The Future of Higher Education: Free Courses?!

A few years ago, several big-name colleges (MIT was a leader in this) began putting their courses online, where anyone would be able to 'take' them for free.  Now, you won't be able to get a free degree or even credit for the course, but for self-education, perhaps a course that can help you with your job or just something that you've always wanted to take but did not have the time or money to pursue, well, you can likely find it for free.

Take a look at Coursera, which is the latest, very popular site with numerous colleges adding courses to the list (including my alma mater, U. of Illinois).  If you are interested in a particular school, you may want to check out what their courses look like.  Some others that are out there include MIT's course site, and Oxford's courses. The future may be here, at least for many students, simply because the top schools may be pricing themselves out of many students' affordability range.  How much longer will families take out massive amounts of loans (which = debt) for a college degree?  It will be interesting to watch how this all plays out over the next few years, as more courses are offered online and more people take those courses.

Top Physics and Engineering Undergraduate Programs

Check out one set of rankings for the top ten undergraduate physics programs.  This is put out by Bright Hub, and is consistent with just about any rankings you find.  As they point out, many people consider a physics major at these types of schools to be among the most difficult of any major, and I can attest to that (UIUC Ph.D., class of 1995).  The order generally does not matter, as any of these schools will challenge you as far as you wish to go, and will prepare you for a diverse set of careers built around physics and problem solving.  The schools included on the list are:

MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Caltech, Princeton, Cornell, Berkeley, U. of Illinois, Santa Barbara, and U. of Chicago.

None of these should be surprising, with the possible exception of Santa Barbara - not many people realize the work they do.  The others are all usual top names for powerhouse science and engineering schools.  All provide wonderful research opportunities for undergrads, and are also on lists for top graduate schools.

For Engineering, check out many of the same schools for the rankings:

MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, U. of Illinois, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Princeton.

Cannot go wrong with any of these!

Teach 1st Graders to Program?

Here's an interesting idea being in tried in the small country of Estonia - getting the principles and concepts related to computer programming to first graders.  One does not need to learn an actual language like Python, Java, or C++, but certainly the concepts can be picked up, even by six year olds.  There are so many ways of doing this, to teach them about how a computer does not think and instead needs to be told every small instruction.  Teachers can make a variety of games for young children to play, and the way young minds work, they will begin to learn to think like a programmer, and over time as they progress through elementary school simple commands and syntax can be added slowly but surely.  At some point visual programming languages such as Scratch and Starlogo can be used, then move them into a simple language like Netlogo, and eventually to more advanced languages if they choose.  The point is this is a powerful way to teach 21st century skills, remove the fear from computers, programming and technology in general, learn logical thinking and improve problem solving skills over an extended time.  Just like learning a foreign language is easiest when young, I am fairly certain the same is true for a computer language.

Scientists can now measure the mass of individual molecules

A new nanodevice is able to measure the mass of a single molecule.  The way this works is the device has a certain vibrational frequency.  This is like a spring that is oscillating at some frequency (simple harmonic motion).  But what we learn about springs is that the frequency depends on the mass that is attached to the spring.  What happens with this device is that when a molecule lands on the device, the frequency changes.  It is the change in frequency that determines the mass.

So this is a wonderful example of taking a basic physics principle and applying it in a new environment.  The engineering of the device is, of course, tricky, but the principle can be understood with the physics we study in class.  Very cool!

Special Relativity: From energy to particle-wave duality

In 1905, Einstein published what is now called special relativity.  We have the famous E = mc^2 as well as some other results: time slows down with speed, lengths get shorter with speed, and mass increases with speed.  If it helps, the idea of mass increasing makes sense straight from E = mc^2.  If an object moves faster, the total energy increases since there is more kinetic energy.  So the left side increases.  This means the right side must increase as well, but c cannot change (it is a constant, the speed of light).  This means the only thing that can and does change is the mass increases.

Einstein united space and time into a single 'fabric' we call the space-time continuum. Keep in mind that he also united mass and energy.  They aren't just related to each other, they are equivalent to each other!  It is sort of like saying they are two forms of the same stuff.  I like to think of ice and steam - there is no reason at all to think they are related just by looking at them, but with closer inspection they are both two forms of the same stuff, water.

In this video we will focus on the mass equation, and see what Einstein's energy equation is, where the notion of antimatter comes from, and where the idea of 'matter waves' comes from!  These are some of the foundations of modern science, and we can derive them in just a few minutes.  Check it out!!

Motion Graphs and the Meaning of Slope on These Graphs

Here we take a look at a more visual way of analyzing motion, motion graphs.  These refer to those graphs of position vs time, velocity vs time, and acceleration vs time.  What is cool about these is that when you get good at reading the graphs, you can picture the motion of the object the graphs are describing.  We will use one of the ActivPhysics simulations (1.2) to help connect the initial conditions, the actual motion of a car, and the motion graphs to each other.  I recommend playing with these simulations on your own (1.2, 1.3), and you will find yourself getting better and better of making all the connections.

Now, for us we will include the calculus.  Specifically, slopes of the motion graphs are important.  And we now know that derivatives are really just slopes of graphs, even if they are curves.  This is what we are after in this video lesson.

velocity = slope of position graphs = dx/dt
acceleration = slope of velocity graph = dv/dt

Focus on these definitions as you watch.

How to do Vector Addition to get Net Force

One basic skill we use over and over in physics and engineering is adding vectors to find the total, or resultant or net, vector.  Vectors are those quantities with BOTH magnitude and DIRECTION, such as forces.  Obviously, gravity has a direction of 'down' and is therefore a vector.

The easiest problem is when there are two vectors on the same line, called colinear vectors.  These we just add, if in the same direction, or subtract, if in opposite directions.  The trickier problems are when forces are pulling in multiple dimensions.  This is where the rules for right triangles are needed.  We can use sine, cosine, and tangent to figure out how much of each individual force is in the x and y directions.  We can also use these functions to determine the direction of the net force, and therefore the direction the object will actually start moving.  Remember Chief SOH-CAH-TOA for the definitions of these trig functions!

Check out this example with three force vectors.  Keep in mind to use a table of x and y components in all your problems to keep things organized - it will help.

Great Example of Computational Thinking/Modeling for an Everyday Physics Problem

Check out how mathematical modeling is applied to solving the motion of a rotating fan blade slowing down. It outlines the thought process and methods used to solve this commonly observed event.  Check it out! 

Femto-Photography is Here - 1 Trillion frames per second!

Modern technology has revolutionized many facets of life, but as much as any area, photography has gone bananas with high-speed photos and films.  As long ago as the 1960s, scientists and engineers figured out how to take pictures at one million frames per second.  Now, fifty years later, there is a camera that is one million times faster than that!   Yes, one trillion frames per second.  Check out this TED talk to see what it can do, where is actually follows a pulse of light itself...you can see a light pulse move.  I find this unbelievable, and truly fascinating.  Our ability to view Nature at this level has opened our eyes to details of all sorts of phenomena we could not dream of just a few years ago.

Big Day in Particle Physics - The HIGGS!!

The Higgs is here! After decades of looking for the bugger, confirming experimental results from Fermilab and CERN show that the Higgs boson is a real particle, which satisfies the prediction from the Standard Model.  It is also cool to see comments from two old friends from my Fermilab days, Rob Roser and Tom LeCompte, in this article.  Here is another article, and also an interview on CNBC below.  There are also a couple former students from Chem-Phys out at CERN (shout-out to Edmund and Dan!), who have helped keep me in the loop the past couple years.  Congrats to everyone involved!!

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