Physics
Informant
Greetings…
From Alok Kumar, Chair
Dear Alumni, Students and Friends:
After I received the President Award for Scholarship in 2002, a friend came to my office and said, “See what you have done for the physics department. Your department must be thankful.” My immediate response was, “See what this department has done for me. It is the people in the department who allowed me to excel and receive this honor.” It is my students who continually challenge me, motivate me, and assist me to become a better physicist and teacher. It is due to their interactions that I have progressed. Yes, it is you!!
Much has changed in the department over the years during my stay in Oswego. In my first year at Oswego, Professor John O`Dwyer occasionally stopped by my office during his regular strolls in the corridors of Snygg Hall and shared his views on a variety of subjects. I looked forward to these visits. Any time I needed to discuss physics or get a demonstration for my lectures, Ron Brown was always there to assist me. Despite a heavy teaching schedule, Ron always found time for me. Similarly, Ram Chaudhari, Roger Hinrichs, Gubbi Sudhakaran, and Paul Liebenauer were also around for help and advice. Well, these people are now either retired or left Oswego. Thanks God! Professor Dale Zych is still around to assist all of us and provide us a glorious glimpse of old days. However, not all is lost.
We have hired several new faculty members who share their expertise and hard work to improve the quality of teaching and research in this department. Professors Anne Caraley, Shashi
Kanbur, Krsna Dev, and Bruce Zellar (technician) are bright, energetic, innovative, and have many new ideas to improve the quality of teaching and research at Oswego. They are setting new standards of teaching and research and are the future of this department. I have listed their achievements elsewhere in this newsletter. You will learn more about them in coming newsletters.
After about 7 years as chair, Professor Zych decided to relinquish his position. He did so as he was missing his toys (equipment) in his labs. These days he can be seen rushing from one lab to another in his lab coat. He has left the department in a great shape. The department is doing quite well in its teaching and scholarship roles. There are several initiatives that the department is involved in. I’ll be sharing more information about these initiatives in the coming newsletters. In the mean time, you can check our profile on the web (www.oswego.edu/physics).
I am sure that many of you are involved in a variety of ventures. It would be nice of you to share your activities with us. I can be reached at . It would be even better for you to visit us and share your experiences in person. As for all of us, we are energized as usual with a new set of motivated students with high aspirations. This is a significant part of our lives to assist these young scholars. It is wonderful to watch them grow and turn into a physicist or engineer. And, we all feel blessed for this opportunity.
A World of Physics
Ron Brown
I marvel at the degree to which the ideas and concepts of physics have permeated our culture, on the practical as well as the philosophical levels. For example, Honda has recently used an old concept when cooling one of its car factories in the United States, using the freezing and melting of water in the refrigeration cycle. Water is cooled down forming ice during the evening hours, and warm factory air passes over the ice during the day, melting it. What could be simpler? In their new Odyssey minivan, Honda uses a system where, at steady speeds, three of its six cylinders cut off, thus allowing for greater efficiency and lower gas cost. This is straight from Newton’s first law: at constant speed, inertia works for you and the car needs only to overcome air resistance.
From CNNMoney.com, I read how physicist in Lyon, France, designed a mathematical model for identifying prime business locations by studying the relationships between retailers. The theory, which was tested on bakery locations in Lyon, developed useful information that stood up to empirical confirmation. I’m sure you all know that physicists believe that they can make a model for almost anything.
Lee Smolin, a theoretical physicist, has written a controversial book entitled: “The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of Science, and What Comes Next.” According to Smolin, string theory, a “theory of everything,” has been stuck in a rut for the past 25 years, during which time no one has found its basic principles and equations. Moreover, he claims that string theory is not a theory in the usual sense, because it is unsupported by experiment, unfal
sifiable and unconfirmable. If a theory cannot be tested, is it physics, or philosophy?
A new second edition of “The Flying Circus of Physics” by Jearl Walker just came out. The book asks quirky questions about physics, such as: “Why do we see two rainbows but not three?” or “Why does snow squeak or squeal when you walk
on it, and why is it more likely to sound like that when it is very cold?” or “How can fish produce electric current, electric potential, and [an] electric field?” Answers are provided.
The demand for wind power, which is nonpolluting, has accelerated in India, where installations rose nearly 48 percent last year and in China, where they rose 65 percent, although from a smaller base. This is important for these two global giants, where coal is the main alternative to wind power, especially in China which accounted for nearly 68 percent in the world’s growth in coal consumption last year. Coal use causes respiratory ailments, acid runoff, and is a major contributor to global warming. Wind energy is free for the taking, and is environmentally safe.
A company called Space Services in Sandusky, Ohio, is preparing to launch a “photonic flyer,” a giant 1,600 square foot sail that is attempting to fulfill the science fiction dream of sailing across the galaxy using the force of photons from the sun. In order to raise the $100 million cost of the project, the company generates income by launching vials of cremated remains of the dearly departed into space, at a cost of $ 1,300 per gram, using commercial rockets. Sounds far-fetched? How much of early science fiction has already come true?
There’s a world of physics out there! From research on the interaction of physics with consciousness, to economic transformations due to the global use of solar energy, physics is having a profound effect on our lives and on our imaginations.
Kumar’s Comments: Not much has changed about Professor Ron Brown. I asked him to write a note about himself in this newsletter. He opted to write this article. His rationale was simple: “This is how my students knew me and remembered me. How can I do anything different now?” He is an excellent teacher and still uses every opportunity to teach physics.
