These updates are available in the SPS National website.

SPS Interns 2011 in front of The White House

2nd Week, June 10th

Another Physics week just ended and we’re on our way to our third week. Wow. I know it’s a cliche to say time flies (not to mention it’s not very physical), but it sure felt like it. During the weekend we decided to do the tourist thing and visit museums. We ended up walking half of Washington DC’s waterfront on foot and then visited the Air and Space museum and watched their Hubble 3D IMAX show. In the evening, tired but happy and extremely hungry, we decided to cook dinner together and watch a movie. We all made something for the dinner; I made my famous vinaigrette sauce for the salad, but people seemed to prefer the store-bought Feta sauce. I refuse to take it as a hint.

The week was super exciting too. I managed to experiment with quite a number of extension demos and find a few REALLY cool ones I’d like to try for next week. Becky is going to be at some convention so I will be on my own, free to roam the kitchen and destroy plastic utensils and paper cups. We made sure I have a list of “todo”s, which, I have to say, look much better on paper than they do in reality. I need to work on the write ups for the demos I already tested and transform them to Middle-Schooler-safe perfectly understandable quick summary while keeping it engaging and avoiding the ever-so-boring cookbook-style. It’s a lot harder done than thought-of. I just hope I manage to finish them before the end of next week.

On Tuesday evening we all went to a Science Cafe in the NSF building in Arlington. The lecture was very interesting, and I think Anish (who is supposed to arrange some of those himself during the summer) got quite a lot of ideas and some feedback from us. Also, the burgers were awesome. Food and science always work so well together. Sometimes too well. I’m going to have to hit the gym extra this week!

On Friday we met the SPS Executive committee today for lunch, and we will again for dinner followed by a “Capitol Steps” show. They’re great, I already follow them a little through their website, so the evening is bound to be exciting; you will have to wait for next week to hear how it was, of course. Reverting to the beginning of this entry, time doesn’t really fly.

Well… maybe it does, if one second per second counts as flying.

3rd Week, June 17th

This week was so full of events, I don’t even know where to start.

I will be a good physicist and start from the convenient middle, then move back and forth in time.
Wednesday night the wall-mounted mirror in our dorm room decided to test the theory of gravity, a test that resulted in it crashing loudly into the floor and, in the process, shattering to hundreds of reflective shards. It appears gravity was unfazed.

Cabot certainly was, though. He (and I, along with Amanda and Courtney who was also in our room) had to take a moment to recover our beating hearts from somewhere in the basement. The shock was quickly transformed into a conversation about the structural integrity of drywall and the fact that Cabot became stranded in our room now, since he was, unfortunately, barefoot. No worries, though. Amanda made some food and Courtney recovered his shoes while Amanda and I ended up waiting till almost 1am for maintenance to come and save us.

We went to bed really late after a rather exhausting day — but I will get to that in a bit.

I will digress to the beginning now. The weekend was absolutely awesome. The Capitol Steps show on Friday evening was hilarious and we all had a lot of fun. Then on Sunday we walked around Georgetown and ended up waiting in a 45-minute line to get cupcakes. Let me tell you, though, 45-minute-line cupcakes are worth it. They were awesome, and I’m rather happy they require some level of effort to purchase, otherwise I think I’d be eating them much more often, and, quite possibly, ending up looking like one.

Must exert effort for cupcakes. I think I discovered the law of cupcakedynamics.

On Monday we went to Tuckahoe Elementary School to help Amanda and Erin with their activity about Rutherford’s discovery of the nucleus. We had two groups of 3rd graders that simply blew our minds. They were cute and terribly smart. When Amanda asked them what was the smallest thing they knew, we didn’t really expect one of them to yell back “quarks!”. A little physicist in the making! It was such a rewarding experience. The kids seemed to really enjoy the activity, and Amanda and Erin were brilliant. The activity they devised was a complete success, at least for the 3rd graders.

On Monday evening, we went to a science cafe with Joe Palca about his book “Annoying: The science of what bugs us”, which he wrote with Flora Lichtman. It was a lot of fun, and the discussion was great. I also ended up buying the book (I have a little sister, I have to learn the craft) and getting it autographed. Yay!

