SPESIF 2012 and Getting Around at the University of Maryland

I'm attending SPESIF 2012 this week at the University of Maryland. I'm learning a few tricks for getting around the area easily since I'm using solely public transportation on this trip.

Getting from the Airport to the University:
The B30 metro bus leaves the airport every 40 minutes or so [pdf]. It costs $6 and you have to have exact change. It will take you directly to the Greenbelt Metro station. From there, you can ride one stop on the metro train to the College Park Metro station.

University of Maryland College Park Shuttle System:
From here on out, you can get a remarkable number of places on the UMD shuttle bus system. Make sure to check the complete schedule and maps [really big pdf[ to see if where you're headed is on a route. You can also use the excellent NextBus application on your phone. Just click on the NextBus logo in the upper right corner of the UMD transit web page.

To get from the College Park Metro Station to campus, hop on the 104 in front of the station. The bus will drop you off at the Stamp Student Union building.

On several of the shuttle routes a student ID card is not required. I've never been asked for one on the 104 for example. The good news is that even if you're not a student, you can go to the transportation office in the Regent's parking garage, (see map below), and ask for a letter that lets you on the shuttles for $4 a day, (I hear). That brings us to the great news. If you're the student of any university, you can use your ID to get on any of the shuttles for free.

View UMD Transit in a larger map

Comments

More Cowbell! Record Production using Google Forms and Charts

First, the what : This article shows how to embed a new Google Form into any web page. To demonstrate ths, a chart and form that allow blog readers to control the recording levels of each instrument in Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" is used. HTML code from the Google version of the form included on this page is shown and the parts that need to be modified are highlighted. Next, the why : Google recently released an e-mail form feature that allows users of Google Documents to create an e-mail a form that automatically places each user's input into an associated spreadsheet. As it turns out, with a little bit of work, the forms that are created by Google Docs can be embedded into any web page. Now, The Goods: Click on the instrument you want turned up, click the submit button and then refresh the page. Through the magic of Google Forms as soon as you click on submit and refresh this web page, the data chart will update immediately. Turn up the:

Cool Math Tricks: Deriving the Divergence, (Del or Nabla) into New (Cylindrical) Coordinate Systems

Now available as a Kindle ebook for 99 cents ! Get a spiffy ebook, and fund more physics The following is a pretty lengthy procedure, but converting the divergence, (nabla, del) operator between coordinate systems comes up pretty often. While there are tables for converting between common coordinate systems , there seem to be fewer explanations of the procedure for deriving the conversion, so here goes! What do we actually want? To convert the Cartesian nabla to the nabla for another coordinate system, say… cylindrical coordinates. What we’ll need: 1. The Cartesian Nabla: 2. A set of equations relating the Cartesian coordinates to cylindrical coordinates: 3. A set of equations relating the Cartesian basis vectors to the basis vectors of the new coordinate system: How to do it: Use the chain rule for differentiation to convert the derivatives with respect to the Cartesian variables to derivatives with respect to the cylindrical variables. The chain

The Valentine's Day Magnetic Monopole

There's an assymetry to the form of the two Maxwell's equations shown in picture 1. While the divergence of the electric field is proportional to the electric charge density at a given point, the divergence of the magnetic field is equal to zero. This is typically explained in the following way. While we know that electrons, the fundamental electric charge carriers exist, evidence seems to indicate that magnetic monopoles, the particles that would carry magnetic 'charge', either don't exist, or, the energies required to create them are so high that they are exceedingly rare. That doesn't stop us from looking for them though! Keeping with the theme of Fairbank[1] and his academic progeny over the semester break, today's post is about the discovery of a magnetic monopole candidate event by one of the Fairbank's graduate students, Blas Cabrera[2]. Cabrera was utilizing a loop type of magnetic monopole detector. Its operation is in concept very sim

Copasetic Flow

Search This Blog