More Than Just Physics

By Ren Zhiyi Feng Jie

Stephen Parker is a professor from Saint Martin’s University(SMU). In 2012, he came to the North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering (NCIAE) to teach physics as a result of a collaboration between SMU and NCIAE. Here, we have an interview with him.

My earliest memory of an interest in science was in Kindergarten

Question:Why did you choose physics as your major? And what arouse your curiosity or interest about it at the beginning?

Parker:My earliest memory of an interest in science was in Kindergarten, when I was given a book about the solar system from my school teacher. I actually still have this picture book on a bookshelf today, but I remember thinking about how cool it would be to explore outer space and our solar system.

Of course, movies like “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” made a huge impression on me when I was growing up as well. Science fiction movies really opened up my imagination as a young child. Even though much of the technology probably didn’t make sound scienti fic sense, I found movies like this captivating to think about.

In high school, I loved all the math and sciences courses I took.Since I was also in the band (I played the trumpet), my elective courses beyond the required curriculum were filled with as many math/science/and music courses as I could take.

My Math teacher in high school was one of my favorite (and best) teachers, and she made one of the biggest impacts on my early education.

When I went to college, I knew that I wanted to major in Math or one of the physical sciences such as Chemistry or Physics.Toward the end of my freshman year, I was taking my “Modern Physics” class where we were learning about topics such as relativity, particle physics, and high energy physics. These topics were absolutely fascinating to me, and so completely different than any of the other science that I had learned to that point in my education. In particular, I thought particle physics was amazing as we learned about things like quarks, antimatter, and neutrinos. Furthermore, this all reminded me of those science fiction movies that I loved, and I was flabbergasted to learn that there was a small bit of truth to some of what was portrayed in them! This is partly why I knew Physics was de finitely the major I wanted to pursue.

I had great physics professors at college, as well. They were all instrumental in exciting me about the physics material during their classes. The demonstrations they did and the energy they brought into the classroom during the lectures made me enjoy going to class to learn. In fact, they are definitely part of the reason I decided to become a professor myself; I wanted to have the chance to excite students about science as well.

International experience makes me gain a global awareness

Question:You have conducted research on physics in many countries, for example Japan, UK and Brazil. What are your feelings and impression on those international experiences, and what do you got?

Parker:First, a better list of countries that I have done physics research in would be “UK, Germany, and Denmark.” I have been on cultural exchange trips with students from Saint Martin’s University to Japan and Brazil.

I gained what I would call a “global awareness” during my undergraduate schooling. As a Physics major, I had the opportunity to travel to London for a semester to take general education classes in a study abroad program through my school. It was an absolutely wonderful experience! I got to read Shakespeare plays and then see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform it. I got to learn about famous paintings and then go to the art galleries in London to see them in person.Living in a different country for those 3 months opened my eyes to the joy of travelling, and I knew I wanted to travel more as I grew older.

As a result of my study abroad experience as an undergraduate student, when I was in graduate school and had the opportunity to spend time doing experiments at the Synchrotron Radiation Source (Daresbury, England) in conjunction with the University of Manchester and learning surface analysis tools at the Fritz-Haber-Institute der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Berlin, Germany),I jumped at the chance!

And my traveling didn’t stop in graduate school … after getting my Ph.D., I moved to Kongens Lyngby, Denmark for 3 years to do my post-doc, where I worked at the Danish Technical University. This was a huge adventure for me, and living in a foreign country for such an extended period of time was a wonderful part of my life. Although I attempted to learn the Danish language while I was there, it was extremely easy to live in Denmark as almost everyone there spoke extremely good English. The department I worked in was very multi-cultural,so all of our work, classes, research, and conferences were conducted in English.

Since returning to the United States and teaching at Saint Martin’s University, I’ve had the opportunity to lead the cultural exchange programs with students to Japan and Brazil through our Office of International Programs and Development (where we spent a few weeks visiting sister schools in those countries and learning about the culture).These have been great opportunities to continue my love of interacting with other cultures abroad. Furthermore, exposing students to these cultures helps them to gain more of a global understanding.

The major aspect of education is to interact with and motivate students

Question:Why did you choose to come to China and offer courses on Introduction to Physics at North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering?

Parker:I came to the North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering as a result of a collaboration between Saint Martin’s University (where I currently teach) and NCIAE. Students have the opportunity to take a series of classes jointly taught by a professor from China and a professor from the U.S. This is an excellent opportunity to globalize their educational experience.Students who have the experience of learning in language other than their primary one will have a very different and more complete understanding of the material. There are many bene fits to such an education, and it makes a student much more prepared to enter the workforce in whatever field they will be employed. They have shown that they have the ability to learn under a variety of learning environments, and they will be able to translate that into picking up new skills quickly in a new job.

Question:What do you expect the students to obtain through those courses? Have the students met your expectations?

Parker:One of the important aspects of these courses is the learning in a different language. One of the things I think we do quite well in the American education system is bringing various hands-on activities and demonstrations into the classroom. This allows students to interact with the material in very different ways that just listening to derivations or reading about it.

