, and Norm fixed ometer did not turn, and the detector the problems with better electronics and reported an oscillating signal that should better protection for the motor, flew the not have been there. payload again, and it worked that time. As I recall, we were all too tired to Later, they upgraded the instrument display a lot of emotion; the job at hand with liquid helium-3 cooling for the de- was now to retrieve the payload and tectors and flew it two more times. The figure out what happened so we could fly instrument now resides in the Smithson- again. Paul was very generous and let me ian National Air and Space Museum in write a thesis about the instrument that Washington, DC, not far from an over- More than three decades after his botched did not work (and about a ground-based head model of the Cosmic Background thesis project, John Mather would have cause instrument that did work). I hurried off Explorer (COBE) satellite. to smile when he received the Nobel Prize in to my upcoming postdoctoral position What did I learn? Number one, if Physics for his studies of cosmic microwave with Pat Thaddeus at the NASA God- you do not test something, it will not background radiation. Image credit: NASA. dard Institute for Space Studies in New work. Some people think it's worth a try York City, convinced that this CMBR anyway, but I think it's not a matter of work was much too hard for a young chance at all. Nature knows when we are found some faults and fixed them. person. trying to cheat, and Murphy was an opti- One was particularly important and Meanwhile, David Woody conceived mist. Even if you are tired (or broke), was found with a test I might have of an inexpensive environmental test you should not skip the testing. skipped. The moving calibrator body for chamber (made of plywood and Sty- This came back to me much later the space version of my thesis experiment rofoam and filled with dry ice) for the when my luck had turned and I was did not work properly and would have payload and quickly discovered what our working at NASA's Goddard Space wrecked the mission. I thank my lucky problems were. The motor didn't turn Flight Center with a huge team of scien- stars every day for (a) my experience of because it had rusted on the ground in tists, engineers, and technicians, prepar- failure with my thesis project and (b) my the
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