The Society of Physics Students at UC Santa Cruz

Hello everyone! Thank you for coming to check out the new SPS@UCSC web site. As I’m sure most of you all have read we will be having our first major public meeting on Thursday, November 3 at 5:00pm in ISB Room 231. Regular meetings probably won’t be on Thursdays at 5 PM, but this one is, and it will feature pizza. Remember, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE RSVP to Hua at hvang@ucsc.edu if you plan on attending, so we can make sure everyone will be fed.

So what is the Society of Physics Students that we’re reviving? It’s the undergraduate organization of the American Institute of Physics, as well as a damn good way of getting to know your fellow physics students. There’s more info at the About the Society section of our website. Okay, here’s some more:

Like the official SPS website says, “[t]he Society of Physics Students (SPS) is a professional association explicitly designed for students. Membership, through collegiate chapters, is open to anyone interested in physics. The only requirement for membership is that you be interested in physics. Besides physics majors, our members include majors in chemistry, computer science, engineering, geology, mathematics, medicine, and other fields.” Membership is $20, and for the time being the UCSC Physics Department will cover half of that cost (Correction: It looks like the department will NOT be covering half of the official membership fee. It was decided that, since it’s not necessary to be an official SPS member to participate in our local chapter, that money would be more effectively used to fund our trips and potentially some more food at meetings. It’s still a good idea to join, but don’t feel obligated to do so just to come to meetings.). Contact Hua Vang for details.Additional reasons for reviving the chapter are as follows:

• Pizza at the first meeting. Although we can’t guarantee department-funded food at every meeting, we will have food at this one, and I’m sure we’ll work something out for the others.
• Field trips. Our first one will be to Lick Observatory, later this quarter. Other trips will most probably be to SLAC, LBL, and NASA Ames.
• Potential co-meetings with other SPS chapters. Because Berkeley and Stanford have active chapters with whom we would be proud to intermingle.
• Potential contests with and challenges to other SPS chapters. Because Berkeley and Stanford have active chapters we would be proud to soundly defeat in competition. Exactly What that competition might be has yet to be determined.
• Starting a journaling club. An excellent way to gain experience presenting and critically evaluating papers is to have a bunch of people read the same article and then meet for discussion. It’s also good preparation for grad school.
• Preparation for grad school. We plan to ask UCSC grad students at different levels to come and talk about their experiences with the application process, tests, quals, and all of the minutiae you might overlook while researching and then applying to different programs.
• GRE prep. Oh yeah, the GRE.
• Faculty talks. It would be a colossal failure on our part as undergrads is we didn’t take advantage of our proximity to the world experts down the hall. Having an official organization facilitates this advantage-taking nicely.
• Movie nights. Sound waves require a medium through which to propagate. So why does the Millenium Falcon sound like a finely-tuned Vespa?!? Did Lucas discover some way for mechanical waves to move via sub-Planck level quantum fluctuations? At least Kubrick got it right. Dammit.
• Other stuff. If you have an idea, please share. Really. No, seriously, let someone know. Or just do it and tell us where to meet. That works too.

So there you have it, the SPS in a nut shell. If it sounds like something you are even remotely interested in, please show up. If nothing else, it is a great way to meet your peers and begin building a stronger social network. A stronger social network means a greater number of people to call when confronted with an intractable homework problem. Don’t blame us when you can’t derive the relation for the inductance of a toroid of rectangular cross section or compute a value for Planck’s constant from only the incident wavelength and the stopping potential. So come make some friends already!

Hey, we had our first kinda make-shift meeting to begin discussing the reinstatment of the Society. It was generally decided that this will be run like many other clubs with a standing set of officers to coordinate the efforts of the group. As such, since James was the one who kinda got the ball rolling, we elected him Prez pro tem until such a time that we can have a more official meeting and elect officers.

Check the minutes for a better coverage of what we talked about… although understand that there was more to it then that as well. Its hard to try and remember it all… mid terms don’t allow you much brain room to try and remember anything else.