Welcome to the NYU Society of Physics Students!
We meet in Room 1067 at 726 Broadway (Physics Department) on Thursdays at 7pm.
Meeting's activities range from game nights to high-voltage experiments to art-making.
We have shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, and more! Check out our newer selection here or our older designs here!
ἄνθρωπον φύσις· φύσιν ἄνθρωπος
Number of the day: 14
News
Apr 24 Meeting
Physics Image
Upcoming Event! April 24th is the date of our SPS elections!
If you want to run, start preparing now! If you want to see people run, mark your calendar!
Upcoming Event! Professor DiZinno will be returning to finish his talk on C.F.D. this Friday at 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Upcoming Event! The week after our elections is May 1st! And not only that, it's the date of the DepartmentChess Tournament!
Recent Event Undergraduate Physics Seminar this Friday, from 12:30 - 1:30pm given by Professor DiZinno from Tandon School of Engineering! He will discuss Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Recent Event PURR (Physics Undergraduate Research Revue) happenend Thursday, Apr 17th at 4pm!
Upcoming Event! Professor DiZinno will be returning to finish his talk on C.F.D. this Friday at 12:30 - 1:45 p.m.
Upcoming Event! The week after our elections is May 1st! And not only that, it's the date of the Department
Recent Event Undergraduate Physics Seminar this Friday, from 12:30 - 1:30pm given by Professor DiZinno from Tandon School of Engineering! He will discuss Computational Fluid Dynamics.
Recent Event PURR (Physics Undergraduate Research Revue) happenend Thursday, Apr 17th at 4pm!
This week is Election Week! Come to run and come to see your friends run!
The Google form necessary to sign up as a candidate is here.
One lucky winner will be in charge of running this very website. Other open positions are Archivemaster, Breadmaster (treasurer), and Two Mastermasters (2 co-presidents).
The Google form necessary to sign up as a candidate is here.
One lucky winner will be in charge of running this very website. Other open positions are Archivemaster, Breadmaster (treasurer), and Two Mastermasters (2 co-presidents).
So one model for population growth is iterating this equation: xnext = r x (1 - xcurrent).
x here represents the current fraction of the population's maximum carrying capacity, and r is the rate of reproduction.
The behavior we get here is a population that grows quickly and then slowly steadies out to an equilibrium value that depends on r.
However! As you can see in this graph that displays the final equilibrium value, it is not always unique!
When the diagram bifurcates, the population oscillates between several values.
But when the growth rate hits r=3.7, the equlibrium stops oscillating and starts jumping around between a never-repeating series of values, even close to extinction.
The craziest part, in my opinion, is the pockets of stability that re-emerge just between 3.82 and 3.85. This time with strictly odd numbers of equilibria.
This is a doable coding project for a beginner programmer! I recommend it.
The behavior we get here is a population that grows quickly and then slowly steadies out to an equilibrium value that depends on r.
However! As you can see in this graph that displays the final equilibrium value, it is not always unique! When the diagram bifurcates, the population oscillates between several values.
But when the growth rate hits r=3.7, the equlibrium stops oscillating and starts jumping around between a never-repeating series of values, even close to extinction.
The craziest part, in my opinion, is the pockets of stability that re-emerge just between 3.82 and 3.85. This time with strictly odd numbers of equilibria. This is a doable coding project for a beginner programmer! I recommend it.
Apr 17 Meeting
Physics Image
This week's PhedEx involves toys.
Hayden Pastor will be presenting a talk and demonstration featuring vintage electronics, especially old telephone exchange systems & vintage pinball technology.
Warning! High Voltage! Bring popcorn.
Hayden Pastor will be presenting a talk and demonstration featuring vintage electronics, especially old telephone exchange systems & vintage pinball technology.
Interesting image, Webmaster! Oh! thanks guys... I worked hard on this one.
Apr 10 Meeting
Sonic Boom Image
This week's meeting is a PhedEx by SPS's Ambrose Lo! His talk will concern ethic in science: what it is, interesting examples,
and what would happen if we could... transcend them.
And of course ourtown hall with the NYU Physics Department is this Friday, Apr 11! Come to that
And of course our
Schlieran images of several objects breaking the sound barrier!
The top image is particularly interesting because it's of Boom Supersonic's XB-1, a test vehicle for Overture, which will be the world's fastest and only supersonic airliner, the first since the end of the Concorde jet.
