Thesis

Physics is a force that impacts us daily without our knowing. Common things that seem to be a normal occurrence or too simple to be physics are actually a result of a phenomena explained by physics. Your life depends on physics more than you believe and it is not always how you think.

Incorporating Sources

During an interview conducted between Dr. Ryan Hooper and myself, he was asked "How does he believe physics effects us everyday?" His response was that "two words" can describe a rather large contribution to our daily life and that is "Faraday's Law". Dr. Hooper elaborates more on the matter saying that "it is the basis for nearly all electricity generation on this planet." Being a recognized physicist, it isn't a surprise he introduced such an unknown and complicated formula for a non-physics student, but it is a perfect example of how physics effects all of us daily. The electricity used to power just about everything we use daily and it all can be derived from a single equation. This just proves the vast use for a small portion of physics so you can only imagine the amount all of physics effects your daily lives.

Interview with Dr. Ryan Hooper

Q1: Why did you become a physicist? Was there a moment of epiphany or have you always known?

A1: I was/still am fascinated by how physics reveals the hidden nature and beauty of things.  I also love the structure, logic, and how physics is in a paradoxical way both abstract and concrete at the same time.  Bottom line is that I became a physicist because I want to know how things work!

Yes, the “epiphany” moment was in 5^th grade when we were allowed to do a book report on any book in our library.  I found a book on nuclear power plants and how they worked, I was hooked on fundamental physics (i.e. nuclear and particle physics) ever since!  As a matter of fact, my family still fondly remembers after I did that book report … I went home and told my parents that I wanted to be a nuclear physicist.  At first my parents were rightfully skeptical, but after a few years of me telling them I want to be a nuclear/particle physicist, they started to think I was serious J  Oh, by the way, I am a particle physicist.

Q2: What do you do as a physicist? What are some examples of projects or events you have done that you are able to share?

A2: I build physical things.  I code computers to accomplish tasks.  I build and work with electronics.  I collect empirical data.  I analyze data.  I think about how things work and why.  I dream of how to make things go faster.

I helped construct, commission and run the D0 Central Fiber Tracker (a 100,000 channel fiber optic tracking system).

I published the first experimental research on large extra-dimensions as it may manifest itself in a hadron collider using a high transverse momentum muon signature.  I also published one of the first experimental searches for Randall-Sundrum extra-dimensions.

I helped construct the Compact Muon Solenoid Silicon strip detector (a 1 million channel silicone strip tracking system).  This system was instrumental in the discovery of the Higgs’ boson, found in 2012.

I helped build, commission and run high efficiency and low emissions test engines at CAT.

Q3: From your line of work (projects, previous work, personal experience, etc.) How do you believe it effects everyone and or everyday life?

My detector work demonstrates new improved techniques that are used in medical imaging.

My engine work saves gallons of fuel and reduces the amount of pollutants placed in the atmosphere.

My musings on general relativity may open up possibilities for human to travel to the stars.

Q4: Have you worked with or made contributions to something that would affect us here at Lewis now or in the near future that can directly be related to physics?

A4: Other than for educational purposes my contributions related to physics tend to be more abstract/pure research based.

Q5: How do you believe physics affects us every day? Anything that stands out as extremely fascinating to you related to an everyday occurrence?

A5: Two words:  Faraday’s Law or more succinctly [ ].  The basis for nearly all (~80%) electricity generation on the planet!

Also, without our knowledge of general relativity the GPS applications in your smart-phone would become useless in about a week.  This is due to gravitational time dilation.

Q6: Do you think that physics has accounted largely for our rapid growth in technology and advancement in sciences? Why?

Two words:  Faraday’s Law.  Electricity (I would argue, more generally electromagnetism E&M) is the “life-blood” on which modern society lives, let alone our technology/research base!  Just watch what happens when a region loses power for even a short period of time.

Physics and Marketing

Colbey, Dan. "What Physics Taught Me About Marketing." Ted Talk. Ted. Ted, July 2010. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_cobley_what_physics_taught_me_about_marketing#t-139533

Connecting Physics to Business:

Who knew physics would relate to business? Honestly, I never thought it would but Dan Colbey put it in terms that makes sense. In physics, force equals mass times acceleration. In other words, the bigger the mass the more force you need to move that mass. In marketing, brands are labeled with "baggage" to move around with their ads. A brand with more baggage in one direction will be harder to move in another direction. Dan explained this as once a large brand has established a direction with their product, it is hard for them to change to anything different and it is hard to market them in any other way than the usual. This is why one company will have several different brands for one type of product. This makes it easier to point the marketing in a direction and go with it. Another major connection between physics and marketing is the scientific method. In physics, a hypothesis can only be "disproved" and is repeated until a constant outcome occurs. If you have one bad experiment with a different outcome, the entire experiment becomes harder to keep constant and not disprove it. The same thing happens in marketing. Dan connected the Toyota recall as an example. When they recalled their vehicle called the prius for safety reasons, immediately families began to distrust the brand and question what used to be considered the most reliable cars on the road. One bad rep can nearly diminish the marketing just like one bad trial can diminish an experiment. Colbey continues connecting physics in two other ways. One with observation of photons and another with entropy. Multiple ways connect to business marketing and honestly, I did not believe physics would relate. He describes everything clearly and identifies relations not many people would see. I highly recommend you watch this video because it helps you see things the way I do and as this blog and research paper progress, things I post will be easier to relate with.

