How the Zoom Meeting Went

TAPT-ers,

We had a fun, somewhat low-key, Zoom meeting yesterday. Thanks for the participation. We did a physics quiz and heard an organ concert and caught up with a few people. I’m sorry if you tried to enter and weren’t able to – sometimes the google calendar can be confusing and I maybe shouldn’t have used it.

The physics quiz can be found at https://physicsworld.com/a/bored-of-the-lock-down-get-your-brain-working-with-this-physics-trivia-quiz/. Try it - it’s awesome.

Fritz wasn’t in attendance but Bruce suggested a good book: Isaac Asimov wrote a book about neutrinos in 1966 or so. A scan of the book is attached.

There was some general complaining about teaching online. We all feel underprepared and disappointed. As does everyone else in the world. Some people had some good suggestions about how to cope. Antonio was smart and brought his docu-camera home. Wish I’d thought of that. Bruce really likes the group breakout in Zoom. I’ve used it in Virtual Classroom with ok results I think. Helen pointed out that at least we’re not in England, where the school year doesn’t end until July. We all agreed with Helen – it’s just so hard to know if your students are learning, so hard to find out what they have learned.

Helen pointed me to this video, which we watched and then had a discussion of log-log plots. a great treatment of log-log plotting. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=370&v=54XLXg4fYsc&feature=emb_logo&fbclid=IwAR1OQ_-8EgAOc6Lb1pR6-12UjHrBnzxPNOTsU9BskGabY6suOZrKmt_PJZ4

We thought we would Zoom meet again on May 2, so I hope you will be able to join us then. It was fun to see people we don’t see often like Bob Capen – sorry we didn’t get to catch up with you Bob.

Also, we don’t often get to hear an organ concert – Mark Stockwell is building a large and complicated organ in his garage. It’s awesome.

We all hope schools will be open again in September. Helen’s joke: In the future, exponential growth will be taught using corona virus, and exponential decay will be taught using the interest of students in online lessons.

Hope everyone is healthy! Please feel free to add your own links; those that attended might want to remind me of anything I missed. 

Best,

Karie

Meeting Tomorrow

J.D. has a great speaker lined up: Bill Hoffman is a part of the infrared instrumentation team for the University of Arizona Astronomy Department. The U of A's Astronomy made its reputation initially on the ability of that team's cameras to penetrate the galactic dust clouds by detecting infrared photons, giving a much enhanced view. Dr. Hoffman's research interests are in infrared astronomy, astronomical instrumentation, dust in the Milky Way and young stars. He will talk about his work in infrared detection.

We'll meet at 9:00 am at J.D.'s to hear Bill Hoffman speak. We aim to finish by 10:30. Bring a breakfast dish to share if you like. 

Hope to see you there!

Best, 

Karie 

Future Dates

Hi TAPT-ers,

Here’s some future dates and news. Thanks to everyone who attended last week. We had a nice party with Jim and Karen Housley.  Our cat eventually returned after three hours in the wild. 

Future Dates:

March 7:TAPT meets, J.D. is working on a speaker

March 15: Physics Fun Night at the U of A - they are hoping for a good turnout, it’s a great extra credit opportunity for your physics classes. This is Sunday at the end of the Tucson Festival of Books.

April 18: AzAAPT meeting, maybe in the northern regions, or possibly at ASU. More info to follow.

Early May - end-of-the year TAPT party TBA. 

There are several physics and chemistry jobs open for next year: University is hiring for all physics, tusd jobs. I was told that Tucson High may also be hiring for physics. In addition, there is a chemistry opening at The Gregory School, https://www.gregoryschool.org/about/jobs, and Sahuaro High School has openings in Chemistry and STEM, according to Jorge, though I didn’t find an ad online. If you have questions you could contact Jorge at Jorge.romero@tusd1.org.

Hope to see everyone March 7th. 

