Radiations Newsletter

Spring Term 2022 Week 5

Sophomores who have declared Physics as their major (either 1st or 2nd) are invited as the guests of honor to a New Majors Celebration on Wednesday, May 4th (NEXT WEDNESDAY!) during 6a (3:10-4:20 pm) . ALL department folks (faculty, staff, and students, whether or not you’ve already declared a major) are invited to stop in and celebrate along with us! Come out to the Anderson amphitheater for treats and Physics bingo. If it decides to rain, we’ll move inside to the Ground State.

Wednesday, April 27

Physics Colloquium: Landscape Evolution Modeling: Growing and Eroding Mountains using Physics & Python
Shelby Ahrendt ’17, PhD candidate in the University of Washington Civil & Environmental Engineering Department.
1:00 PM, RNS 210 OR Zoom

Friday, April 29^th in Olin 141 at 3:30 pm (Everyone is welcome!)   There will be snacks available after the talk.

“Why being a physics teacher is so much fun”

 Quick: remember the difference between Rayleigh and Mie scattering.

Now: describe how the Newton is a derived unit.

Finally: figure out why this one computer won’t run the lab software.

Sounds like undergraduate physics, all jumbled up. The professional life of a physics teacher is all of those things. My experiences in the classroom in my 15 years post-Carleton have rarely been as hard as Arjendu’s Quantum I but they’ve lasted longer than that ten-week course & have found me teaching at all hours of the day and night. The content has rarely been harder than the work that I did as an undergraduate but the depth of the questions asked by students lead me to really learn the material in ways that I never did at Carleton. I finally felt like I understood what voltage was after teaching it for the first time. Being a physics teacher is a joy and a challenge on a daily basis. It illuminates the universe for me as well and I feel like I’m preparing the next generation of citizens and scientists.

Right: “Mie is for larger particles.”

CRESST II has an open summer internship opportunity for an undergraduate student. The internship requires a student to be currently enrolled in an electrical engineering program and be comfortable operating in a collaborative laboratory environment.

If students are interested, they will need to email an application to Katherine McKee by Sunday, May 8.

Internship Title: Development of Ground Support Electronics for Mass Spectrometers

Date of Internship: Monday, June 6^th – Friday, August 12^th; 10-weeks, 40 hrs/week

Description: At NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the Power Systems Branch (Code 563) has been a key partner with the Planetary Environments Laboratory (Code 699) to develop in house state-of-the-art technology that will enable GSFC and UMBC to set unprecedented achievements in the mass spectroscopy area. Code 563 and 699 are looking for support from an undergraduate summer intern for the summer of 2022 to support the development of ground support electronics for the DISSIPATION mass spectrometer. The intern would participate in the development and testing of ground support electronics through various talks that include design, manufacturing and testing.

The candidate is required to be currently enrolled an electrical engineering program and be comfortable operating in a collaborative laboratory environment.

Location: Work full-time onsite at NASA/GSFC in Greenbelt, MD. The successful undergraduate student will need to relocate to the Maryland, Virginia, or D.C. area for the duration of the internship and travel to NASA/GSFC.

Compensation: This is a paid internship.

How to Apply: To apply, send your CV/Resume, Unofficial Transcript, and 1-page Statement of Interest to CRESST II Program Associate, Katherine McKee.

Deadline to Apply: Sunday, May 8^th

This Week in Physics Magazine, April 25, 2022 Renewable Energy’s Intermittency is Not a Showstopper The intermittency of renewable energy has raised concerns over potential supply shortages, but technological solutions…