English 202c

Internet Resource Guide For Physics Majors

By Joseph Dotzel

2/6/14

Table of ContentsInformation..........................................................................3

Content..........................................................................................................3

Audience/Purpose.......................................................................................3

Asumptions...................................................................................................4

Organizations...............................................................................................4

Tips for this Guide......................................................................................5

For Students........................................................................6PSU Physics Homepage............................................................................6

Physics Forums............................................................................................7

For Reference and Research...............................................8Catalog of U.S. Government Publications..........................................8

Statistical Abstract of the United States............................................9

arXiv.org......................................................................................................10

Review of Modern Physics Journal......................................................11

Physics jobs and Communities..........................................12American Institute of Physics...............................................................12

American Physical Society....................................................................13

ContentThis guide contains resources meant to assist undergraduate physics majors. The content will be both to assist the undergraduate with current work, and provide resources that may help the undergraduate students later in their career. The resources within this guide will provide many different levels of support for the user. Some resources will simply serve as a location where the user can keep up with changes within the world of physics. Some resources will act as reference sources to assist the user with research. Other resources will provide a link for reaching out to the physics community, or with finding jobs within that community. All of the content should provide important information to the user.

Audience/PurposeThis guide is intended for undergraduate physics students currently attending Pennsylvania State University, and intending on pursuing a career related to physics. This guide is useful for both current students attending physics based classes, as well students performing research. This guide will also be useful for any students who are nearing graduation and looking for statistical information on the job market.

AssumptionsThis guide was created with the assumption that the reader has a general interest in Physics. Furthermore, it is intended for students of Pennsylvania State University. As such, not all of the information will be useful to those not attending Pennsylvania State University. The user should already have some background knowledge of physics, as most of the resources will contain technical information within.

OrganizationThis guide is organized into two main sections. The first section is the front matter. The front matter contains the basic information on how to properly use this guide as well a table of contents. The second section is the sources section. This section contains all of the resources available to the user, as well as information on how to properly use each site. The sources section will be further broken down into three subsections. The first contains resources meant to assist Pennsylvania State University students in particular. The second will provided research and reference materials. The final section will provide links to physics communities and information on physics careers.

Tips for this guideIn order to fully make use of this guide, there are some tips that the can help you find your information more efficiently.

1. Use the table of contents. It is there to make accessing the information you want easier.

2. To further simplify your search the resources are divided into groups based on what kind of information they provide.

3. Use the tips listed after each resource. They can make using the individual resources much easier

4. Read the abstracts before you use the resource. This will help make sure you are not wasting your time looking for information in the wrong place.

5. If you require additional resources, most sites have their own list of resources.

For Students

PSU Physics Homepage Location: http://www.phys.psu.edu/

Description:

This is your main source of information as an undergraduate at Penn State for students majoring in physics. This web site contains a large amount of information about the physics major at Penn state. It contains information on the courses provided by Penn state, as well as information the faculty, and research being done on campus. This web site also provides access to services and organizations such as tutoring or the Penn State society for physics students.

The site can be easily navigated from the tabs on the top of the page. Physics undergraduate majors will find the Undergraduate, Research, and People Tabs of particular use to them.

Tips:

1. Use the tabs at the top of the page for easy navigation of the website.

2. This site contains a section in the undergraduate tab for student forms. It contains forms that the students may need, such as applications for concurrent majors or change of Major.

3. A search bar is available to help the user located in the upper right corner of the site.

Physics ForumsLocation: http://www.physicsforums.com/

Description:

Physics Forums is a website dedicated to providing a place for people to learn and discuss science as it is practiced in the professional scientific community. The site is meant for users ranging from professionals to students, and contains forums to discuss math, physics, astrophysics, and engineering. For the purposes of this guide, the website will mainly act as homework tool for undergraduate students.

If you become a user on the site you can post physics questions, to which other users can respond to. This site does a good job of providing help to those questions without blatantly giving away the answers to any homework questions you may post. The site can be navigated from the home page, where the list of forums is posted by topic. The homework and coursework questions forum is the first one visible on the home page.

Tips:

1. The site contains a search bar in the upper right hand corner of the site. This can be used to find information without sifting through the forums.

2. Academic and career guidance forums are also available on this site in the science education section.

For Reference and Research

Catalog of US Government PublicationsLocation: http://catalog.gpo.gov/F

Description:

The catalog of U.S. Publications is a site used to find publications created by the Federal Government. The website provides more than 500,000 dating back as far as 1967. If the information you want is not available online, or if you prefer printed text, the website also provides the location of nearby Federal Depository Libraries where your information will be available. The website is setup with a search bar in the middle of the front page. From there you will be able to find the information you need by searching by keyword, title, author, or subject.

