Academia: Physics

Having earned a Ph.D. in Physics, it only makes sense to have a page on it.

Topics

• Physics in a Nutshell
• Physics Journals
• Physics Organizations
• Past Physics Associations
• Students & Faculty
• Exhibits/Topics
• References & Databases
• Software & Web Tools
• Miscellaneous

Physics in a Nutshell

• Physics Internet Resources
• Physics News web site

Physics Journals

There are a lot, but here are some highlights.

• Physics Today - A good topical journal that still has some crunchy physics goodness; free with APS membership
• Physics Review Letters
• Applied Physics Letters
• Journal of Applied Physics
• Journal of Chemical Physics
• Chemical Physics Letters
• Physical Review Online Archive
• AIP Journal Center & APS Journals - Hey, I'm not going to list all of them.

Physics Organizations

• American Institute of Physics (AIP) - The umbrella organization that contains all of the various societies and resources
• American Physical Society (APS) - A member society of AIP; ~all Physicists join this [Lifetime member]
• The Society of Physics Students (SPS) - AIP's national organization for Physics Students [Member since 1994]
• Sigma Pi Sigma - Physics Honor Society; housed within the SPS, above [Inducted in 1996]
• American Association of Physics Teachers - A useful site and resource even if you are not a professional teacher
• Other AIP Member Societies

Past Physics Associations

• Ph.D. Program: Rice Quantum Institute, which administers The Applied Physics Program (APP).
• Ph.D. Department: The Rice Physics department,
• Extracurricular: The Physics Graduate Student Association (former President)
• UT Dallas (UTD) (alma mater)
• The UTD Physics department.
• The Society of Physics Students Chapter at UTD (former President)

Students & Faculty

Yes, you can understand physics. Don't let intellectual snobbery, anti-intellectualism, nor your own self-doubt deter you. Physics makes a lot of sense, if you don't let the language of physics get in the way.

• Physical Review Focus - "Selections from Physical Review and Physical Review Letters explained for students and researchers in all fields of physics".
• Jefferson Lab's Science Education Web site collection of resources for teachers and students.
• Accessibility of Computer Science: A Reflection for Faculty Members
• The Theses Canada Portal
• InsideOut, a science outreach/education Web site aimed at schoolchildren and their teachers.
• Physics Textbook Errata - maintained by former physics professor Doug Craigen.
• Nova (aiming to provide up-to-date science news and info for high-school teachers)

Exhibits/Topics

• Nanomedicine Art Gallery contemporary views of how medical nanorobots and other nanomedical devices might one day appear.
• Foucault pendulum - Webcams on The Hadley Pendulum
• Cryogenics - The Cryogenics and Fluids Branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Maryland
• The Anthropic Principle - Lee Smolin and Len Susskind debate its merits in The Edge.
• The Earth's Magnetic Field - The National Geomagnetism Program of the US Geological Survey
• The IEEE Virtual Museum
• The Molecular Expressions Photo Gallery
• Neutrons - European Neutron Portal
• Muons - European Muon Portal
• Images, Visualization, and Animations of the Earth - NASA's Visible Earth Web site.
• The Cassini-Huygens spacecraft - the mission and it's progress.
• Hans Bethe lectures on quantum mechanics - given to the members of his retirement community in Ithaca, New York.
• NOAA's Dynasonde project - charts the status of ionosondes to monitor the dynamics of the ionosphere.
• Nuclear issues - Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Survey of Earned Doctorates
• The Exploratorium - live webcasts beamed down from the Martian surface by NASA's Spirit rover.
• Stonehenge Laser Scans - learn what three-dimensional laser scanning has revealed about the mysterious 4300-year-old relic.
• What are Martensites? - Tutorial put together by Cornell University's Jim Sethna.
• Moments of Discovery - an online exhibit from AIP's Center for History of Physics.
• Physics in Denmark: The First Four Hundred Years, (a talk by Abraham Pais)
• Special Relativity and Photography (tutorial)
• Strange Matter (exhibit at the Ontario Science Center, Toronto)
• Chemical Heritage Foundation (history of chemistry and chemical engineering)
• Women in Engineering (office at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
• Museum of Unworkable Devices (perpetual motion machines)
• Computer History Museum
• The Newton Project (includes online manuscripts of Newton's non-scientific works; Imperial College, London)
• Interactive Diffraction Tutorial
• Recorded Marine Mammal Vocalizations
• Reaction-Diffusion Patterns (numerical simulation animations)
• Java-based Particle Simulator (watch charged particles interacting in a 2D box)
• Grey Company Trebuchet Page (Reenactors detail this heavy medieval siege weapon)
• Acoustics and Vibration Animations (Need help visualizing a Rayleigh wave?)
• The Semiconductor Subway (online info about semiconductors and microsystems)
• Compositions by Curtis Roads (computer-generated microsounds and more)
• George Green Society (all about the man who gave us Green's Function)
• Lars Onsager (a site about this 1968 Physics Nobel Laureate)
• What is Mass Spectrometry?

References & Databases

• Brookhaven National Laboratory's National Nuclear Data Center
• Mihalkovic and Widom's Alloy Database - Density funtional theory calculations of structure and cohesive energies.
• Energy Levels of Hydrogen and Deuterium Database
• HiTempThermo Database - includes thermodynamic data and a wide range of calculated molecular properties for gas-phase species.
• The Glossary of Meteorology
• The [Italian] Institute and Museum of the History of Science
• The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty
• The NIST Chemistry WebBook
• Astronomical Applications Department (Astronomical data from the U.S. Naval Observatory)
• NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics
• Crystal Structures (NRL database of 200+ crystal structures)

Software & Web Tools

• FITS Liberator, a free software plug-in that converts FITS files (astronomical data from NASA) for use with Adobe Photoshop.
• The Heavens-Above Web site - a range of tools for calculating the visibility of the Hubble Space Telescope and other orbiting spacecraft.
• JaxoDraw - a freely available Java program for drawing Feynman diagrams.
• Online Glossary of Physical Oceanography and Related Disciplines

Miscellaneous

• Map a Blast - now this is physics!  You can see the area of destruction and fallout from an atomic blast in an area of your choice.
• Stellarator News, a newsletter tracking the latest in...well, um, stellarators.
• NanoFocus (part of C&E news) - aims to serve as a single source for news about the science, business, and policy aspects of nanotechnology.
• Photo Diary of Kid of Speed - excursions in and around Chernobyl
• IMABLOG - a medical physicist's weblog
• Advanced Physics Forums - Physicist Fernanda Foertter has created Advanced Physics Forums
• Preliminary Visa Information (helpful information for visitors to the U.S.)
• Science Fiction Stories With Good Astronomy & Physics: A Topical Index
• Physics Limericks ('nuff said)
• Double Helix Seaman's Scarf (a knitting pattern for DNA; yes, really)
• United Devices Cancer Research Project (You could help cure cancer!)
• Science.gov (a gateway to all 14 U.S. govt. S&T organizations)