Aviation and physics

Aerodynamic Contrails: Phenomenology and Flow Physics

Gierens, K., B. Kärcher, H. Mannstein, and B. Mayer. "Aerodynamic Contrails: Phenomenology and Flow Physics." Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 66.2 (2009): 217-26. Print.

The journal I plan on using is a way for me to connect aviation to physics and explain something I have always wanted to know. When jets fly over and sometimes planes we see the long "tails" that seem to follow the aircraft. I was told that it was a "jetstream", but according to the journal presented it is actually an occurrence of aerodynamics which is a part of, wait for it,......PHYSICS! Now, according to the article the tails are know formally as aerodynamic contrails and are a result of the flow of air. The wings slice through the air and create the difference in pressure between the top of the wing and the bottom causing what we know as lift. However, that is not the only thing that is caused by the wings. Above and below the wings, not only is pressure different but the temperature changes as well as stated in the aerodynamics section, point a: Simple calculations. 

Think of mountain tops and how the snow remains year round. The air at a higher altitude is colder and dry. Much like that, above the wings you have a cold dry air and below is heated from the engine gasses after burning. This difference in temp causes condensation because when something is hot or cold and applied with the opposite, it condense and will "sweat" like a glass of water. Thus, the water vapor from the engine freezes and condenses. We know that when this occurs in air clouds are formed. The same thing happens with the contrails of planes and according to the article this will create "contrail cirrus" clouds.

Overall, the appearance of contrails are caused by the aerodynamics of the wings. Above and below have different temperatures much like the different pressure associated with lift. When water is expelled as a gas from the engine, the cold surrounding air freezes it causing condensation and formation of a "contrail cirrus". This is how, by physics, the tails from jets are formed.

Research Citations

Connection of Physics to Aviation 
Gierens, K., B. Kärcher, H. Mannstein, and B. Mayer. "Aerodynamic Contrails: Phenomenology and Flow Physics." Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 66.2 (2009): 217-26. Print. 
Connections of Physics to Nursing 
Mcgurk, Simon. "Physics in Anaesthesia." Nursing Standard 26.14 (2012): 30. Print.
Connections of Writing to Physics
Texley, Juliana. "Modeling Modern Physics with Literature." Science Scoupe 37.8 (2014): 6-10. Print.



Physic in Everyday Life

Ince, Elif. "Investigation of Undergraduate Students’ Skills to Associate between General Physics Concepts and Everyday Life." INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL Of ACADEMIC RESEARCH (2012): 158-63. EBSCO Host. Web. 10 Nov. 2014. <http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=298b3258-8ae7-46fe-8451-f4875a947c85@sessionmgr110&vid=1&hid=101>.

Research Paper Topic

For my research paper I plan to go away from my usual track and field writings and try something different. I want to write about physics and some space or NASA. If I write about physics though, I have decided that I want people to see my view of it, not the boring math sense everyone thinks. My goal is to show the history and branches of physics like a normal research paper, but i want to relate it to the majors of my viewers. I want to show you what physics really does and how it affects something you would care about.

In that I have a few questions.
What would be a better topic? NASA or physics?
What majors should I relate to as in what are your majors?
How can I explain physics so you understand/ enjoy it?
What about physics or NASA do you want to know?
Should I focus more on the top majors of Lewis? Nursing and Aviation
Should I go broad and expand your mind?
Should I specify and blow your mind?
What can i do to show you how physics ties in?
What is physics?
What is NASA?
How could physics possibly affect me besides everyday things like gravity?
Why should we care about space?
Why was NASA started?

"Physics was Paradise"