Schlieran imaging is tracking the refraction of light through a fluid with gradients in the refractive index. These two map higher areas of higher density, which refract light more, to brighter colors.
Apr 3 Meeting
Space Image
Our next meeting, April 3rd, will center on a discussion of the Town Hall! that we are having next week (Apr. 11). We will be talking all about ideas that we would like to bring up to Physics department and administration about the curriculum, et cetera. Your attendance, especially the physics students among you, would be very valuable at this meeting!
Some nice, beautiful space images this week.
The top images shows the remnant of a supernova, emitting in the infrared. The little shape in the bottom right is nearby dust that glows due to the heat of the supernova, "echoing" the old starlight at a lower frequency.
The bottom image, meanwhile, is known as "Einstein's Cross". Amid the constellation Pegasus, a quasar sits behind a galaxy. Due to the galaxy's gravity, the extremely intense light rays of the quasar are split apart and bent around the galaxy, and reach Earth from five different positions in the sky (one path is through the galaxy; it's the dimmest and can't really be made out). This is one of the most extreme observable examples of gravity bending light ("gravitational lensing").
A subtler example, though, was the first to be observed. Some visible stars are on the same plane as the Sun and Earth, and are thus occluded by the Sun for half the year. However, a few stars are visible that ought to be blocked out, due to gravitational lensing! This was first confirmed experimentally in 1919 during a solar eclipse.
Mar 20 Meeting
Lightning Image
All is not well this Thursday (March 20th)... our last meeting before spring break.
There may be murder, there may be mystery, and there will definitely be food.
Reminder to check out our new merch! Links above.
There may be murder, there may be mystery, and there will definitely be food.
Reminder to check out our new merch! Links above.
The ground's negative charge is maintained in this way --
Every stroke of lightning delivers ~20-30 coulombs! The way stormclouds can build up this much charge is not fully understood, but one theory is depicted below, in which falling water droplets, which are overall neutral but polarized due to the Earth's E field, accumulate negative ions and bring them down to the bottom of the cloud.
Nothing to put here... awkward.
Mar 13 Meeting
Self-Assembling Wires Image
This Thursday, March 13th, there will be a talk and an activity administered by yours truly, the Webmaster. Topics discussed will include the mini-game feature under the 'Games' tab and its linear algebraic solution, some musings and opportunities about this website, and a very interesting electricity-based activity depicted in this week's image corner!
Mar 6 Meeting
3-Body Image
This Thursday, March 6th, we have a PhedEx! Join us as one of our premier members gives a talk about a certain future business plan....
Also, we have, as ever, free food and FREE THOUGHT.
Also, we have, as ever, free food and FREE THOUGHT.
Gravitational interaction of three massive bodies! This is the most 'interactive' set of initial conditions I could find.
Particles 1, 2, and 3 have masses of 1, 2, and 3, so this would resemble three planets more than it would a Sun-Moon-Earth type deal.
I tried to get angle (1) that looked nicest (2) that was clearest and (3) one that showed how the green orbit is, projected on a certain plane, still essentially an ellipse.
160,000 time-steps taken. Verlet method.
Feb 27 Meeting
Black Holes!
This Thursday, February 27th, we will be hosting an egg drop challenge! In teams, we'll design apparati to attach to our assigned egg, which will be condemned to fall down a the center of a many-storied staircase.
A little tip for those who check this website: you have to make sure that the egg lands on the top or the bottom, which are the strongest parts, even as it falls. I recommend spinning it.
The world record egg drop is 213 meters, sent from a helicopter onto soft grass (cheating).
A little tip for those who check this website: you have to make sure that the egg lands on the top or the bottom, which are the strongest parts, even as it falls. I recommend spinning it.
The world record egg drop is 213 meters, sent from a helicopter onto soft grass (cheating).
Maximally extended Schwarzschild solution.
This diagram describes a spherically-symmetric solution to the Einstein equation. Roughly, the two directions toward/away the singularity and forward/backward in time are displayed. Region 2 is the region confined by the event horizon (r=2GM). All you need to know otherwise is that bodies traveling at the speed of light are represented by 45 degree lines before you can start coming up with some ridiculous ideas.
Before you get too excited, note that the time-symmetry of this solution means that it is not representative of black holes that were created, only hypothetical eternal ones.