Physics Opportunities: Department of Energy

The Department of Energy Scholars program looks pretty interesting:

What is the DOE Scholars Program?

A unique new approach within DOE for introducing students or post-graduates to DOE’s mission and operations.

As a participant in the DOE Scholars Program, you will have a competitive edge for familiarizing yourself with DOE functions while showcasing your education, talent, and skills. Appointments are available in a variety of disciplines at participating facilities nationwide. The DOE Scholars Program presents you with the opportunity to explore a federal career with DOE at various stages in your education.

It seems to be basically a summer program but figure it out for yourself! More programs for undergraduates and everyone else are available.

Physics Careers/Scholarships: Department of Homeland Security

This Department of Homeland Security scholarship looks like a good opportunity for Physics majors if your interests run this way:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) realizes that the country’s strong science and technology community provides a critical advantage in the development and implementation of counter-terrorist measures and other DHS objectives. The DHS Scholarship and Fellowship Program is intended for students interested in pursuing the basic science and technology innovations that can be applied to the DHS mission. This education program is intended to ensure a highly talented science and technology community to achieve the DHS mission and objectives. Eligible students must be studying in a homeland security related science, technology, engineering and mathematics (HS-STEM) field with an interest, major, or concentration directly related to one of the homeland security research areas listed below:

1. Advanced Data Analysis and Visualization
2. Biological Threats and Countermeasures
3. Border Security
4. Chemical Threats and Countermeasures
5. Communications and Interoperability
6. Community, Commerce and Infrastructure Resilience
7. Emergency Preparedness and Response
8. Explosives Detection, Mitigation and Response
9. Food and Agriculture Security
10. Human Factors
11. Immigration Studies
12. Infrastructure Protection
13. Maritime and Port Security
14. Natural Disasters and Related Geophysical Studies
15. Risk, Economics, and Decision Sciences
16. Social and Behavioral Sciences
17. Transportation Security

Click through to get the details. You have to be a sophomore when you apply (or a junior in a five-year program), there's a summer program, and you need to do a year of service after graduation.

Physics Teaching Jobs

Southern Teachers has a poster up at UD's Department of Physics and Astronomy looking to recruit physics teachers. They recruit teachers at private K-12 schools in the South.

President Obama Honors Young Scientists

President Obama hosted the new White House Science Fair:

“If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you're a young person and you produce the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too,” the President said in November. The White House Science Fair kicks off a week that culminates with the USA Science and Engineering Festival on the National Mall and in 50 satellite locations, poised to engage more than a million people nationwide.

The Obama speech on the Science Fair is on youtube:

South Jersey: Astronomy Open House

This should be of interest to those in South Jersey (quoted from Rowan news mailer.)

Rowan Observatory Open House: Autumnal Equinox, Harvest Moon, Jupiter, and Uranus
Date: Wednesday, September 22nd
Time: 7:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m.
Location: Science Hall, Rowan University

Fall officially begins Wednesday, September 22nd and the Rowan Astronomical Observatory will host an open house to mark this and several other astronomical events. Come to Science Hall to celebrate the Autumnal Equinox, the Harvest Moon, the opposition and closet approach of Jupiter since 1963, and the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus - all of which occur within a 48-hour period. A brief show in the Edelman Planetarium describing the night time sky will be offered at 7:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. At 8:00 p.m. (weather permitting), the observatory and observing deck will open to the public. A suite of telescopes will be available to view Jupiter, Uranus, the Moon, and many more celestial objects. Brief tours of the observatory dome will be offered and guests will be invited to operate the controls of the 0.4-meter telescope. This free event is open to the public and children are welcome with parent supervision.

In the event of clouds, the open house will be held completely indoors with a short program of planetarium shows, lectures and tours.

Never rely on physics textbooks for history

I've always believed my physics textbooks which have statements like "Einstein did not even mention the famous Michelson-Morley experiment in this classic 1905 paper"

But this year I'm also using Alan Lightman's The Discoveries: Great Breakthroughs of Twentieth Century physics, which includes translations of the original papers. Sure enough, here's Einstein in 1905:

Examples of this sort, together with the unsuccessful attempts to discover any motion of the Earth relative to the "light medium," suggest that the phenomena of electrodynamics as well of mechanics possess no properties corresponding to the idea of absolute rest.

If that's not a mention of Michelson-Morley's experiment, I'll eat my hat. What is true is that he did not "cite" it in the regular way, and presumably that's been changed over time to the idea he didn't mention it.

Physics Major to Congress

I'm always looking to see what else people do with Physics degrees.

Here's a physics undergraduate major:

According to the Arizona Daily Wildcat, a guidance, navigation and control engineer who works for Raytheon Missile Systems won the GOP primary in Arizona’s 7th congressional district in late August and now hopes to unseat U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, a four-term Democrat, come November.

Ruth McClung, a self-described “rocket scientist”, earned a bachelor's degree in physics in 2004 from the University of Arizona in Tucson before going to work for Raytheon.

(I can't find the original article at The Arizona Wildcat.) She studied towards, but didn't finish, a master's degree in optical sciences.

So we see two careers here: Becoming a politician, and (more practically) working for the defense industry, missile defense in particular. (Actually, back in the 80s, my best friend's father always claimed SDI was a fake jobs program for physicists.)

The three -- an all-time record -- current PhD physicsts in Congress are Democrats Rush Holt and Bill Foster and retiring RepublicanVern Ehlers.