このページはフレーム対応ブラウザ用に作成されています。下のリンクは非フレーム使用ページですのでそちらをご覧ください。
この記事をプリントする
実践的な物理学
必修科目の授業はすべて取り終え、博士論文の準備に専念できるとばかり思っていた雅子さん。先学期の最後に受け取った履修記録を見て、選択科目の単位が不足していることを知りました。そこで、自分の研究分野と関連ある高分子物理学のクラスを選択し、現在、研究発表の課題にパン生地の物理学的特性を調べています。
Practical Physics
By MASAKO YAMADA
I thought I'd finished taking all of my required courses a long time ago, and this made me happy, since I could pursue
my doctoral research full-time. However, when I reviewed my course record at the end of last semester, I realized
that I'd forgotten to take a few electives. I'd still be needing to take a course or two in order to get my degree.
I quickly looked at my options and realized that most of the courses did not look very attractive. The Boston
University physics department is too small to be able to offer lots of advanced electives every semester. Sometimes
students have to wait years before certain desired courses are offered.
It's not as if perfectly adequate courses in highly respectable fields are not being taught every semester. There are
always interesting new things to learn. However, I'm a fourth-year graduate student with a clear research topic. I want
to take courses that will enhance my research, not take precious time away from it. I think most of my peers feel
the same.
The one course I wanted to take, biophysics, is not being offered until next year, so I decided to take a course in
polymer physics instead. Polymer physics is basically an extension of the field called statistical mechanics, which
is my area of research.
As a matter of fact, my lab is officially called the Center for Polymer Studies (although the focus of the lab has
shifted since it was named), so I figured I was bound to learn something useful. Besides, the professor of the course,
Rama Bansil, has taught biophysics in the past. I knew there would be considerable overlap in the curriculum.
The polymer physics class is an advanced elective but it has an enrollment of about 10 people, which is pretty good.
However, this figure is somewhat deceiving since many of the students show up only sporadically. Rama understands the
mentality of the advanced students. She says it's not too surprising that they don't want to come to class.
I really get the sense that she wants us to get practical skills from the course. For instance, she encourages
students to work together on their homework, since collaboration is a crucial part of research. She even thinks it's
fine for students to try to find existing solutions to homework problems, since one of the first steps of doing research
is finding out whether anybody else has already solved the problem (this can often take more time than solving the problem
directly). Of course, she requires us to cite ideas we've gotten from other people or from existing texts, as in the
research world.
The workload has not been too heavy during the semester. However, Rama has assigned a final project that will determine a good part of our grade. We will have to present a 15-minute talk to the class and then hand in a research
paper.
We can choose any topic related to polymers, which is pretty easy, considering that many everyday materials are made of
polymers. People often think of synthetic plastics or rubbers when they think of polymers, but in fact, many
all-natural substances — like wood, gelatin or potato starch — are polymers as well.
I've decided to do a project on the physical properties of bread. This is not related to my research, but it is
certainly related to my personal interest in food. The experiments are embarrassingly simple.
Basically, they consist of mixing flour and water, and poking, prodding, and stretching the dough under
different conditions. I have consulted a list of experiments designed for kids in order to construct my experiments. I
plan on bringing some of the dough to class to demonstrate its properties.
This sounds like an elementary school science fair project, but Rama herself has brought plumber's cement, clay,
rubber bands and liquid silicon to class to show us how they behave.
I've also decided to do a very simple simulation to try to capture the essential features of the dough. On their own
the experiments are in fact very respectable. However, I can't help thinking that I need to show a couple of
computer-generated graphs to prove that I've done "real" scientific work. Perhaps this is another lesson about the
research world that I've learned in this class.
I thought I'd finished taking all of my required courses a long time ago, and this made me happy, since I could pursue
my doctoral research full-time. However, when I reviewed my course record at the end of last semester, I realized
that I'd forgotten to take a few electives. I'd still be needing to take a course or two in order to get my degree.
I quickly looked at my options and realized that most of the courses did not look very attractive. The Boston
University physics department is too small to be able to offer lots of advanced electives every semester. Sometimes
students have to wait years before certain desired courses are offered.
It's not as if perfectly adequate courses in highly respectable fields are not being taught every semester. There are
always interesting new things to learn. However, I'm a fourth-year graduate student with a clear research topic. I want
to take courses that will enhance my research, not take precious time away from it. I think most of my peers feel
the same.
The one course I wanted to take, biophysics, is not being offered until next year, so I decided to take a course in
polymer physics instead. Polymer physics is basically an extension of the field called statistical mechanics, which
is my area of research.
