SFA
Physics, Astronomy and Engineering News
April 14, 2004

Seminar on Thursday

Title: Moment of Inertia and Center of Mass (Feynman Lecture Series)

Speaker: Jeremy Pruitt

Time: 4:00 PM on Thursday, April 15th

Place: Science Room 334

The department has weekly seminars on most Thursdays at 4:00 PM. All students and faculty are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served before the seminars. Here is a list of our future seminars future seminars: http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/astro/seminar.html.


Dr. Gruebel's Birthday Party

To: Students, Faculty, and Staff

From: Dr. Downing, Chair of the Department

You are most cordially invited to help celebrate a milestone of 8 decades of the thoroughly enjoyable and enjoyed life of Professor Robert William Gruebel at the Loft apartment of Robert Gruebel and Jo Carlson at 105 N. Pecan in downtown Nacogdoches, TX on Saturday, April 24, at 4:00 PM to 8:00PM for food drink and food fellowship. Come and go as you wish. No gift's please. Just your presence is all we want. If you need directions call 936-564-2318 or see page 33 if this PDF file.



Click for Movie

SFA Engineers Building Engines

It was a difficult project. Students were asked to try to build a Striling engine from aluminum cans, JB Weld, a candle, and other household items.

To see the engine in motion click on the image to the right. It's a 5 megabyte movie of an engine built by SFA students Eric Brorman, Brandt Nolen and Matthew Smith as part of a Engineering 112 team project. Here are the project rules.

Engineering 111 and 112 will be taught again during Summer I and Summer II of this year.


Upcoming Events

All students, faculty and alumni are welcome to come to these events:
  • Dr. Gruebel's Birthday Party, 150 North Pecan, Saturday, April 24th, 4:00 - 8:00 PM
  • End-of-Semester Unreal Tournament LAN Party, SFA Observatory, Saturday, May 1st, 7:00 PM (Not sure yet)
  • Physics and Astronomy Spring Picnic, Pecan Park, Thursday, May 6th, 5:00 PM (Not sure yet)
  • Public Viewing Sessions, SFA Observatory, Thursday, May 6th, 8:00 PM

    Teaching Jobs?

    "If you are looking for a physics teaching position or know students who are, then note that Clear Creek ISD (around NASA JSC in Houston) will be having a job fair on April 17th from 9 am - 1 pm at the Clear Creek 9th Grade Center. There will be some openings at Clear Lake High School for regular and/or Pre-AP Physics. For more information about the job fair you can go to ccisd.net."

    "Here is a link to Klein school district's job fair as well as salaries, and positions. Klein Oak is looking for math & science teachers. Starting salary with BS degree is just over $36K. You can submit application online. http://www.kleinisd.net/kisd3/persnnel/Job%20Fair-Main%20page%202004.htm."

    Contributors' Links

    The public is invited to talks by six of the world's leading astronomers on the remarkable recent discoveries in cosmology. April 12-16, 2004, Rudder Tower, Texas A&M University
    http://cosmology.tamu.edu/Mitchell_Public_Talks.pdf

    Subservient Chicken: Type in "jump", "run", "hello", etc.
    http://www.subservientchicken.com

    Hubble Servicing: Robot to the Rescue?
    http://skyandtelescope.com/news/article_1233_1.asp

    'Ice highway' opens Earth's last frontier
    http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/04/12/pole.highway.ap/index.html

    A 2004 space odyssey
    http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1771978

    Listen to Star Date
    http://www.stardate.org/

    Live Solar Images
    http://gong.nso.edu/Daily_Images/

    Who's Hiring Physics Bachelors?
    http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/emptrends.htm

    Impressive Cloud Chamber Videos
    http://www.cloudchambers.com/VideoDownloads.htm

    The Nameless Hurricane
    http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/02apr_hurricane.htm?list942833

    Impressive image of an Atlas Rocket emerging through clouds
    http://spaceflightnow.com/atlas/ac160/full2.html

    Confucius Sayings

    Man who run behind car get exhausted.
    Man who run in front of car get tired.
    Man who sit on tack get point!
    Man who put head on railroad track get splitting headache.
    Man who pushes piano down mineshaft get A flat miner.
    Man who walk middle of road get run over by bus.
    To make egg roll, push it.

    Thanks to Jonathan Meehan, Matt Davis, Craig Welch, Jason Goldsberry, Ryan Williams and others for the links and information above. Feel free to send any interesting links that you find. This email message is sent to students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the department. If you would like to be removed from the emailing list or are getting multiple copies of these newsletters, then feel free to reply to this message with your request.

    Clear skies,
    Dan Bruton
    astro@sfasu.edu