Physics Pays?

A team of physicists hope to set off a controlled nuclear fusion reaction at Lawrence Livermore National Labs  in Livermore, California. Photo by Steve Jurvetson.

I recently stumbled upon an article written at Payscale.com examining high-paying careers. Specifically, they were comparing the salaries that recent college graduates earn to their Bachelors degrees. This chart shows a summary of the top degrees:

Best Undergrad College Degrees By Salary

Methodology Annual pay for Bachelors graduates without higher degrees. Typical starting graduates have 2 years of experience; mid-career have 15 years. See full methodology for more.

As you can see graduates with physics degrees are the 7th highest-paid in this study (and only behind various physical-science engineering majors). These results are very surprising to me--it's not like they only studied different kinds of science degrees. For example, we can find degrees like art, physical training, and education on the list as well. Does this mean that everyone should go to college to major in petroleum engineering? Of course not! But, ... ... a few questions for you:

1. What other important factors (when choosing a college major) are not considered in this study?
2. Are you surprised by the results?
3. Would you use data from a study like this to help you to make a decision about what you'd like to study in college? If not, what do you considered to be more influential on your decision?
4. Many students say they'd like to become teachers. According to this study, what is the starting median pay for graduates with an education degree?
5. As discussed above, the degree a bachelors degree in physics ranks 7th. What kind of job (or where does a person work) does person with a physics degree have? What would they do? 

Momentum Problem

Photo by takomabibelot.

We've been studying momentum in class this week. As I was putting together some problems for students to use as review, I searched the internet to see if I could find a ready-made collection of problems for high school students that an instructor was willing to share. One of the first hits I found contained this problem:

A bus of mass 19,000 kg driving at 17 m/s runs into a brick wall and comes to a complete stop. What is the force of impact on the bus?*

 I quickly decided that I'd better not use this problem set--something is not right here! Can you see what I mean? Why is this confusing or misleading?

(*) I changed the nouns and numbers in this problem to protect the original author from ridicule. (And also so that a quick Goolge search doesn't immediately turn up this exact question as posed by a frustrated student.)

Planets, Attract!

Images from NASA JPL, assembled by Royalty-free Image Collection.

As we've learned, every object (with mass) in the universe attracts every other object (with mass) in the universe with a gravitational force. Newton's Law of Universal Gravity tells us how to compute the magnitude
of these gravitational forces. Consider the 8 planets in the Solar System:

1. Which of the 7 other planets exerts the largest force on the Earth? How big is this force?
2. Which 2 planets exert the largest forces on each other? How big are these forces?
3. Compare the force of gravity that the sun applies to the Earth and the force of gravity that the Moon applies the the Earth... ... By what factor is the Sun's force stronger?
4. What is the nearest star to the Sun? How far away is it in units of meters?
5. What is the magnitude of the gravitational force between the Sun and its nearest stellar neighbor?

A few years ago, answering these questions would have required a student to look up masses and distances in a handbook (or online) and do many tedious calculations. Now, there are many slick alternatives. I'd like us to investigate these questions using Wolfram Alpha. (Incidentally, Wolfram Alpha is scheduled to have a big overhaul this Wednesday--there will now be a "Pro" version.) Use Wolfram Alpha to determine the answers to the five questions above. Post your results as comments.

Thinking about the Science Fair

Photo by Mars P.

Getting Started

The complete informational packet for the 16th Annual St. Clair County Science and Engineering Fair is now posted online.

1. There are three major project categories. What are they?
2. What are the maximum allowable dimensions for a high school science fair project's display?
3. What would be the proper way to cite a Times Herald newspaper article called "Great Lake are Really Great"? The article was written by Joe Smith on January 17, 2012.
4.  Draw a rectangle on your page. If this rectangle represents a typical 3-sided display board, label the major components.
5. What is the difference between an independent variable and a dependent variable? Give an example of each for a hypothetical experiment.
6. What is an abstract? How long should it be?

Choosing a Project Type

One of the first choices to make when thinking about what you want to do with your project is deciding whether to do an engineering project or a science project. Use the Science Buddies' site to answer the following questions.

1. What are the steps of the typical "engineering design process"?
2. What steps are similar when comparing the "engineering design process" and the "scientific method"?

Choosing a Specific Project

Often, the hardest part about doing a science fair project is selecting a topic to study. It's best to choose a topic that interests you. Coming up with an original idea is nice, but sometimes we need a little inspiration.

1. Do a Google image search for winning science fair projects. Try to draw some quick generalizations... ... Are there any similarities among various winners (not in their subjects, but in their presentation or style)?
2. There are many resources online with science fair project ideas. Let's use the one featured at education.com. Browse through the list, read them, and write down at least three topics that you might find interesting. Make sure your choices are not the same as anyone else sitting near you in class (we want unique projects!).

Note about comments: comments have been disabled for this post because this is a specific outline we're following as an in-class assignment.