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+ Five Tips for Building Resilience During the Pandemic + Rethinking the SPSVolume LIV, Issue 2 ObserverFALL 2020 + Five Tips for Building Resilience + SPS Statement on Racism and Protest During the Pandemic + Using a Geophysics Lab to Advance the + Rethinking Lab Courses When the Testing and Cleaning of Face Masks Labs Are Closed + SPS Outreach Adapts to Meet 2020 Challenges Put your thermal physics Crossword Puzzle - knowledge to the test with this crossword puzzle! Thermal Physics Can you finish it first? by Samantha Creech, 2020 SPS Intern, Physics Today ACROSS DOWN 4. A Nobel prize–winning technique uses these to cool a gas close to 1. The heat absorbed (or released) during a phase change absolute zero 2. This type of statistics is used for systems of fermions 7. No heat is lost in this kind of process 3. Describes the specific configuration of each element in a 11. This is a cgs unit used for viscosity (and also a synonym for composure) thermodynamic system 12. A type of free energy 5. The most efficient cycle for an ideal engine 14. A classic physical example of a two-state system 6. This type of statistics is used for systems of bosons 15. The theorem stating that the average energy is equal for each degree of 8. The type of equilibrium reached when chemical potential is equal freedom 9. The inverse of (change in entropy / change in internal energy) 16. The sum of the system's internal energy and the product of its pressure 10. This Austrian physicist made great contributions to statistical and volume mechanics 17. No, it's not avocado's number 13. An ideal radiator that absorbs all incident light 18. At this temperature, entropy is minimized 21. A unit of pressure 19. This will always increase in an isolated system 20. U-TS+PV Submit a picture of your completed crossword puzzle to [email protected] for a chance to win. If you are one of the first THREE to complete and submit the puzzle correctly, you will win a prize from SPS National, get a shoutout on our social media, and be mentioned in the next issue of the SPS Observer! Best of luck puzzling! Congratulations to Genna Crom from the University of Iowa and Jenna Osborn from The George Washington University for completing the previous climate-themed crossword puzzle! Check out the previous crossword puzzle in the 2020 Spring issue of the SPS Observer. the SPS Observer TABLE OF CONTENTS FALL 2020 • VOLUME LIV, ISSUE 2 Editor Kendra Redmond Managing Editor FEATURES Facing the Challenges of 2020 Kayla Stephens the How Will Hindsight Treat 2020? . 15 SPSVolume LIV, Issue 2 ObserverFALL 2020 Contributing Editors A COVID-19 Response Story—New Mexico Style . 16 Korena Di Roma Howley Berkeley Students Build an Unexpected Community, Block-by-Block . 18 Brad R. Conrad Rethinking Lab Courses When the Labs Are Closed . 20 Althea Gaffney SPS Outreach Adapts to Meet 2020 Challenges . 22 Mikayla Cleaver SPS Statement on Racism and Protests . 24 Copy Editor University of Rochester SPS Chapter Responds to Cynthia Freeman Black Lives Matter: How We Need to Change . 27 + Five Tips for Building Resilience + SPS Statement on Racism and Protest During the Pandemic + Using a Geophysics Lab to Advance + Rethinking Lab Courses When the the Testing and Cleaning of Face Art Director Special Feature Labs Are Closed Masks + SPS Outreach Adapts to Meet Aaron Hansen Five Tips for Building Resilience during the Pandemic . 28 2020 Challenges Layout Designer ON THE COVER Michael Wernert DEPARTMENTS APSU's Professional Mad SPS President CROSSWORD PUZZLE Scientist, Bryan Gaither, safely Thermal Physics . 2 Alina Gearba-Sell, uses 16 pounds of thermite US Air Force Academy LETTER to burn through a taxi cab on 2020: A Focus on Community and Inclusion . 4 campus. Photo by Greyson SPS Director Solomon-Crawford. Brad R. Conrad STARS 2020 Individual Award and Scholarship Recipients . 6 INTERACTIONS Making the Jump from Jurassic to Next-Gen: Facing the Challenges of the New Virtual Landscape in 2020 . 8 PHYSICS PUZZLER 1 Physics Ellipse Fizz-ics Propels Us Forward . 10 College Park, MD 20740 SINGULARITIES 301.209.3007 (tel) Hands-On Physics—Online . 11 [email protected] Bringing the Invisible to Light: An Artist Explores Our Hidden Universe . 13 www.spsnational.org BUILDING BLOCKS Using a Geophysics Lab to Advance the Testing and Cleaning of Face Masks . 14 PATHWAYS How to Virtually Maintain a Healthy SPS Chapter . 29 ALUMNI CAREER SPOTLIGHT Savannah Thais . 30 E-Lexus Thornton . 31 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Find SPS National on: Words of Advice on Applying to Physics PhD Programs . 32 MEETING NOTES How to Make the Most of a Virtual Physics Conference . 33 Fostering Engagement in Physics during a Pandemic: 2020 AAPT Summer Meeting . 