For instance, one of the things I do in every class I teach is use a personal response (or more commonly called “clickers”). This allows me to ask a multiple choice question about the material we had just covered. A histogram of the aggregated results is then shown after everyone has made their choice. This allows me and the students to instantly see how well the class is understanding the material. It is much like homework, but with much more immediate feedback. I have had great success in my classes by incorporating these clickers into the lectures. I can review material when students show me they don’t understand, and students who miss questions where most everyone else get it correct know they need to come get help mastering that concept.

I think the job of an educator is more than just giving students the material they need to understand the theories. They need to motivate and excite students about the material, as well.Sometimes, being a professor sometimes feels like being an entertainer … you need the students to be excited about the material, because then they will want to spend time on the material, and thus, become masters of the material because of the time they are wanting to spend on it. In today’s education, you cannot just be a voice at the front of the room lecturing facts; you need to engage your audience and engage them with each other.This is also what makes teaching so much fun for the professor,and it is why I love teaching at the University level.

Question:Can you share with us any interesting stories or unforgettable experience with your colleagues or students?

Parker:During my time in China, there are a few moments that stand out to me.

1）One favorite moment was a simple one with a couple of students in my class. They saw me walking back to my room after class and asked me if I would eat with them at the Student Cafeteria. I enjoyed dining with the students there.

2）One of the harder things for me as an American in China was the number of strange looks I would get when walking around near campus to go shopping. People were always so genuinely surprised to see me and would end up just staring at me in some sort of disbelief. One evening as I was eating a meal at a restaurant near campus, a Chinese couple and their son were looking at me in such a way. After some time, the father and son came over and we had a very nice conversation. The father had very good English skills and the son was excited to use the words he knew. It ends up that the son had just passed his first level of English classes that day, and they were very excited to have him come talk with me and celebrating his success. After I had finished my meal, I learned that this couple had actually paid for my meal as well. I went over and sat with them for the rest of their meal and very much appreciate the gesture. One of the Benedictine values at my home University is hospitality, and it was impressive to see such a display half way around the world.

3）All classrooms have students who are more engaged with the material and less engaged with the material. The students in my class at NCIAE (especially those in the front row) were always actively responding and interacting with the questions that I was posing in the class. It was great to see other students throughout the classroom engaged with the material during the lectures, as well. It was exceptionally great that we were each able to invite a few of the students from the class to our farewell dinner (where we made homemade dumplings).

It is important for me that we are able to interact with the students not only in our “professional” teacher role, but that we get to know our students outside the classroom as well.For instance, at Saint Martin’s, I have joined an intramural volleyball team with students, and we play games against other student teams once a week. Seeing students outside the classroom helps show that you have common interests and allows you to get to know the students on a whole other level.They enjoy seeing you outside of the classroom, as well. These“outside the classroom” connections further make it such that the students actually want to come to class because not only they enjoy the material but also because they want to be there.I enjoyed the opportunity to interact with students outside the classroom at NCIAE.

Sino-foreign joint programs are a step beyond the tradition

Question:What do you think of Sino-foreign Joint Programs?Any advantages?

Parker:Sino-foreign joint programs are efforts in international cooperation that are a step beyond the traditional study abroad programs. In a typical study abroad program, students would spend a semester or a year overseas studying in a partner institution or branch campus before returning to their home campus. While some students may adjust very well studying in a foreign country, some students may experience cultural shock, become homesick, or just feel academically unprepared for the program. In a joint program, students are exposed to an international education while they are still at their home institution. They are taught from the time they enter the university by faculty from both their home and foreign institutions. They have more time to process their international experience, to improve their English and to develop crosscultural problem-solving skills.

Another advantage is that students of the joint program have the option to transfer to the foreign partner university to complete their studies and to receive two diplomas upon graduation. This is an excellent opportunity for a student to get more out of their education.

Question:What are your suggestions on the development of Sino-foreign Joint Schools in China or at North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering?

Parker:Development of a Sino-foreign program requires a firm commitment and dedication from both the Chinese and the foreign institution. Of course, there will always be challenges and unforeseen obstacles along the way, but being in the process together can help create an atmosphere where solving these problems, whatever they may be, can also be a combined effort.I think it is crucial to have a clearly-defined mission or goal statement of the joint program, as well. For instance: What is the purpose of the joint program? What are the bene fits to the students? How do you develop an academic structure that incorporates different educational philosophies, instructional approaches and academic disciplines? How do you secure the support and trust from faculty, staff, students and parents?

Also, a joint program has to be well-thought out before the first step is even taken, and faculty buy-in is absolutely critical and of the utmost importance. The strength of the faculty involvement and support will be one of the most important factors in determining if a joint program succeeds or fails. Some faculty are more comfortable than others in international teamteaching situations. Faculty also have to find ways to keep students engaged in a cross-cultural teaching environment and to develop a curriculum that fosters international experience.

