Daily Archives: September 18, 2008

Sesame Street Physics

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Light and Electrons Cooperate

I can just picture Big Bird:

Can you say, “cooperate?”

Can you say, “surface plasmon polariton?”

When light hits a metal, it can create a surface plasmon polariton–often called simply a “surface plasmon”–which is a traveling wave combining electromagnetic fields with electron oscillations. Researchers are using tiny plasmon antennas to funnel more light into solar cells (photovoltaics), increasing their efficiency. Others studying “plasmonics” hope to develop devices that replace some electric currents with plasmon waves, because plasmons can theoretically carry as much information as light pulses but squeeze it into the nanometer-sized wires used in standard computer chips.

Lucky Me!

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I’ve been adopted. That’s right, the adopt-a-physicist program has two three groups that want to get to know me (professionally).

The email I got from the program coordinator says there are a few slots open, in case any physicists out there wish to participate. It’s included (nominally spam-proofed) below.

I was just reading through your profiles and it reminded me how much I love this program! There are a wide variety of careers and backgrounds represented, and there are over 100 classes that are eager to participate.

*Classes are “adopting” their physicists as we speak, and can do so until Sept. 25
*You can see the classes that have adopted you when you login in to www.adoptaphysicist.org and view your profile
*Physicists with pictures on their profile are generally first to go, so if you haven’t added one it’s worth thinking about

We still have room for some additional physicists–so if you know anyone that is interested, please have them email me at krand(at)aip.org and I’ll get them set up.

Forums will open on Sept. 29th!

I hadn’t included a picture, and was in fact entering some of my biographical information when the second group adopted me. I think now I won’t add a photo, lest I scare anyone away before selections are done. Then it will be too late, mwuhahahahaha! I’ll get to “converse” with them in a forum setting, and will of course point them here for some of my “lab stories” posts.

Toys in the Office: We Daren't Go a-Hunting, For Fear of Little Men

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Think Geek is an evil website, the way they separate me from my disposable income.

Crimp-connectors, pop-rivets and magnets. Somewhat pose-able. Pedantic man notes that they aren’t technically toys in the office unless perhaps if the door is open, since they sit/stand on the door and door jamb. But they do occasionally distract the odd passer-by (which describes a fair fraction of them) into putting them into new poses.

Are You Savvy?

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After figuring out that Dot Physics used to live next door to the “new” blog, I spent lunchtime looking through the old posts. And I found a link to a physics quiz at Intuitor.

Basic Physics Savvy Quiz

At Intuitor we have decided to fight back against the dark forces of ignorance and shine the bright light of truth on the wickedness of physics misconceptions through the lens of the Intuitor Physics Savvy Quiz. We have already taken a stand against the insultingly stupid movie physics foisted upon young and unsuspecting minds by the American Babylon called Hollywood. Yet, we find that bad physics thinking has already infected the minds of millions.

We urge you to take the Physics Savvy Quiz and find out if you have been infected by the heinous virus of physics misconceptions. The quiz is painless and consists entirely of true-false questions. These can be answered without making calculations and are taken from concepts taught in introductory-level high school or middle school physical science classes. In other words, if you have never taken high school physics and can barely do algebra, you should still be able to answer the questions

(If you want to skip all the introduction and explanation, the actual quiz is here)

It’s pretty good, generally free of ambiguity, using the scientific definitions of terms and testing concepts rather than memorization of facts. One possibly vague question: “negative acceleration” is used as “acceleration in the negative direction” of some arbitrarily defined coordinate system. Have at it. (Disclosure: I scored 100%. No, really. I was karving my initials on the moose I’m a professional. But please, try this at home. I was not on a closed course.)