35 The SPS Observer (ISSN 2160- The American Institute of Physics is a federation of scientific AIP Member Societies: 1305) is the magazine of the Society societies in the physical sciences, representing scientists, engineers, American Association of Physicists in Medicine of Physics Students, published educators, and students. AIP offers authoritative information, American Association of Physics Teachers quarterly by the American Institute services, and expertise in physics education and student programs, American Astronomical Society of Physics, printed in the USA. science communication, government relations, career services, American Crystallographic Association Standard postage paid at Freeport, statistical research in physics employment and education, industrial American Meteorological Society OH. POSTMASTER: Send address outreach, and history of the physical sciences. AIP publishes Physics American Physical Society Acoustical Society of America changes to The SPS Observer, One Today, the most closely followed magazine of the physical sciences AVS: Science & Technology of Materials, community, and is also home to the Society of Physics Students and Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD Interfaces, and Processing 20740-3841. the Niels Bohr Library & Archives. AIP owns AIP Publishing LLC, a The Optical Society scholarly publisher in the physical and related sciences. www.aip.org The Society of Rheology Other Member Organizations: Sigma Pi Sigma physics honor society Society of Physics Students Corporate Associates LETTER A Focus on Community 2020: and Inclusion by Dr. Brad R. Conrad, SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma Director For many of us, SPS is our first way of connecting with other physi- something for everyone, for every stage of their undergraduate careers, cists and exploring what it means to be part of the community. and by making sure everyone is included if they want to be . Chapter pizza lunches and outreach events at local grade schools Community is about people connecting as colleagues, friends, and may not seem like they’re anything extraordinary, but they are. classmates, and these connections last a lifetime . Forming a close-knit These events set the tone and help us all experience what it means community isn’t something that can be downloaded or bought—it’s to be part of a community of physicists and astronomers. We orga- developed over time, trials, and triumph . Small moments in the SPS nize complex events that could fail at any given moment by working lounge can change perspectives and help people feel welcome . 4,5 Late- as a team, work through very difficult problems by teaching each night homework sessions in the library encourage group work skills 6. other, and succeed in conducting practically impossible modern Physics demo shows give students the leadership experiences they will physics experiments by collaborating as colleagues. These experi- need in future careers and graduate programs . Attending department ences help to form our physics identity and what we think it means teatimes allows students to develop needed connections to faculty as to be a group of peers. While lots of physics is about individual colleagues . Many professionals look back on the late nights and depart- understanding and effort, I would argue that most of physics is ment cookouts as defining moments in their concept of what it means to built on the idea that we succeed with each other, not in competi- be a part of the physics and astronomy community . To help make each tion but in collaboration. department welcoming and inclusive to the next class, SPS events must The Society of Physics Students was formed with that key concept continue to happen, even if they look really different this year . in mind . While the honor society ΣΠΣ honors excellence and promotes For many of you, this is not a normal beginning to an average school service, SPS is open to anyone with an interest in physics . It’s intrinsically year . It’s fair to expect a dynamic chapter environment that will make it a different kind of interaction . At its core, SPS aims to bring everyone much harder than usual, or simply impossible, to do many of the things together as an inclusive community . This is a wide umbrella academi- we often do as SPS chapters and groups . Yet, as physicists and astrono- cally, as we know that undergraduate physics students go many differ- mers, we need to do what we always do when faced with a challenging ent directions after graduation .1 More importantly, this is an even wider problem: experiment, learn, and adapt to move forward . We will grow umbrella socially . Being open and inclusive of everyone with an interest with the times, and we will do it by learning from each other’s successes in physics means having a variety of options, events, and viewpoints and bright ideas, with the help of the SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma National within a chapter 2. So, while it may not be obvious how having a Bad Council and SPS National Office . One of the main goals of the National Physics Movie Night or an SPS-sponsored tutoring session3 improves Office and council this year is to help officers create an environment in your collective sense, the building of community happens by having which their chapter still does what we need it to do: build a community for everyone .
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