Tuesday was my first day of the week actually doing work. Becky was out the entire week at a convention out of town, so I had a list of “to-dos” to accomplish. I was so worried I wasn’t going to successfully finish them by the end of the week, that I spent a good portion of Tuesday and Thursday in front of my computer, typing and revising. The fourth floor had a day off of my experiments, though. Despite the incredibly busy and hectic week, I think it was quite productive. I now have seven finished activities that are waiting for Becky to go over them, and I continued to make another list for a few more exciting demonstrations on the subject.

Erin and Amanda had to adapt their lesson to teenagers, since on Wednesday we went on to deliver the same type of activity (revised, of course) to two full classes of 7th graders. Middle-schoolers are much more of a challenge to engage than elementary school kids. It was exhausting and quite different than the younger children, but I thought Amanda and Erin did a great job changing the lesson plan for the older kids. Even the teacher said they were more engaged than usual, and for teenagers, that says a lot. Well done Amanda and Erin!

The day was topped off by a picnic at ACP followed by an egg relay and an open mic, which proved once and for all that physicists are, in fact, quite talented people. At least those who went up to the stage. It was pretty impressive! In the evening we went to have Frozen Yogurt at an outdoor concert in Farragut square – an awesome finish to an exhausting day.

Thursday and Friday were full work-days in the office for us, so I managed to finish my list of to-dos and work on some ideas on more home experiments.

I will take this moment in time to apologize to the fourth floor of the ACP building, and in particular those of you who require the continued use of the kitchen refrigerator. I promise, the balloons and colorful ice cups will be taken out by next week. Or by August, the latest. Promise.

It is now Friday evening, and there is one more really cool thing that just happened: my business cards are on the PhysicsCentral Physics Buzz Blog. How amazing is that? When I made them, I wanted people to have a reason to take them out of the stack at the end of the day (or at the end of a busy convention) and remember who I am, so I made sure there is a little science experiment that goes along with the card. With only the help of a few folds and liquid soap, it transforms itself into a racing boat, demonstrating the principle of surface tension and surfactants. The guys here at the office (who, incidentally, write for PhysicsBuzz blog) thought it would be a great blog post. I’m so honored!

Of course, as I said in the first journal entry, I live and learn. Next time I make these cards, I will make them waterproof.

Here’s for another incredible week!

2011 SPS Interns with John C. Mather at the American Center for Physics, MD

I finished my absolutely last undergraduate physics final on Thursday in Thermodynamics, and had just enough time to pack my closet and hop on a train to DC and start my 9.5-week adventure. So far? Awesome.

After two days of schmoozing and resupplying ourselves, all 9 of us interns traveled to the ACP building in MD for our orientation. We finally put faces to the people we communicated with, got to learn a lot about what they do, what we’re expected to do, and what we’re expecting they’re expecting us to do. We also went home with some wonderful ‘goodies’ like diffraction glasses (which I did not take off for most of the day, and still walk around in, looking at rainbows everywhere) and the GalileoScope. We have to find time and a clear night to test it out properly now.

We had our first-day lunch with Nobel Prize laureate John C. Mather, and got to hear his stories about how his research evolved from an interesting question to building actual equipment that went out to space to a Nobel Prize. That was pretty cool.

Overall it was a great first day, and at its end we each went to our respective departments to get started. Anish, Erin and Amanda are together in the second floor (in the SPS/AIP) while I’m on the fourth (in the APS), so we get to commute together and see each other every day for lunch.

Colorful density rainbow!

APS outreach group and particularly the PhysicsQuest project is amazing. I get to design extension experiments about Thermodynamics and heat. Good thing I just finished that exam on Thursday! Heat seems to follow me around. But I am happy about that, I love the subject matter and I am very excited to turn my theoretical ideas into practical experiments that can actually work in the classroom and at home.

