The Director's Corner

Greetings, and a Merry New Year to you!
January 7 , 2008

I can’t believe it’s already 2008---I can’t even believe it’s 2000 yet, but I think that’s true for most people born in the ‘60s…but believe this: there’s a lot of meat in this email: Summer internships, Spandex videos, Physics Jeopardy opportunities, SOCKs, Top Ten Physics stories for 2007, Absolute Zero, deadlines for all kinds of physics opportunities---paying opportunities, as my Daddy would say.

And as my advisor always said,
Take two, they’re small!

1. SPS Internships available in DC area for summer--work with NASA, NIST, SPS, APS and others, $3700 stipend, plus housing, travel, Feb. 1 deadline!
2. Hundreds of summer research opportunities for physics students, in dozens of fields, at www.the-nucleus.org
3. Tomorrow (!) “Absolute Zero” is coming to PBS and NOVA--January 8th and 15th, 8pm!
4. Teaching fellowship deadline is January 14th ---Knowles Science Teaching Fellowship provide up to 5 years of support for those with a physics degree who want to teach high school science.
5. Travel award deadline for APS April meeting is Wednesday(!), January 9.
6. AIP’s Top Ten Physics Stories of 2007.
7. Hear 2007 Nobel Prize winner John Mather at the NSBP meeting in DC, Feb. 20-23.
8. SPS Outreach Catalyst Kits (SOCKs) available for chapters (only a few left!)--contact krand@aip.org if you want to start an outreach effort in your chapter
9. Physics Jeopardy for SPS chapters premieres in Baltimore on January 19-23--JOIN US!
   
   The registration fees for this meeting are reduced quite a bit for first-timers and faculty with students.
   
   There are a lot of interesting things planned for this meeting:
   
   A poster session and reception and physics Jeopardy game (1/20/08), 5-7pm, Student research and outreach presentations (1/21/08),
   a review of the upcoming NOVA special “Absolute Zero” (1/23/08),
   Vera Rubin, whose work led to the discovery of dark matter (1/22/07),
   and much more…
   
   Planning on being there?…then send me a note at gwhite@aip.org and I’ll see about getting your chapter added to the Jeopardy game list…If you can’t make it to Baltimore this month, no worries! Look for more Physics Jeopardy at a meeting near you in 2008 as part of the SPS Future Faces of Physics drive.
   
   
10. Finally, view the fun football and spandex video that last year’s SPS interns made. Better yet, make your own physics video and win the world’s smallest trophy and $1000; see details below…

Take, care, Gary

Details about the physics video contest:

World's smallest trophy to be awarded in NanoBowl Video Contest

http://www.physicscentral.com/nanobowl/index.html

Science students at all levels are invited to explain physics through football

The American Physical Society is offering the smallest trophy ever made, and $1000 of (normal sized) cash, to the winner of the Physics Central NanoBowl Video Contest. To enter the NanoBowl video contest, make a video that uses football to illustrate some aspect of physics. Upload the video to YouTube with the tag “nanobowl.” The deadline is February 3. Representatives of the APS will choose a winner, and award the trophy and prize money.

The possibilities are endless. You could talk about air pressure inside the ball, the rotation of a spiral, the impact of a tackle, acceleration in a breakaway touchdown run, or anything else you can imagine.

Physicist Harold Craighead and colleagues at Cornell University’s Nanobiotechnology Center created the NanoTrophy that will go to the contest winner (or winners, in the event of a group entry). At 2.4 millionths of a meter across, with features measured in nanometers (billionths of meter), the NanoTrophy is fifty times smaller that the diameter of a typical human hair.

The trophy is much too small to be seen with the unaided eye, or even under an optical microscope. The details of the Nanotrophy can only be revealed under super high magnification scanning electron microscopes and other powerful imaging devices.

Because it’s so small, the trophy is imbedded in a larger pattern that’s visible under an ordinary microscope, which in turn is part of a 12 millimeter pattern visible to the naked eye. Don’t worry, along with the trophy, we’ll be providing a scanning electron microscope image of the trophy so that you’ll be able to see what you won.

Physics Central NanoBowl Video Contest Rules:

• The contest is free and open to anyone with an interest in physics and football, but we strongly encourage physics students at all levels to enter.
• We recommend that the videos be two minutes or shorter. But if you feel you really need some extra time, go for it.
• All videos must be received by February 3, 2008.
• Submitted videos may be used by the American Physical Society in its activities, including posting videos on the Internet.
• Please submit your video via YouTube.com
• Tag your YouTube video with the term ‘nanobowl’ and send an email to physicscentral@aps.org with 'nanobowl' in the subject line to alert us to your video's existence.

For further details about the Physics Central NanoBowl and the nanotrophy, visit the Physics Central website (www.physicscentral.com/nanobowl).

Gary White
Director, Sigma Pi Sigma and Society of Physics Students
Assistant Director of Education
American Institute of Physics
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740
Tel: 301-209-3007
FAX: 301-209-0839