Although this is not a physics oriented site, it can still be used to find useful information for undergraduate students. One example document is the”Review of Nuclear Physics Experiments for Space Radiation” published by NASA. This report contains an in depth list of types and effects of the various types of radiation found in space. This could be a useful resource for any experiment based around the vacuum of space.

Tips:

1. Advanced and Expert searches are available to help narrow down your search.

2. Searches can narrowed down by formats (maps, internet publications, congressional publications)

3. The advanced search page provides search hints to help you use the search properly.

Statistical Abstract of the United StatesWebsite: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/

Description:

This website is a site that contains statistics and information for organizations based in the United States. The organizations can be social, political, or economic in nature and the information about them is provided by the U.S. census bureau, federal agencies, and private organizations. The information provided ranges in topic, from economics to agriculture, and is presented in a bar on the left side of the website. From there you can find table and data from surveys on that subject. For physics majors the majority of the useful information can be found in the science and technology tab. There is information on topics such as salary for certain majors and jobs or even the cost of expenditures for research and development.

For one example of useful information go to the science and technology tab on the left. Click on the pdf of “Civilian Employment of Scientists, Engineers, and Related Occupations by Occupation and Industry.” This source shows a list of occupations in the field of technology and science and the amount of employed workers in that field. The source breaks the information down further into the areas where the employment occurs. Such a source could be useful to estimate how saturated your field of expertise is, which could greatly affect your job prospects.

Tips:

1. Information on this site is mainly given in PDF or Microsoft Excel graph form.

2. Another way to see the information is by using the “Index A to Z” option in the top right corner of the site. This lists the information in alphabetical order instead of by topic.

arXiv.orgWebsite: www.arXiv.org

Description:

arXiv.org is an index of over 900,000 e-prints managed by Cornell University. It website contains resources for Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and statistics. The site has a search bar which you can use to find information, or you can browse the site by the topics listed on the home page.

The physics resources range from general physics resources to specific fields of physics such as Nuclear or condensed matter physics. The statistics section could also be useful for researching the job market or job earnings.

Tips:

1. Searches can be performed by Titles, Authors, Abstracts, Full Text, or Help pages.

2. When browsing a specific subject, the resources can be narrowed down by date.

3. After choosing a general category, the website offers further categories to narrow down the number of resources.

Review of Modern Physics JournalWebsite: http://rmp.aps.org/

Description:

Review of Modern Physics is a professional physics journal that serves both students and senior researchers in a broad range of physics topics. While this resource is more useful for graduate level students, it is still a useful example of professional physics writing, as well as a possible future resource for physics undergraduates.

The site can be navigated from the tabs on the left side of the website. You can browse the site by issue or use the search bar on the right side of the site to narrow down your search. The search bar is further narrowed down into an article search, a journal search, or a site search to better find information.

Tips:

1. The site contains an authors section. This is useful to see what a professional physics journal expects from its authors.

2. You can look for a specific article by searching by citation or DOI.

Physics Jobs and Communities

American Institute of PhysicsWebsite: http://www.aip.org/

Description:

The American Institute of Physics is an organization dedicated to promoting physics and the allied fields, and its website provides a large amount of information useful to undergraduate students. The website is mainly navigated by the links on the left side of the website or by the menu drop bar at the top left.

Undergraduate physics students can find student programs such as the Society of Physics Students under the student programs link on the left side of the screen. The site also provides its own statistical research center and a career resources link, both of which will be useful to physics undergraduates. The site also provides links to professional physics journals, science news, and industrial outreach. Industrial outreach is useful for exploring the modern applications of physics in today’s economic environment.

Tips:

1. The AIP publishes a large number of professional physics journals and provides an link to them at the bottom left of the front page of the site

2. The Career Resource page contains links to other useful physics career sites.

American Physical SocietyWebsite: http://www.aps.org/

Description:

The American Physical society is an organization working to advance the knowledge of physics in America. The site offers a large amount of information about the physics job field and pursuing physics based careers. It also provides links to physics publications and statistical data for physics topics.

For undergraduate students one of the most useful resources on this site is their students section found on the right side of the site under quick links. This section provides research opportunities, links to physics organizations, and academic advice. From here you can also access career guidance and statistical data of employment in the private and public sectors, as well as see the differences between bachelors, masters, and PhD level employment.

Tips:

1. APS publishes a number of professional physics journals which can be found under the publications link.