Of course, that turned out to be easier said than done. Reality? Not like theory at all. Forget undergrad lab where everything is laid out in steps – I need to actually design these steps now from scratch and make them middle-schooler-safe. And apparently, there are no spherical chickens walking around people’s kitchens, so experiments that totally work in theory (and calculation, and force-diagrams, and graphs and discussions) can utterly fail in reality for the silliest things sometimes. Sure, you could, in theory, compare the density of boiling water to that of ice-water by measuring the level of a floating item, but can you do it without boiling your fingers? Not as easy anymore. Also, just in case you’re wondering, some plastic cups melt with hot water. I have tested this hypothesis without even realizing I posed it. I assure you, it’s verified many times over. I was already notified that these are all expected here, and it seems they’re a sort of ‘rite of passage’ in the department, so I guess there’s a bright side to the fails.

So, yes, work is very challenging, but it’s also a lot of fun. These are exactly the things I love doing in Physics – on one hand, find the greatest and most engaging way to demonstrate a physical phenomenon, and on the other make sure it’s accurate, it works, and it’s kid-safe.

Insulators, Brrrrr..!

I already have two experiments I’ve tested and written up, so I think that’s a nice accomplishment for the first week. Becky needs to go over them both, so I can’t really be sure they’re good just yet, but I think I’m getting there. I have two more demonstrations that I’m about to test and I am pretty sure will work. Of course, I was also pretty sure the boiling water one would work, too, and that ended up failing. Also, the ice balloons? Not a good idea. Live and learn, though. Live and learn.

Until next week: Vini, Vidi, Physics.

Note: This entry is also published in the Society of Physics Students website, here.

Here it was again this year, The Amazing Meeting 7 in Las Vegas, organized by the James Randi Educational Foundations (JREF). As you may remember from last year’s updates, TAM is usually awesome and this year was no exception.

I met so many cool people, made new friends and greeted some old friends again. I had a great time seeing Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer (and president of the JREF) again (see picture above), schmoozed with Jamie from “The Cuter Side of Politics” (picture below, with Richard Saunders), watching the very talented Sarah Trachtenberg do her stand-up routine at the TAM Talent Show, and got to do an awesome audio recording with Richard Saunders from the Skeptic Zone that included beer, Australians and sound. Awesome!

The Think Tank Experiment

I had the great privilege to sit down with Richard Saunders, Brian Dunning (from the awesome skeptoid.com) Amanda Rose,  and others to record a special edition of the Skeptic Zone’s Think Tank at the sports bar in the hotel. We sat down with some beers and had a great time sharing a nice little demonstration about the different sounds you can make with half-filled beer bottles.

You are encouraged to listen to the entire episode, where Richard updates from The Amazing Meeting with some interviews and snippets from the different speakers, but if you want to jump straight off to the Think Tank experiment, it starts about an hour and fifteen minutes (1:15) into the show.

The different sounds bottles make

Richard drank all the liquid in his bottle, while I drank only a little bit. Mine was almost full, while his was almost empty. Tapping both bottles produced different sounds; the empty bottle produced higher pitched sound and the full one produced lower pitched sound.

However, when we blew air inside the bottles, the sounds were reversed. The empty bottle produced a low pitch sound and the full bottle produced a high pitch sound (You can see us in action in this great picture).

Why does that happen?

Tapping the bottle causes the glass to vibrate. When the bottle is empty, the glass moves more freely and produces faster vibrations (and higher pitched sound). When it’s full, the liquid prevents the glass from moving as much and the vibrations are slower (and lower pitched sound).

Blowing air into the bottle makes the air itself move around in the space inside the bottle. The sound is produced as the air molecules vibrate at the  bottle’s mouth . When the bottle is empty there’s more room inside for air to move around, and it escapes more slowly. When there’s liquid inside the bottle there’s less room for the air to move around, and it escapes more quickly. The quicker the air escapes the bottle’s opening, the faster the air molecules vibrate and create the sound.

Slow vibrations produce low pitch sound and high vibrations produce high pitch sound. This is one demonstration you can do anywhere where they serve drinks. Bottoms up!

The Awesomeness of TAM

I had a wonderful time in Las Vegas at The Amazing Meeting 7, and I just can’t wait for next year’s Amazing Meeting 8. Are you coming? You should, and if you end up there, walk around, make new friends, and hunt me down to say hello. It’s the best time of year!