Best,

Karie

Two Events this Saturday

Hi TAPT-ers,

I'd like to invite everyone for dinner on Saturday night, as well as our regular morning meeting this coming Saturday, February 8th. I know people don't read email all the way through, so please note there are TWO events, and you may attend either or both. Here are the details:

We meet Saturday morning for our regular meeting, but there's been a change of venue. We'll meet at the U of A PAS building, room 218, at 9:00 am. I'll send a parking map later in the week. I'll bring coffee, please bring a breakfast dish to share if you can, if not come anyway, food isn't the central point. Our guest is Jim Housley from Alaska, equipment maker and former physics teacher. This is our regular equipment meeting, so bring anything you want to share, or any ideas you have about things you need in your classroom. We aim to end this meeting by 11:00.

I will be hosting a dinner for Jim and his wife Karen at my house. It will be a bit early, so hopefully fits in with your plans - come for dinner or just to say hi. Also,  I retired, so please come help me celebrate. We will start at 4:30, dinner 5:30-ish, and I'll be cooking, or maybe my husband Chris will grill. If you like, you could bring a dessert or drink to share, but please don't feel obligated - we will have plenty of both food and drink. So: Dinner with Jim and Karen Housley, Saturday, February 8th, 5:00 pm, [Karie's house]. Families, significant others, and babies all invited and welcome! Please send me a quick RSVP if you plan to come so I can have an approximate food idea. Hope to see you there!

Best,

Karie

Meeting on 1/18

TAPT-ers,

I want to apologize for our somewhat erratic meeting schedule. I’m hoping to get back on track this semester. We will meet Saturday January 18th at 9:00 at JD Garcia’s house. I had previously advertised a date of January 11th, but we are hoping that meeting on the 18th on the long weekend will be more relaxing.

As you may know, I’m retiring this month from Pima as dept head. I’ll still be teaching for one more semester. Dennis Just has agreed to take over my dept head position. I am cleaning out my office, so will bring a few books and other equipment to the meeting - I know everyone has too much stuff, so do I.

At our January meeting, we usually plan for the upcoming semester. We have one meeting scheduled for February 8th. Please bring ideas for future meetings.

So, hope to see you all there. 9:00 am, J.D. Garcia's house, breakfast potluck, Saturday January 18th.

Best,

Karie

Meeting on Saturday

Hello TAPT colleagues,

We meet Saturday, November 9th, at 9:00 at J.D. Garcia's house. Please bring a demo to share, and the discussion will be about energy and how we teach it. Helen has some insights as she is working on revising some curriculum for her country. If you have a good energy demo, we would love to see it. 

We will have our usual potluck breakfast starting at 9:00 at J.D. Garcia's house. Thanks for your continued participation. I hope to see you soon.

Best,

Karie

Notes from Saturday

TAPT,

We had a great talk last Saturday at our annual U of A breakfast. Many thanks to Dr. Sam Gralla for a fascinating talk, and for introducing us to the subtleties of imaging a black hole. Thanks also to the U of A Physics Department for a delicious breakfast

In the talk, we learned a lot about the black hole in our galaxy and in others, especially the one in M87, which was the source of the image. Also discussed: the jet from M87, interferometry, radiation from black holes. There was a fascinating discussion of what the constructed image that was released last spring may represent, as well as what it probably doesn’t represent. We also got a sense of how much coordination and cooperation was necessary to make this extraordinary image, and also the best way to transfer terabytes of data between observatories (hint: it’s not by having a good wifi or data connection.) Dr. Grall graciously answered all questions. He also offered to share his slides, and I think I will be able to send those along soon. Thanks to everyone for coming.

Also, Fritz brought two books:

Deep Medicine: Artificial Intelligence Can make Healthcare Human Again, by Eric Topol et al.

and Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime, by Sean Carroll, whom Fritz called a “great explainer.” Both highly recommended.

Please join us for our next meeting on November 9^th at J.D. Garcia’s house, with our usual format. We’ll meet at 9:00 at J.D.’s for potluck breakfast. The topic is energy. We will discuss the latest representations of energy here and in the UK, as well as when and how different instructors work it into the curriculum. Please bring your favorite demo, extra credit if it is energy-related.

Hope to see you all there.

Best,

Karie