Cosmic Dawn, Burbidge, and Skyrmions
There were two big physics stories this week. First, a team of astronomers has announced surprising observations that could provide a first indirect indication of the nature of dark matter. The radio waves emitted by hydrogen gas at the "cosmic dawn," just 180 million years after the big bang, tell us that the gas was notably colder than we would expect. The team concludes that this could only happen if there is an interaction between the hydrogen and dark matter and, given how effectively this interaction cooled the gas, the dark matter must be made of particles with masses comparable with hydrogen atoms. It's an unexpected and exciting result, but we should probably wait for confirmation from a complementary study before getting too excited.
The second story is one that seems to have gotten blown a bit out of proportion, perhaps because of the exotic vocabulary involved. A team of researchers was successful in creating an electrodynamics simulation using a quantum mechanics-based simulation. It has been a longstanding challenge. They also applied this simulation to ball lightning, and found that "these phenomena are induced by precise spatiotemporal control of the spin field of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate, simultaneously creating a Shankar skyrmion". Indeed.
Jennifer Blue, Adrienne Traxler, and Ximena Cid have contributed a superb article for Physics Today about gender, microaggressions, and creating better physics communities and cultures.
In Physics World, an anonymous physicist from the UK writes about their experience with bipolar disorder while studying and pursuing a career in our field. It's a tremendously important piece.
In Physics Today, Roberta Humphreys writes about Margaret Burbidge's rejection, in 1971, of an award that had been established to honour female astronomers. If you're talking with your students about gender issues in the sciences, this would be a fantastic case study.
Toni Feder's article about the physics community in Cuba is fascinating.
I really enjoyed reading Moses Rifkin's reflection on his work teaching social justice in the physics classroom.
Nathan Belcher wrote this great history of US science education, seen particular as the context for Modeling Instruction. So much education reform seems like reinventing the wheel: it is vitally important that we know our history.
The proceedings of the 2017 Physics Education Research Conference have been published online. Altogether, it is 120 very good papers (and completely open).
There's an interesting paper on the arXiv about luck and success. They did some modeling, and found that in a population with "talent" distributed normally, the most "successful" people tend to derive their success from fortuitous events rather than application of their talent. Applications to the financial world are clear. I would love to have students play with a model like this!
Registration for the AAPT High School Photo Contest is open, from now until May 15. This is a great way for students to combine two of their interests.
If you're in/near Michigan, USA, this free summer camp for high school students looks pretty great.
Seen on the web:
Megan Hayes-Golding does meaningful assessment in a robotics class.
Dan Burns does the toilet paper roll drop as a practical.
This is a good activity for understanding spectra.
Here's a demo showing kinetic and thermal energy.
I love Joe Cossette's stop-motion animation assignment for kinematics.
This investigation proposal form is superb.
Jeffrey Lai rolls a magnetic ball down a ramp -- I like this better than dropping it in a tube.
Shannon Feineis's students are experiencing conservation of angular momentum.
If you're going to do electrolysis, why not use the platters from an old hard-drive?
Frank Noschese is doing capacitors and also this defibrillator practical.
Drew Lewis got the memo about vertical non-permanent surfaces.
The APS Forum on Education spring newsletter is out, relevant particular to those in the USA.
And, lastly, these shoes are lit.
Apologies for being late this week -- I was traveling over the weekend.
The second story is one that seems to have gotten blown a bit out of proportion, perhaps because of the exotic vocabulary involved. A team of researchers was successful in creating an electrodynamics simulation using a quantum mechanics-based simulation. It has been a longstanding challenge. They also applied this simulation to ball lightning, and found that "these phenomena are induced by precise spatiotemporal control of the spin field of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate, simultaneously creating a Shankar skyrmion". Indeed.
Jennifer Blue, Adrienne Traxler, and Ximena Cid have contributed a superb article for Physics Today about gender, microaggressions, and creating better physics communities and cultures.
In Physics World, an anonymous physicist from the UK writes about their experience with bipolar disorder while studying and pursuing a career in our field. It's a tremendously important piece.
In Physics Today, Roberta Humphreys writes about Margaret Burbidge's rejection, in 1971, of an award that had been established to honour female astronomers. If you're talking with your students about gender issues in the sciences, this would be a fantastic case study.
Toni Feder's article about the physics community in Cuba is fascinating.
I really enjoyed reading Moses Rifkin's reflection on his work teaching social justice in the physics classroom.
Nathan Belcher wrote this great history of US science education, seen particular as the context for Modeling Instruction. So much education reform seems like reinventing the wheel: it is vitally important that we know our history.
The proceedings of the 2017 Physics Education Research Conference have been published online. Altogether, it is 120 very good papers (and completely open).
There's an interesting paper on the arXiv about luck and success. They did some modeling, and found that in a population with "talent" distributed normally, the most "successful" people tend to derive their success from fortuitous events rather than application of their talent. Applications to the financial world are clear. I would love to have students play with a model like this!
Registration for the AAPT High School Photo Contest is open, from now until May 15. This is a great way for students to combine two of their interests.
If you're in/near Michigan, USA, this free summer camp for high school students looks pretty great.
Seen on the web:
Megan Hayes-Golding does meaningful assessment in a robotics class.
Dan Burns does the toilet paper roll drop as a practical.
This is a good activity for understanding spectra.
Here's a demo showing kinetic and thermal energy.
I love Joe Cossette's stop-motion animation assignment for kinematics.
This investigation proposal form is superb.
Jeffrey Lai rolls a magnetic ball down a ramp -- I like this better than dropping it in a tube.
Shannon Feineis's students are experiencing conservation of angular momentum.
If you're going to do electrolysis, why not use the platters from an old hard-drive?
Frank Noschese is doing capacitors and also this defibrillator practical.
Drew Lewis got the memo about vertical non-permanent surfaces.
The APS Forum on Education spring newsletter is out, relevant particular to those in the USA.
And, lastly, these shoes are lit.
Apologies for being late this week -- I was traveling over the weekend.