Melissa is an experimental particle physicist at Harvard University and has placed her mark as the first ever women to gain tenure there for the physics department. Needless to say, Melissa is an extremely well achieved woman. Coming from a background that lacked motivation and goals, she eventually found her way from an idea of writing and philosophy to her paradise of physics. However, the interview itself was more specific then the broad topic of her life. It seemed to flow question by question in some sort of order that the answers lined up chronologically. Each answer to the question led to the next smoothly. Starting with her young educational background, she was a high school dropout who joined a free school. She learned from the community members and only what they know, as she focused on a life of writing and philosophy much like her parents. Each question evenly stacked on top of each other, like boxes, until the box labeled physics first appeared. After the introduction of physics in her life and the appearance of that in the interview, that became the main focus of the interviewer. The interviewer asked if Melissa had known then and there that she was going to be a physicist. It wasn't, in fact, the only reason she had chose physics was because people said she had to become a writer. The rebel in her showed up and she chose the polar opposite, physics, leading to her new found journey at the University of Toronto. Leading from one to the next, she found her way through Fermi Labs, Stanford, California Berkeley, and then to Harvard. Diving into her physics career, the interviewer honed in on the subject to get a good vision then. Every detail that related to her life with physics was asked about. The interviewer worked through each stage in her career, comparing the modern ideas to then like feminism, harassment, and anything else she may have encountered. Working up to the present day, the interview became more and more into her career today. What she did, where at, what the new experiment was, anything that relates to her accomplishments present day. This interview started broad being just about Melissa's life. When physics was uncovered, things changed. The interview became more coned shaped so to speak. It started broad with her initial impact from physics and continued specifying in chronological fashion, but through questions. Once present day came to the point of the cone, the specific were bombarded with questions about the here and now. Each question lead up to this point, and through only physics, we learned who Melissa Franklin is.

The selfish and Selfless Lifestyles

In the "Summoned Life", David Brooks presents two choices or styles of life of either a well-planned or the summoned life. Brooks refers to the Harvard Business Review on an excerpt by Clayton Christensen. Clayton uses two points in his life to connect both a well-planned and a summoned one. First, Clayton recalls his time at Oxford, "trying to cram an extra year's worth of work" and planning for his future. This relates to a well planned life because he spent time on only himself to prepare for the future. Later on, Clayton switches his story to one of his sporting career on a basketball team. At this time in his life he didn't focus on his future but rather lived day by day focusing on the people around him. As a serious christian, during this time, there was a game that was rather important on a Sunday. Clayton "refused to play in the championship game of an important tournament because it was on a Sunday." The summoned life as explained here shows a life of moral achievement rather than selfish achievement. Instead of focusing only on himself he thought more of the message it would send and what he believed he was "summoned" for. Brooks uses theses two examples from Clayton to show toe different successes. A well-planned life leads to achievement over a long time for yourself. The summoned life, however, is more of a day to day achievement of morals that lead to their own way of success because you fulfill what you believe you are summoned for.

Aviation From a Physics Student

For my research project, I have been planning on reflecting my interest in physics and space. However, it may be a research project but physics tends to get boring in long, dull time frames even for me. In thinking about my research project I have come to a conclusion. Physics relates to everything! My goal will be to show you the connections to something that would interest you to give you my perspective on things. Research papers are boring and full of history that not many people enjoy reading, if you do I applaud you because that is not me. Thus, I want to take an interesting approach for once. With Dr. Walts' approval, I plan to give the research of not my topic specifically, but the topic of others interest and how physics has connected with what you enjoy throughout the years. In saying that let me show you. 

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/Features/Auto-GCAS_Installed_in_USAF_F-16s.html#.VEQMrfldV8E

This link above is something I came across while reading NASA's updates. At an aviation school there are a lot of aviation majors, obviously, so how can I make you interested in physics when you defy gravity and fly? If you read this link you will see NASA has just released a new programming system, thanks to your Aerospace Engineers, that keeps planes from crashing into the ground or other terrains that cause obstacles. Now I know what you are thinking, I did not say thanks to a physicist. Actually, an engineer is a physics major with specification meaning that an over glorified physicist just help all you pilots out. What this program does is when you are nearing an obstacle and the plane has no problems, lets say the pilot is rendered unconscious, the system will register the distance to impact much like a warning system. Unlike the warning system, however, it judges the time frame to escape the incident and before the plane enters the point of no return, it will turn on the autopilot and re correct itself until control by the pilot is restored. NASA is installing this system in the F-16's for the air force and are looking to branch to regular planes and commercial flyers.

As the technology trickles down think of this. Physics just aided the build of a new technology that will save lives and make all planes safer. Not only that, all of the aviation students here in the future will be able to benefit from this. Beyond the normal gravity or lift speeches given on physics being everywhere, it is now apart of the technology that is incorporated into your future. Physics is more than what most people believe it is and I hope my blogs, my paper, and this article will open your eyes to what I see.

A Runner's Heart

Our first rather large assignment in class was a personal narrative about a moment in life that has changed you, or a moment of "flow". Track is very important to me and is a way for me to forget everything and just go, so that's what I wrote about. My junior year of high school I was a contender in the state meet and ranked high. However, I had injured my hip and pulled three muscles. Doctors and physicians told me not to compete but I couldn't just give up. Despite the pain I ran and I did everything I could to accomplish what I believed I was capable of. If any of you wish to read the story and can gladly find the file and upload it later, but this story is not the reason I am blogging. Actually, I had found a video from one of my 300 hurdle races at state and thought some of you might like to see what my pride and joy is really like. For those of you that have read my story, maybe this will give more of a view into that as well.

Enjoy!

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=873655175994946&set=vb.100000514149568&type=3