Spring 2000 Meeting at Stanford

AAPT Northern California/Nevada Section
Friday & Saturday, April 7-8, 2000

Friday Program

Two workshops were held during the day. Both were well attended. At the conclusion of the workshops, the participants were taken on a tour of the Gravity Probe B project which is scheduled to launch next year.
Particles in Your Classroom - Andria Erzberger and Bruce Anderson, PTRA

Computer/Calculator Interfacing - Clarence Bakken and Mike Ugawa, PTRA

Two sets of tours at SLAC, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, were held, giving almost 90 people an closer look at what is done and how it's done at SLAC.

Following refreshments that were provided by SLAC, the group heard three talks:

Overview of SLAC and its programs - Jonathan Dorfan, SLAC Director

Projects that are being done at SLAC - Helen Quinn, SLAC Physicist

Amazing Tale of the Tiny Neutrinos - Giorgio Gratta, Stanford Professor

Saturday Program

Welcome
Rick Pam, the host for the meeting, welcomed the group and provided some last minute details on schedule.

Show & Tell

  1. Roger Morehouse, Cal Poly Pomona: Lissajou Figures with plastic mailing tube and transparencies
  2. Mike Shea, CSU Sacramento: Using a water-filled hose to determine how level a surface is
  3. Paul Robinson, San Mateo HS: Projectile ramp and Astro Blaster
  4. Clarence Bakken, Gunn HS: General announcements about Physics Day and Lab Pro/CBL2
  5. Glenn Johnson, Ukiah HS: Encouraging physics teachers to reach out to the community
  6. Tom Bleier, Stellar Solutions: Project to detect low frequency earthquakes waves - 3-axis magnetometer with special electronics to detect precursor waves to major earthquakes
  7. Dan Burns, Los Gatos HS: Audio Switcher using funnels, plastic tube and ear protectors
  8. Ann Hanks, American River College: Fractal Mirrors
  9. Peter Vajk, St. Joseph Notre Dame HS: Seat belt assignment for students seen not wearing seat belts
  10. Boyd Mathias, UOP (retired): Laser going past a fine wire or human hair and observing the pattern
  11. Steve Mathias, Sphericon
  12. Bernard Cleyet: Viscosity of a gas as a function of temperature

Invited Talk

"Holding Onto Atoms and Biomolecules with Light"
Steve Chu, Stanford University

Invited Talk

"So What Really Happens at Absolute Zero?"
Douglas Osheroff, Stanford University

Business Meeting

Election

New Teachers Workshop

A New Teachers Workshop was held from 2:00-4:15 for teachers new to physics teaching or new to NCNAAPT. Paul Robinson was the organizer and master of cermonies. He was joined by Dean Baird, Dan Burns, Rog Lucido, Clarence Bakken and Stephanie Finander who also gave presentations to the group.

Contributed Papers

"Physics Toys on the Web"

  • Tsing Bardin, City College of San Francisco

"A New Barometer Story"

"Clarifying Student Understanding using Reading the Equation and Justification Worksheets"

"A Strange Behavior of Friction"

"A Simple Large-Angle Pendulum Formula and Experiment"

  • Dick Kidd, Diablo Valley College

"Around-the-World Atomic Clocks"

  • John Graham, Fresno City College

"Construct Your Own Problem (CYOP's) - Another Tool for Developing Conceptual and Analytical Skills"

"Birds: Lift and Thrust"

  • Lewis Carroll Epstein (retired), City College of San Francisco

"The Magnetic Field of Current-Carrying Polygons"

  • Matthew I. Grivich, Santa Clara University

"Advantages of Not Doing Examples"

"On Levitating Magnets, Fields, and Currents"

  • Ron Brown, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo

"Nonradiating Wave Sources"

"Resurrecting Feynman"

"QuarkNet -Teachers Doing Research"

"Teaching Physics in a Multidisciplinary Science Course"

"Spark Chamber for Cosmic Ray Particle Detection: A Student Project"

  • Nelia Mann and Dennis Murphree (students), Stanford University

"The Little Cyclotron that Could: Construction of a 50 keV Cyclotron as a Student Project"

  • David Kroodsma, Nikhil Padmanabhan, Will Parks, Jiang Qian, Brian Sammuli, Sam Waldman (students), Stanford University

 

Next Meeting:

Chico State (CSU Chico), November 3-4, 2000

Local Host: Chris Gaffney

Updated 4/12/00