Friday, June 8, 2018
By:
Washington, DC is a very busy city with so much pride. Having the Capitals in the Stanley Cup against the Vegas Golden Knights has brought people to their feet supporting the team and the city they love. It’s infectious. I find myself being more and more interested in how the games went, eavesdropping on conversations about the game the night before. I’ve considered picking up some superstitions to support the team. Someone on the radio this morning said that during every playoffs season, he grows a beard. I couldn’t go that hard, but I’ll find something comparable.
Why am I talking about the Cap’s (as the natives call them) on my first post of this internship? Because even though we don’t rally in the streets or compete for the greatest title in our field, every SPS intern is apart of this team of physicists wanting to change the world. Our chants are the sound of coffee brewing at 2 am while finishing problem sets. Our rallys are in study halls preparing for our exams. Our goals are not only succeeding academically but socially, by creating community and support for every student interested in this complex, exciting field. And this internship embodies all of that. All 15 of us are hardworking, intelligent, and passionate individuals motivated beyond belief. And I’m so happy to be apart of this network of awesome physicists.
As the APS Public Outreach intern, I work to get more people interested in physics. For the next <10 weeks, I’ll be working on making the various fields of physics more accessible and supporting the Physics Central website in its redesign. If it is easier to describe what quantum mechanics is, then maybe people won’t be as intimidated and gain curiosity for the subject. Getting more people interested in physics is like recruiting more players to our physics team. If we have more players, then (fingers crossed) more people, like their friends and family, will be interested and want to study physics. It’s cyclical.
During the next 10 weeks, I hope to 1) create these tools to get more people interested in physics, 2) find out what I’m going to do next since I graduated this past May, and 3) enjoy this awesome city and the awesome people I’m working with. Oh, and watch the Cap’s win tonight. That free Dunkin Donuts Coffee (when they win, not if they win) will be very sweet, and not only because they put LOTS of sweetener in it.
Phoebe Sharp