"Making the Leap from Microbrewing to Nanobrewing"

Michael McGie, California State University, Chico

Methods of nanobrewing, also known as home brewing, will be discussed. Topics will include malting, selection of commercial malts, selection and treatment of hops, and equipment needed. Preliminary results on searching for the quantum limit in brewing will also be presented.

Directions to the Brewery:

Exit Hwy. 99 at 20th Street Follow E. 20th St. westward for ~1/4 mile; The Sierra Nevada Tap Room is on left. We have scheduled the tour from 4:30- 5:30 on Friday. The restaurant is popular, so reservations for a sit-down dinner are advised (530) 345-2739. The beer talk will commence at ~7:00 pm.

Contributed Papers - Session A

Contributed Papers - Session B

SESSION A, Ayers 120

2:00 "Advanced Undergraduate Laboratory Videos and CD’s"

Sumner Davis, Bruce Birkett, Don Orlando,UC Berkeley, spdavis@physics.berkeley.edu

Our advanced undergraduate laboratory is a bridge between lower division "show and tell" laboratory exercises and graduate research. Few undergraduates are prepared to do extra reading and correlation of classroom work with laboratory research. We aim to teach these skills. We have 20 experiments from which to choose, ranging from the Balmer series to the Josephson effect. In preparation the student must watch a half-hour video, read some of the references given, and then consult an instructor for a discussion of preliminary questions posed on the laboratory handouts. We also have a more general lecture series, covering such topics as Energy Levels, Light Sources and Detectors, Radiation Safety, and Error

2:30 "Using the Doppler Shift to Measure Speed"

Tom Bensky, California State University, Hayward tbensky@bay.csuhayward.edu

The speed of a moving object can be measured using the Doppler effect. This particular apparatus employs a Windows-based computer and sound card capable of measuring the Doppler shift of reflected sound from a moving source. This approach allows the direct acquisition of Doppler shifted sound intensity as a function of time. The data can then be analyzed in a variety of ways that are pedagogically effective. Additionally data can be used to study not only for a constant velocity sound source, but for accelerated sources as well.

3:00 "When Does a Trapped Air Bubble Act like a Massless/Incompressible Fluid?"

Chris Gaffney, California State University, Chico cgaffney@csuchico.edu

At the Stanford regional AAPT meeting it was demonstrated that a trapped air bubble would cause the surfaces at the ends of a water-filled hose to reach different heights. In this talk I present two aspects of this situation: 1) a method of "constructing" the bubble so that the resulting height difference can be immediately predicted and, 2) an analysis of the situation when either water is added to a hose end or one tube end is raised with respect to the other. This simple experiment and analysis is quite suitable for both high school and college students. It provides a simple example of the utility of natural length scales for separating regimes of behavior, including one in which the bubble acts like a massless/incompressible fluid.

3:30 "Hot Air"

Lewis Epstein, City College of San Francisco (retired) (415) 826-3488

Physics teachers can almost see the individual molecules of air bouncing around inside of a room. Some of the molecules are hotter than the average {hotter = faster} and some are cooler {cooler = slower} than the average. The hot molecules tend to migrate towards the top of the room, TRUE or FALSE?

4:00 "Pop Gun&emdash;&emdash;A Study of the Ideal Gas Law"

Cheuk Chau, California State University, Chico ckchau@csuchico.edu

The pop gun is an interesting toy, which may be used effectively in physics demonstrations. We use it to illustrate principles of sound waves and the ideal gas law in thermodynamics. In this presentation, we will show pressure and volume measurements of air inside a pop gun and the analysis of these data based on the ideal gas law.

SESSION B, Ayers 106

2:00 "Developing and Using Experiment-Problems"

Xueli Zou (xzou@csuchico.edu ) and Greg Johnson (gregjohnson@pobox.com), California State University, Chico

At Chico we are developing experiment problems for our calculus-based introductory mechanics lab.* An experiment problem consists of a set of apparatus or toys that can be used to perform some task that is stated as a problem. It is intended to help engineering and science students develop problem-solving skills needed in the workplace. For example, these skills include planning a solution, defining a poorly-defined problem, dividing a complex problem into smaller and simple parts and then reassembling the parts to get the solution, and estimating and evaluating approximations. This talk will illustrate some experiment problems in detail and discuss preliminary assessment results.

*A. Van Heuvelen, "Experiment Problems for Mechanics," Physics Teacher. 33, 176-180 (1995).

2:30 "Two Vision Correction Problems You Won’t Find in Most Textbooks"

Paul Peter Urone, California State University, Sacramento, ppu@csus.edu

One of the more difficult tasks for an optometrist is to correct the vision of a person whose eyes differ significantly in the dioptic power each eye requires to be corrected. The eye-brain system cannot adapt to significantly different magnifications for each eye. Simple classroom exercises can illustrate this problem as well as show that it is less severe for contact lenses compared to eyeglasses. A second problem that can be treated simply is the effect of the tear layer beneath a contact lens acting as a lens itself. Contacts are often fitted with a curvature different from that of the cornea for comfort purposes. In such cases the dioptic power of the tear layer must be taken into account for good vision correction.

3:00 "Simulating the not-so-Simple Pendulum"

Dick Kidd, Diablo Valley College

A computer program will be described that produces accurate real-time data for pendulum motion at any amplitude. It will also be shown that although the small-angle regime is small, it is quite observable.

3:30 "Cartooning Around with Vector Thingies"

Brian Willard, Bishop Quinn High School, schwerkraft@yahoo.com

When the students first encounter vectors, it may not be obvious which quantities have both magnitude and direction. The students take a scene from the popular media or of their own device, and render it as a comic book story board, labeling vectors as they go. Connections will be made to Gardner's MI theory, and to Bloom's Taxonomy.

4:00 "Measuring Earth's Radius the Old Fashioned Way"

Lynda Klein, California State University, Chico lynda@cosmogon.net

Fashioned after the famous experiment performed by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago, two classrooms and students located at the same latitude and 3400 km apart were able to use sundials and little trigonometry to find the radius of the Earth.