Mini-lecture series: Astrometeo lab

*Dec. 11, 2007 (NOT Dec. 9)

Comet Holmes

The month of October and November was colored with the highlight of the night, the Comet 17P or Comet Holmes. Comet Holmes is a periodic comet in our solar system. As of the moment, Comet Holmes is the biggest object in the Solar System, even bigger than the sun.
The comet changed magnitude from 17 to 2.8; meaning it became brighter by half a million times. The next time the comet will return is predicted to be at March 22, 2014.

suphysics.org

SU Physics Peeps:

The upcoming "suphysics.org" will feature pictures from the older batches to the latest batch, different audio and video podcasts about Physics, other sciences, and technology, and will cater to high school and college student needs on the subject Physics.

Let's make this work. We need your cooperation. Post on comments if you have any questions or contributions. =)

Thanks for the domain and space!

Meteor Shower

For those interested in astronomy:

The Orionids meteror shower is visible in the Philippines from October 17 - 25. The new moon would be favorable for those who wish to see it. The maximum rate of showers may reach 20 - 25 per hour which may be observed under favorable conditions.

The shower could be found at the direction of the star Betelgeuse, the brightest star of the Orion constellation.

happy viewing

for more astronomical events visible in the Philippines, check out the astronomical diary of the pagasa website.

To get a domain or not

I chatted with Alex Aguel (the BS Physics with Emphasis on Computer Applications alumnus who has put more emphasis on the computer side of the course) this morning. He's now somewhere in Europe doing some programming thing. Anyways, he has offered to set up a domain for us. Maybe something like www.suphysics.org. As an overview, he explained to me that some of the advantages of having such a domain over this blog are:

• we would have our own email addresses like eliel@suphysics.org.
• we could have our own forum
• etc. (I actually forgot the others that he mentioned. Maybe you can help me with this one, Lex. just post a comment.)

I want to know what your opinions are on this thing, so please post your comments now.

web.link: OCW Consortium

OCW Consortium seems to be a useful tool to increase our visibility with the goal of increasing awareness and interest in SU Physics curriculum.

To quote
"An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare Consortium is a collaboration of more than 100 higher education institutions and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower people worldwide through opencourseware."

Read more from here.

Sample physics curriculum using OCW
Free Online MIT Course Materials

Other institutions using OCW can be found here.

web.link: Physics-related sites in the Philippines

Looking for research ideas? Want to correspond with fellow enthusiasts? Looking for research grants and/or scholarships? Find them all here. Listed below are physics-related websites in the Philippines:

Philippine Physics Society

National Institute of Physics
NIP: Plasma Physics Laboratory
Samahang Pisika ng Pilipinas (Philippine Society of Physics)
BKR (Bahay Kubo Research)
BKR Blog
PCASTRD (Philippine Council of Advanced Science and Technology Research and Development)


More sites to follow soon.

If anyone knows more physics site please comment, so we can edit the article. Thanks

retro.news: RP's best school of physics

Well, since this is a physics blog, i have to post something physics-cal. Hehe. I came across a 2006 article from DOST that might interest you enthusiasts and/or advocates if you want to want to put your school on the map and get the title "RP's Best School of Physics". Nothing like a healthy competition eh? If you ask me, I'd like Silliman to get that title. Being the best IMHO, doesn't have to entail costly equipment [why? coz we will always be left behind], it should 1: Interest more students [whether they pursue physics or not] and increase their understanding of its purpose. 2: i'll edit this later.

To quote:
“Filipino physicists are acquiring the competence to recognize more interesting researches in the field of physics and, in fact, [they have] gained worldwide recognition through [their] publications in high-impact journals,” Dr. Saloma said in his institutional report “Physics in the Philippines Today”.

Trivia: If you glance quickly at the photo, which SU Physics teacher comes to mind?

A tribute

See ya guys!

Taclobo & Silliman High Pictures

Thanks, Sir John Villanueva, for your continuing support.


As promised, the pictures from the Science events:
[ click here for more photos ]



... and a little eye-candy for the sweet toothed:





Thanks again guys! (additional photos soon)

Physics Olympics: Silliman and Taclobo High School

We would like to thank every faculty that have made the Physics olympics possible in Silliman University High School (2:00pm - Sept. 21, 2007) and Taclobo High School (9:00am - Sept. 21, 2007). Today's events were fun and exciting for the students, the audience, the faculty, and the JPPS facilitators. Thank you, everyone, for participating!

These were the several events held in each school:
> Paper tower (SU & Taclobo)
> Paper airplane (SU & Taclobo)
> Bridge building (SU & Taclobo)
> Egg drop (SU)

The results for the various events in each high school will be published in this blog soon. The photos will also be uploaded as soon as possible.

We personally had a lot of fun being your facilitators. Again, thank you for letting us share to you the science spirit!

Recovery Password

Hey, who asked for his/her password to be recovered? The email says that everyone in SUPHYSICS is receiving the notice for password recovery in their GMail accounts.

For security purposes, DO NOT CLICK ON IT. Play safe unless you really have forgotten your password. This could be a small security breach or a misinterpreted bug.

Sad icecream machine

This is a fast paced technological world. So there's a lot of news around. Here's one:

Usually, we eat icecream when there's an occassion. But it has been a forgotten tradition to buy children icecream when they're sad or they've done something nice. So now there's an icecream machine that gives off icecream based on the sad tones of your voice.

Again, the sadder the tone of your voice is, the more the machine gives off icecream.

Image taken from www.we-make-money-not-art.com/

Who says this is only for children?
Depressed? Time to gain some weight!
(Note: this machine is perfect for me!)


Read more at we-make-money-not-art.com.

Technology makes people shy

On to other news....

Okay. Before I receive any comments about why I put this up, let me just say that technology is an application of science. So technically, this is still a "science & technology" news.


image taken from http://www.freeimages.co.uk/


So does technology affect shyness?

So the article over at news.com.au(The Sunday Telegraph) says that iPods make you bright. No, seriously. Technological gadgets and new information technologies such as the infamous MP3 player, the iPod, and the diabolical cell phone and text messaging makes people SHY.

"People shop online, they listen to their iPods rather than the radio -- and they e-mail or text each other rather than talk."
-Ms. Abrahams, Hardvard Business School Researcher

Are you one of them?


Read more at News.Com.Au