Fun with Physics

Thursday, November 6^th, 2014 was an exciting night for the Physics department at TLU. The evening’s festivities began at five with a lecture by Christopher Rogan, a particle physicist from Harvard University. He is ranked in the top 30 under the age of 30 innovators, and has worked on the ATLAS project at the CERN supercollider for several years. He covered how new particles were being discovered using the high-powered supercollider and the ATLAS detector. He also talked about the discovery of the Higgs-Boson using the amazing detectors in Switzerland. Dr. Rogan was a great speaker and gave a wonderful lecture that was very well thought out and easy for everyone, even the non-particle physicists, to understand. If you are interested in learning more, the lecture is available to stream on the portal.

After the lecture, the Society of Physics students hosted Family Physics night in the Jackson party barn. This event was designed to show kids, and the inner kid in us, how fun physics can be. Experiments included a Rube Goldberg machine, explanations of why the sky is blue, a cloud chamber, and a splash pool of non-Newtonian fluid, which have properties of both solids and liquids.  They also showed a cool wave-pendulum device of simple oscillators, as wells as ferro-fluids, which are fun to play with!

They also hosted lessons to teach students about the physics of sound, polarizing vs. ordinary light, and induced electromagnetic fields. SPS also hosted large demonstrations at different times during the evening. They threw boiling water into liquid nitrogen, making a big boom, and put shaving cream in a vacuum chamber. The audience was constantly amazed, and it was fun to see the looks of delight on the children’s faces.

Erin Scanlon, physics instructor at TLU, said, “We are really excited about the turnout at this event. It is a great opportunity to bring together TLU and the surrounding community.”

The President of SPS, Stephen Bratz, a senior physics major, also talked about how important the community involvement was, to making this event successful. He states, “This is a great opportunity for the community to come together and gain knowledge about physics. It is also a great opportunity to highlight the talents of the TLU students.

Overall, the events were a great success, and the students of SPS hope to see an even bigger crowd at next year’s events