Accelerated Physics

Physics Friday

Muon g-2
The experiment webpage, and some extra videos and links to the Seminar can be found here.

STEAM > STEM
Brandi's @sciartbro instagram account
Arts at Cern, and their instagram account.
The College of William and Mary's Virtual Mural Conservation Challenge.
Toni Feder's piece in Physics Today

The Martian Helicopter
Check out Nasa's website for All things Ingenuity.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Particle House. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Lessons Learned in Grading
1. Grading in groups builds community.
2. Get it done. ASAP. For your own sanity and for closing the feedback loop faster.
3. Go birds eye first: student errors typically fall into equivalence classes.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Particle House. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Think like a Physicist?
Physicists have their own culture, and part of that culture is a kind of collective, self reflection. One of the most common targets? Creative problem solving.

If you want to see a physicist student panic, as them to model the electron configuration of a benzene ring. As undergraduates spend weeks studying the electron configuration of the hydrogen atom in a quantum mechanics course. Weeks. And that’s just ONE atom. How are you going to model an entire, super complicated organic chemical like Bezene?!

Why. With Symmetry, of course.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Gloria Tells. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Physics Friday

Majorana Particles : The neutrino may well be a Majorana fermion, experiments are currently underway. In condensed matter, many folks are hot on the trail of a quasi Majorana fermion. A recent claimed observation has been retracted. Science is messy. Check out Thomas Lewton's article on the subject.

Xenobots : Check out Doug Blackiston’s research website on xenobots, and Philip Ball’s recent piece in Quanta.

The Coma Cluster : Bruce McClure has a write up in EarthSky this week about hunting the Coma Cluster. The cluster has a rich history in modern astrophysics; it was one of the first case studies in Dark Matter. As Fritz Zwicky pointed out way back in 1933, the motion of the galaxies in the coma cluster are totally inconsistent with their expected mass.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Particle House. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Angular Momentum, Magnetic Dipoles and Quantized Spin

We take ideas in first year physics: angular momentum and current loops, and describe to what extent they can model the magnetic dipole moment of elementary particles, and more generally, the idea of quantized spin.

Also. Read Nobel laureate Dudley Hershbach's fun account of replicating the Stern-Gerlach experiment.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Gloria Tells. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Incentive homework without having to grade it
Last week we discussed using quizzes as a poll for student’s comprehension of the material. This week, we’re turning that idea on its head. Let’s discuss the use of quizzes to motivate students to LEARN the material. Compulsory homework motivates students to only do problems once. And some problems are probably worth doing multiple times.It’s self-defeating all around. So how do you get the notoriously short-time-horizon motivated high school and college students to do their homework? The open-homework quiz.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Particle House. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Testing your Deliberate Practice
The most impactful advice for learning math and science I ever receive came - unsurprisingly - in a physics class. It was an electrodynamics class. It’s heavy subject full of complicated equations, solutions and derivations. Even for an advanced class, the material was so thick and so dense that even the professor felt it necessary to share some studying tips.

"Do the derivation three times without looking at your notes. When you can accomplish that, you're ready for the exam."

This approach is about gauging your own understanding of the material.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Gloria Tells. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Physics Friday
The LHCb experiment reports on new tension with the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Check out our write up on this issue. Also check out our rant about why this absolutely is NOT a discovery or sighting of any new particle.

The Glashow Resonance is observed by the IceCube Neutrino experiment. We wrote about this last week on our blog, check the links to the relevant info there.

Superconducting skyrmions are observed in two-layers of graphene. We also wrote a summary of these skyrmions and the room temperature superconductor information on our blog. Here's Charlie's article at Quanta.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Particle House. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Applied Special Relativity
Today we explore the classic "Astronaut's Twin" paradox from the time dilation effects of Special Relativity, and comment on how it really makes the prospect of an interstellar civilization impractical. In more practical terms, we apply the same ideas to the effects of cosmogenic muons - those particles raining down upon us from the upper atmosphere.

For more on Proxima Centauri C,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_c

Check out our video on Cosmogenic Muons:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERS2hzTjsQY

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Gloria Tells. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com

Polling with Quizzes

The usual grading cycle of weekly homework and exams can delay feedback to the instructor by well over two weeks. Assessing student understanding with low stakes quizzes can both catalyze learning and serve as a classroom poll of understanding.

When work is to be shown, usually student mistakes fall into definite patterns. You can quickly sort the quizzes and grade on those equivalence classes. Since they're low stakes anyway, detailed grading rubrics like you'd impose on a exam aren't relevant here. Pass / Fail or 10/5/2 work just fine.

Thanks for checking us out!
The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ideas, starting conversations. Have any ideas or feedback? Drop us a line: https://www.pasayten.org/heysean
 
This show is made possible in part by the Physics Accelerator, whose mission is to support people in the quest to learn mathematics and physics. The Physics Accelerator is a program of the Pasayten Institute. Music today by Particle House. The show is written, editing and produced by me, Sean Downes. Thank you so much for listening.

You can always find us online at: https://physicsaccelerator.com