Update: You can find more pictures of the great experiment with Richard Saunders at TAM7, in sc00ter’s TAM7 flickr album.

If youhappen to have a facebook account, you might be interested to hear that there is a brand new SmarterThanThat project page on facebook! New, shiny and cool!

I hope this will give the project a bit more exposure, and give me another method of updating you about new and exciiiiting things that are about to happen to the website, as well as new experiment videos!

Fan me: http://www.facebook.com/pages/SmarterThanThatcom/30731268952

And spread the word!

If you’ve noticed a video came up and then vanished, you’re not delirious.

I uploaded the new SmarterThanThat experiment video, but the quality was SOOOOO bad, I had to take it down. I am re-rendering the video now and it will be up as soon as YouTube allows for it.

Apologies  – but I promise it’s worth the wait!

~moo

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, I’m in Vegas, and contrary to common belief, this time what goes on in Vegas is not going to stay in Vegas – why, you ask? Well, because I’m here, and I’m tellin’.

We’ve just finished a busy-busy day full of amazing presentations, including a live recording of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe (Which I only wittnessed the end of, trying to figure out my way into the lecture hall, <sigh>), Openning words by James Randi, a great debunk of homeopathy by Dr Ben Goldacre, an uber-amazing presentation by Dr Neil Degrasse Tyson and a CSI presentation by Alec Jason, who helped James Randi expose Peter Popoff’s “tricks”.

I’ve also met (finally, face to face!) Richard Saunders (Australia Mystery Investigators and Tank Vodcast) and Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer).

So — TAM6 is still ongoing, and I already have another surprise up my sleeve that involves Richard Saunders and a very cool hushhush surprise for the attendees of TAM and the readers of the blog. So stay tuned for a definite awesomeness.

For those of you who are here in Vegas at the convention – look me up! You can write to me on the site, or by mail: moo [at] smarterthanthat [dot] com and we’ll get together for a beer. Or somethin’

Stay tuned for more Amazingness!

~moo

Oye.

So I have been gone for a bit, but I had a good excuse – it’s the end of my semester – and you know what comes at the end of the semester, don’t you? No no.. before the resting time.. No.. after the week of last-classes… Before the partying— yes! That’s right.

Finals.

So, it seems like it’s going to be some quality time for me with Multivariable Calculus books (whoopie..), Electricity and Magnetism (<sigh>), and some computing books.

Oye.

But! Fear not! I shall come back twice as strong and double the enthusiasm – and I have a few experiments already planned and ready for you. Also, I owe you a correction video for the last “sucking” experiment.

By the way, if you are also students and facing the end of your semesters and some final exams, I have a tip taht may save your day: MIT is giving out free education!

MIT Open Courseware is probably the greatest online reference for final-exam studying. Other than notes and summaries, they also have some courses with full video lecture series. My physics improved greatly after watching Walter Lewin’s “Electricity and Magnetism” lecture series.

I definitely recommend this for everyone!

Also, make sure you sign up for “The Amazing Meeting 6” (TAM6) – a great science and skepticism convention. This year the subject is “Modern Skepticism in the Internet Age”, so if you’re reading this (on the internet) you’re probably going to enjoy it. And of course, there are great presenters planned, like Dr Neil Degrasse Tyson, Dr Michael Shermer, PZ Myers (from “Pharyngula” blog), Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer), Richard Saunders (“TANK Vodcast“) and more and more and more.

And of course, I’m coming too, so if you’re up for a beer (or a cup of coffee), send me a note to moo [at] smarterthanthat [dot] com
So – Sorry about that, but I will see you soon. I promise. Only a little bit to the end of finals (and I have 2 huge ones at the same week, egh)…
See you soon!

Hello to all curious SmarterThanThat readers!

Just before another experiment comes out for this week, I must share one piece of news that is extremely exciting: The TANK Vodcast, a great skeptical podcast with Richard Saunders and Stefan Sojka as hosts, has featured SmarterThanThat with an interview with me, in its last episode for the season!

The episode is online here, or in the “Media Mentions” page. Also, they’re worth a subscription. Really!