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Thirty-five physics students flew out to Southern California this fall break for a field trip that
included stargazing in Joshua Tree National Park and visits to many academic institutions.
The trip, coordinated by physics professors Chiara Nappi and Ed Groth, and cosponsored by the
Princeton physics department and by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, allowed students to make a
direct connection between the material learned in the classroom and exciting current research.
The group was mainly comprised of sophomores enrolled in the sophomore courses on classical mechanics,
PHY203 and PHY205. These courses cover a significant amount of material on central force motion, as it
fits very well with the techniques of Lagrangians, Hamiltonians and conservation theorems that are at the core of these courses.
In particular, in the last unit before the midterm break these courses revisit in more depth the Kepler case, with many
applications to celestial mechanics. Caltech and the associated Jet Propulsion Lab (www.jpl.nasa.gov) were then obvious
suggestions for the fall trip. JPL is the NASA center for interplanetary exploration, the place where all the questions
the students encounter on their problem sets (Hohmann transfer, slingshot orbits, etc.) are everyday bread-and-butter.
Indeed, during the visit to JPL the students learned about current interplanetary missions from
leading scientist Adam Steltzner and about astrophysical research with the new Spitzer infrared telescope from astrophysicist
Mike Werner.
Aside from the sophomores, juniors and seniors interested at looking at Caltech’s graduate program
and job opportunities at JPL also participated in the trip. After visiting the Caltech campus, the
Princeton group heard presentations by the Dean of the graduate school, Michael Hoffman, and by the physics department
representative, Kenneth Libbrecht, and met with Caltech president, David Baltimore. Older students had the opportunity
to interview with Caltech's graduate school. All students also learned about educational opportunities
and summer internships at Caltech and JPL.
The trip began with two nights in Joshua Tree National Park, a desert where students could observe the
night sky without interference from city lights. At the park, a society called
"Sky's the Limit"
conducted two astronomy observation nights. Then the students visited Palomar Observatory and Mount
Wilson Observatory. Finally, on their way to the airport to catch the red-eye back to New Jersey,
the students spent a day at the beach, hiking in Point Dume and dining in Venice Beach.
A very interesting aspect of the trip was the scientific interaction among students, who were
continuously engaged in physics discussions. One of the students remarked "We were with all
other students with the same kind of mindsets and who all think with the same kind of analytic
and vigorous thought processes. It was very nice to be able to discuss things among ourselves."
The general feeling was that the trip was a very pleasant and productive experience. Hopefully,
the physics department will be able to offer it again in the coming years. |