A Note from Roger Hinrichs
Greetings from the Middle East. I’ve been in Qatar for about 12 months at Weill Cornell University Medical College. The weather is cooler, the holy month of Ramadam has just finished, and a few clouds have been spotted – and life is getting a little more predictable. I am teaching University Physics (using Halliday, Resnick and Walker) to about 50 students from about 24 different countries. Cornell’s branch campus overseas has been here for only 4 years, and includes a premedical college and medical college - constructed along the lines of its Medical School in NYC. The students are very good and are taking a program that in 2 years will prepare them for medical school, providing they score well on MCAT’s and achieve a high enough GPA. They get mainly science and math, with some English writing and ethics and psych thrown in. The language of instruction is English, and, with 70% of the population being non-Qatari, it’s hard to find opportunities to use the little Arabic I know.
I am enjoying the chance to integrate some medicine and biophysics into a first year physics course, but finding there is not a lot of such material available. I am having the students do projects in this area in their second semester. (I gave a talk on this at this summer’s AAPT meeting in Syracuse.) Using Pasco/Vernier equipment, they can look at the elasticity of tendons, do EKG’s, design a model of nerve transmission (or measure the action potential for a worm), investigate corrections for eye vision, measure blood pressure under different scenarios, etc. I went to a slaughter house to get some sheep tendons. And worms are not easy to find in such dry climates. (They were shipped in from England!) I am finding out that students as well prepared as these still have difficulty designing experiments and planning their time to carry them out. Some of the things I am learning should be helpful in a college physics text project I am
venturing into with authors from the states and Australia.
Qatar is right on the Persian Gulf and about the size of CT. Half the population lives in Doha,
where I am. I drove west all the way across the country last weekend – took me 55 minutes! The tallest natural things seen on this drive were heads of camels. There is construction going on all over the country, especially Doha. Concrete and cranes are in abundance. I found a local church that I enjoy – meets in a 10 bedroom villa – with 10 bathrooms! Qatar hosts the Asian Games this December, so they are very busy. (They claim it is the largest sporting event outside of the Olympics.) This makes traffic a pain, especially in roundabouts. One bonus here is 75 cents a gallon gasoline, with full service.
Some extra-curricular projects I have been involved in here have been with the local university. We sponsored the first ever Qatar Physics Conference last December, and got Tom Altman to come and be our special speaker. This fall we had a workshop on inquiry based teaching for high school physics teachers, and will have another in a few weeks.
Qatar will shortly become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas. I hope to visit one of their large LNG plants or petrochemical factories this spring. I am trying to introduce energy education into Qatar K-12 schools – but finding a lot of red tape. The fourth edition of my ”Energy and the Environment” text came out last year, so the timing is good.
I miss Oswego friends immensely (and even the snow), but feel this is where I am to be for now. Drop me a line if you get the chance. . Take care.
Salient Achievements
This past year was exemplary in all senses. We excelled in teaching, research, grant writing, and community services. Following are some highlights:
Shashi Kanbur was given the American Astronomical Society’s Chretien award for International Research.
Anne Caraley received Dr. Nuala McGann Drescher Affirmative Action/Diversity Leave Award from the United University Professions (UUP). Project: Explorations of Nuclear Reaction Mechanisms and Their Applications to Nuclear Astrophysics.
Anne Caraley, Dale Zych and Bruce Zellar received a $13,289 SCAP (Student Computer Access Program) grant from SUNY Oswego, to revamp introductory physics lab. Project: A Request to Update Existing Computer Equipment for the Department of Physics Teaching Laboratories.
Anne Caraley has received a $4000 grant from the Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research, Oak Ridge for several extended visits there.
Alok Kumar has received a $2,400 Curriculum Innovation Grant to design several modules in PHY 303 course. Project: Learning by Knowledge Construction: An Innovation in the Beginnings of Science Course.
Alok Kumar (with Jack Gelfand, Al Stamm, and Dave Valentino) has received a $40K grant from the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology, Cayuga Community College. Project: GIS-Based Modeling of Energy Sources and Users for Emergency Management and Economic Development.
Greg Feiden, Kanbur, S. (with Szabo, R., Ngeow, C.), presented a paper during the AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 2007: “A Theoretical Investigation into
the Properties of RR Lyraes at Maximum and Minimum Light.”
Stevens, R., Nanthakumar, A., Kanbur, S (with Ngeow, C.) presented a paper during the AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 2007: “A Testimator Based Approach to Investigate the Non-Linearity of the LMC Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation.”
Anne Caraley (with J.F. Liang, D. Shapira, J. R. Beene, C. J. Gross, R. L. Varner, A. Galindo-Uribarri, J. Gomez del Campo, P. A. Hausladen, P. E. Mueller, D.W. Stracener, H. Amro, J. J. Kolata, J. D. Bierman, K. L. Jones, Y. Larochelle, W. Loveland and D. Peterson), published a paper in Physical Review C 75, 054607, 2007.
Shashi Kanbur (with C. Ngeow) published a paper in Astrophysical Journal, 650, 180, 2006: “Non-Linear Period-Luminosity Relation for the Large Magellanic Cloud: Myths and Truths.”
Shashi Kanbur gave a seminar at Ithaca College, February 28, 2007. Title: The Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation and Astronomy Education in Upstate New York.
Shashi Kanbur gave a seminar in May 2007 at the National Optical Astronomical Observatory, Tucson. Title: The Hydrogen Ionization Front and the Cepheid PL relation.
Shashi Kanbur gave an invited seminar in July 2007 at San Diego State University, Mackenzie Univeristy, Sau Paulo, Brazil and the Laborotoria Nacional Astrofisica, Itajuba, Brazil. Title: “The Stellar Photosphere-HIF interaction and the colors of variable stars.”
Shashi Kanbur gave a short one week invited course at the Federal University of Paraiba, Brazil. Title: “Variable Stars: Pulsation, Evolution and applications to cosmology”.