Saint Martin’s University (SMU) and the North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering (NCIAE) have spent several years researching and discussing the issues mentioned above before coming up with a model of our joint program. The program has bene fitted greatly by the support of President Han Wenzhong and Dean Wang Haiming at the North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering and President Roy Heynderickx and Provost Kathleen Boyle at Saint Martin’s University. I think we are very fortunate to have NCIAE as our partner!

The wonderful people at NCIAE such as Sophia (Chen Jian)and Jim (Ren Zhiyi), as well as Josephine Yung at SMU, have been absolutely critical to the success of the SMU/NCIAE joint program, as well. It would be impossible to build a joint program without people like these three working to make the experience rewarding and fulfilling for everyone involved.Their efforts have been instrumental in the success of the program, and as we say in America, they have done a superduper job handling all the details.

The joy of science is trying to see how everything “fits together”

Question:Actually, physics permeates in our work and life.Right now, what kind of physics research are you interested in? Can you share with our ordinary readers some physics knowledge and hot topics?

Parker:Recently, I have become very interested in computational mechanics. I’m actually spending this year on sabbatical looking at ways of bringing experimental work into what is typically a very theoretical course. I was mainly involved with experimental work during my Ph.D., but the most interesting aspects of my education was when I was able to explore more experiment and theory simultaneously.

Some physics knowledge that I have enjoyed exploring for the past few years have involved the intersection of Physics with Music. I actually co-taught a “Physics of Music” class with a professor from the Music department. I had grown up playing in the band during high school (I was a trumpet player), but I had never really explored or thought about how much overlap there was between Music and Physics.

Now that I am older, it has been wonderful to merge these two loves of mine together. It was most interesting for the students in the class to see how a musician and a scientist talk about the same thing, but in different ways. For instance, one of our favorite lessons was when I, the scientist, gave the music professor a singing lesson. He tried to sing a note and have it sweep up an octave (music term) or a doubled frequency (physics term) but keeping the shape of his vocal tract the same. (He would never normally do this, so it was very hard and he had to practice doing it wrong for the sake of the lesson!) The vocal tract (music term) or resonator (physics term) needed to be shaped differently to sing the higher notes, so we went through how to do that from a physics standpoint.

We had many fun demonstrations like this throughout the class. It has made me look into other cool aspects of music, such as major vs. minor scale and our perception of them and how our ears actually hear different sounds. Some of the questions that have been fascinating to explore are questions like: Why does a trumpet sound like a trumpet and piano sound like a piano? What happens if we record the sounds and then play them backwards; do they still sound the same? What happens if we cut off the attack and decay portions of the notes? Can we trick our ears into hearing things that aren’t actually there?

There is an excellent CD that was put out by the Acoustical Society of America that explores a number of these “auditory illusions” that were absolutely wonderful to use during the class. They are also the way to bring science into a conversation with people who aren’t as excited about science but more into the arts. Many of the examples of the disc just stunned the students in the class.

Question:In May 22nd, you have presented physic knowledge for demonstration. What are your feelings towards this activity and the outcomes?

Parker:When I was asked to make a presentation at the Foreign Experts Science Classroom in Beijing, I was told to pick a topic that I myself found interesting and exciting. I decide to pick Relativity because of just how strange some of the paradoxes in the field can be, yet like a puzzle, one can slowly piece together the correct answer with a little bit of careful and deep thinking.It is also feels like science fiction, yet the theories have been proven over and over again and have become a part of our daily lives (even though we may not be aware of it).

At the event, I was a little worried that the students wouldn’t be very interested in the topic and that I wouldn’t have any volunteers for the demonstrations I had planned, but I was pleasantly surprised at how engaged all the students in the classroom were. Seeing all of their hands race up to be a part of the on stage demonstration was extremely fulfilling. This is exactly what I had hoped to accomplish with the presentation.They didn’t need to walk away with a complete understanding of special relativity, but they needed to get excited about the strange science that I was outlining. Presenting it in a way where they could simply see how fun and wacky things are when you start moving very fast allows them to become engaged with the material. The translator Claire (Sun Mengge)did a great job conveying the excitement to the students in Chinese while my assistant Zhang Boyang from North China Institute of Aerospace Engineering provided very valuable help with the demonstrations throughout the presentation.

Question:Contradiction between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics is very interesting, how do you think of the future and prospect of physics?

Parker:One of the joys in science is trying to see how everything “fits together.” We can learn the most interesting things when trying to explore such contradictions and learn how to make them compatible. That is where the new physics of our lifetimes will be found.

Saying that, though, I strongly believe that one of the most important aspects for the future of physics is having people who have learned more than just physics. Those other classes that students must take during their education expand their mind and are critical in the development of a good scientist.Sometimes looking at the puzzle from a completely different frame of reference is what will give us the best, new ideas.

One of the most important foundations of our discipline must be having experiments that can test theoretical ideas (or vice versa). Both of these need to progress with each other,otherwise we can never truly be confident of any results.The world of the very massive (General Relativity) with the world of the very small (Quantum Mechanics) make this feat challenging. No one can say for sure what we might learn in the next year, decade, or even century. The important aspect,though, is to keep exploring … and to keep exciting students into wanting to continue the exploration.