As a matter of fact, my lab is officially called the Center for Polymer Studies (although the focus of the lab has
shifted since it was named), so I figured I was bound to learn something useful. Besides, the professor of the course,
Rama Bansil, has taught biophysics in the past. I knew there would be considerable overlap in the curriculum.
The polymer physics class is an advanced elective but it has an enrollment of about 10 people, which is pretty good.
However, this figure is somewhat deceiving since many of the students show up only sporadically. Rama understands the
mentality of the advanced students. She says it's not too surprising that they don't want to come to class.
I really get the sense that she wants us to get practical skills from the course. For instance, she encourages
students to work together on their homework, since collaboration is a crucial part of research. She even thinks it's
fine for students to try to find existing solutions to homework problems, since one of the first steps of doing research
is finding out whether anybody else has already solved the problem (this can often take more time than solving the problem
directly). Of course, she requires us to cite ideas we've gotten from other people or from existing texts, as in the
research world.
The workload has not been too heavy during the semester. However, Rama has assigned a final project that will determine a good part of our grade. We will have to present a 15-minute talk to the class and then hand in a research
paper.
We can choose any topic related to polymers, which is pretty easy, considering that many everyday materials are made of
polymers. People often think of synthetic plastics or rubbers when they think of polymers, but in fact, many
all-natural substances — like wood, gelatin or potato starch — are polymers as well.
I've decided to do a project on the physical properties of bread. This is not related to my research, but it is
certainly related to my personal interest in food. The experiments are embarrassingly simple.
Basically, they consist of mixing flour and water, and poking, prodding, and stretching the dough under
different conditions. I have consulted a list of experiments designed for kids in order to construct my experiments. I
plan on bringing some of the dough to class to demonstrate its properties.
This sounds like an elementary school science fair project, but Rama herself has brought plumber's cement, clay,
rubber bands and liquid silicon to class to show us how they behave.
I've also decided to do a very simple simulation to try to capture the essential features of the dough. On their own
the experiments are in fact very respectable. However, I can't help thinking that I need to show a couple of
computer-generated graphs to prove that I've done "real" scientific work. Perhaps this is another lesson about the
research world that I've learned in this class.
Shukan ST: Dec. 17, 1999
(C) All rights reserved
- required courses
- 必修科目
- pursue
- 続行する
- doctoral research
- 博士研究
- course record
- 履修履歴
- semester
- 学期
- electives
- 選択科目
- degree
- 学位
- attractive
- 魅力的な
- physics department
- 物理学部
- advanced
- 上級の
- It's not as if perfectly adequate courses in highly respectable fields are not being taught
- それ相応の分野の十分適当といえるコースがないわけではない
- graduate
- 大学院の
- enhance
- 質を高める
- precious
- 貴重な
- peers
- 仲間
- biophysics
- 生物物理学
- polymer physics
- 高分子物理学
- extension
- 延長
- statistical mechanics
- 統計力学
- As a matter of fact
- 実際
- lab
- 研究室
- has shifted
- 変わった
- figured I was bound to 〜
- 〜 するに違いと考えた
- considerable overlap
- かなりの重複
- curriculum
- カリキュラム
- enrollment
- 登録者数
- deceiving
- まぎらわしい
- show up only sporadically
- 時々しか出席しない
- mentality
- 心理
- encourages
- 勧める
- collaboration
- 共同研究
- crucial
- 重要な
- existing solutions
- すでにだれかによって出されている解法
- cite
- 出所を明らかにする
- workload
- 授業の負担
- has assigned a final project that will determine a good part of our grade
- 成績を大きく左右する最終課題を出した
- synthetic
- 合成の
- rubbers
- ゴム
- substances
- 物質
- gelatin
- ゼラチン
- starch
- でんぷん
- physical properties
- 物理学上の特性
- embarrassingly 〜
- 恥ずかしいほど 〜 だ
- consist of 〜
- 〜 からなる
- flour
- 小麦粉
- poking
- つつく
- prodding
- 突き刺す
- stretching
- 引き延ばす
- dough
- 生地
- have consulted
- 調べた
- construct
- 組み立てる
- demonstrate
- 実演する
- elementary school science fair project
- 小学校の催しで行なうような実験
- plumber's cement
- 配管工が使う接着剤
- clay
- 粘土
- rubber bands
- 輪ゴム
- liquid silicon
- けい素の液体
- how they behave
- どんな特性を持つか
- to capture the essential features
- 本質的な性質をとらえるため
- computer-generated graphs
- コンピューターで作ったグラフ