Twice a year, the SPS (society of physics students, a branch of the American Physics Society) hosts a forum which matches physicists (like me) with high school classes with students studying physics. They ask questions and we respond. I have done this regularly since 2009, and it is the highlight of my year. Each physicist who volunteers gets “adopted” by three high school classes...
In a meeting today, we were talking about models for contact mechanics to measure the indentation of an indenter probe into a surface. I got to correct someone that the correct term is Hertz-Sneddon.
Ian Sneddon, referred to as a Mathematician, made significant contributions to many areas of physics.
Yeah, I am a geek.
I entered SJSU in fall 1983, with a declared major of B.A. Physics. But I assumed that I would probably go into computer science. I had spent much of my high school time with my nose glued to either one of the Apple II+’s in the computer lab, or the Atari 800 system (that I was able to afford on my paper route money) learning programming, computer technology, and lastly 6502 machine...
One common application of the atomic force microscopes that we make is to measure properties of bio-molecules. AFM’s have long been used to image DNA strands, but the more interesting work is when you functionalize the probe, and then try to “pick up” a bio-molecule (like a protein). I am working on definition of improvements to our analysis software, and since I know squat...