In which I chronicle my triumphant return from the South Carolina Physics Scholars Institute at Francis Marion University, which took up approximately two days of my life, spread out from the 4th to 6th of November.
So in a nutshell:
Thursday: Check in after school, listen to welcome (Tesla coils and shattering beakers using matched resonance frequencies!), tour several lab areas/prospective experiments, eat a delicious and delicate dinner, go to the planetarium, draw lots for picking/pecking order, pick experiments depending on order, go back to hotel, get acquainted with roommate, unpack, crash.
Friday: Wake up, shower, eat breakfast, drink stolen coffee creamers (they had Irish creme! I was so excited!), take frozen bus to FMU.
Experiment 1: Measuring the mass of an electron (~2% error! Aww yisss!)
Lecture: Computational Physics (with an after-lecture session regarding particle physics)
Break
Experiment 2: Integrated Circuits- Timing Chips (troubleshooting is a nightmare)
Lunch: Sammiches!
Experiment 3: Using the Monte Carlo method with a dartboard inscribed in a square to approximate the value of pi
Lecture: Health Physics (in which I felt slightly bad about possibly appearing snobby due to my knowledge of beta particle emission)
Break
Experiment 4: Holography time in a dark room, making holograms in specially treated glass (I put a dragon atop a die beside a castle: dungeons and dragons! It's not a d20, but eh.)
Demonstrations by faculty! Very exciting; coil guns, angular momentum, van de graff generators, supermen, dancing ooblek!
Dinner: Pizza and liquid nitrogen ice cream! Of course, we didn't just make ice cream; we froze bananas and used it to hammer a nail, froze a racquetball that exploded when smashed and sent frozen rubber shrapnel everywhere, compressed balloons, poured it on tables, shot out corks from coke bottles, and froze and smashed roses:
There are the fractured remains of my nitrogen-frozen rose. Sorry for the low res.
After dinner: A very cool game of LIFE, with all of my new friends. Apparently I must be a girl white male in need of an armadillo and a husband in the backseat. oh, and I'm an accountant who makes $20, 000 per year. Yeah, I lost. (THE GAME). We then proceeded to doodle all over the blackboard while waiting for the other groups to finish playing Modern Warfare 2 and/or watching Sherlock Holmes.
Go back to hotel, attend a semi-party in friend's room, chase out friend's roommate, attack another suite, watch Monty Python, try to do the jerk, teach the two step, say farewells, get back to own room in time for room check, pass room check, wash up, pack up, crash.
Saturday (today)
Wake up, shower, steal muffin and grapefruit juice for breakfast, drink more creamers, finish packing up, load luggage, shiver on bus en route to FMU.
Experiment 5: Visible light spectrometry analysis of helium, hydrogen, and sodium (mental math!)
Lecture: Astronomy (Death star, star death, nebulae and novae, and lots of trying to convince my astrophysics-prone friend that particle physics is way cooler)
Break and group picture in the blazing, burning sun
Experiment 6: simulating the motion of Earth's orbit around the sun while varying the mass of Earth and the Sun, as well as velocity and starting position of orbit.
Lunch: Farewell luncheon, good food, certificates, photo-ops, and goodie bags!
I honestly have no favorite experiment: I got to pick all of the ones I wanted, and so I enjoyed all of them equally. The one where I learned the most was probably experiment six; I've always been a bit annoyed at my lack of ability to program, but I think I'm getting better.
I'm quite disappointed that it's over already. At first, I actually didn't expect it to be that amazing; FMU was just that little university thirty minutes from my house. But the high schoolers weren't all AP Physics geniuses (Genii?) and the students didn't treat us like idiots. The professors were very approachable and down to earth. The small group size of 2-3 participants per group really made the environment personally interactive and educational.
Going to SCPSI has definitely rekindled my interest in physics. Maybe I can major in MechE and minor in physics. I was a bit scared that my sad excuse for an honors physics course in tenth grade would put me at a huge disadvantage, but there wasn't anybody that made me feel stupid. More interestingly, there weren't a lot of antisocial, extremely-awkward nerds here; we were happy, gregarious nerds. There was also a surprising lack of Asians; I think I was the only Asian person there! So I felt like I fit in more; I'm a pretty charismatic person, which is more natural if people don't ask me, "Hey, why isn't ___ talking to, like, anyone? I mean, aren't you both Asian?"
I actually brought my copy of Atlas Shrugged to read at first, and it was a good ice breaker; people would ask me what I was reading, or offer commentary from their readings, and we would go from there. I had to tone down my Dagny-worship a bit, so I wouldn't immediately scare all of the uninitiated strangers.
But...I'm going to cut off here. This nutshell has become a treasure chest. I greatly recommend this program, and my only regret is that I didn't hear about SCPSI in junior year. Speaking of nutshells, I was saddened to find that brazil nuts (my favorite) are radioactive. Unless I can reach Dr. Manhattan-like pseudophysics, I'll have to watch what I'm snacking on from now on.
Any suggestions about physics, programs, college, or this blog? Any comments on my life so far? Flames will be used to light my bunsen burner.
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