Chemical Education Today

526 Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. 75 No. 5 May 1998 • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu

News from Online: Photons and Lasers

by Carolyn Sweeney Judd

Reports from Other Journals

WOW! Go to A Science Odyssey (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/) to try the Atom Builder (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/atom). Combine the right number of up and downquarks to form protons and neutrons. Too many protons andnot enough neutrons? The atom smashes! Then you have tostart the game over. Electrons, photons, and ions are all partof the action. Lots of challenges with this creative game thatcombines the Bohr atom with quarks! A Science Odyssey WebPage accompanied the TV broadcast on PBS of the samename. Short sketches of people and discoveries are part of

this atomic site; othersections of A ScienceOdyssey Web Page paral-lel different topics cov-ered during the PBSbroadcast. Here is a greatexample of the Web add-ing value, not just repeat-ing information. Did Itell you that it needsShockwave?

And, of course,you know that talkabout atoms soonleads to talk aboutthe universe. See an-other wonderful sitewith images fromour universe: http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/images/hubblecrab.gif, the CrabNebula from the Hubble telescope. From this page, we cango to an animation of a pulsar model which rotates if youhave a Java-capable browser: http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/help/tutorials/pulsar.htm.

To see more Space Science Tutorials from the NASA/Marshall Space Science Help Page, go to http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/help/tutorials/. There is somuch for you at this site, which aims to combine researchand education. Another page to help with searching the vastinformation from NASA is the subject search page, http://www.nasa.gov/hqpao/nasa_subjectpage.html.

Now for another site with lots of information about thewonderful world of photons, go to the Science HypermediaIndex page, http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/scidex.htm. Let’slook at lasers and how they work: http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/optics/sources/lasers.htm. Look at the great graphic ofa gas laser by Brian Tissue of Virginia Tech: http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/optics/sources/graphics/gaslaser.gif.The graphics shown are used with permission of B. M.Tissue.

See another type of laser, the dye laser at http://www.scimedia.com/chemed/optics/sources/graphics/dyelaser.gifThe Science Hypermedia site is a real storehouse of value.Mark it well. How a laser works is also found at http://lasers.llnl.gov/lasers/aboutlasers/how.html. Historical detailsabout the first laser, the ruby laser, are here. This is broughtto us by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Pageon Lasers, http://lasers.llnl.gov/lasers/. And finally go to theTutorial on Laser Safety from the University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign at http://phantom.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/laser/tutorial2a.html.

Let’s leave this subject with a warning from the FDA onlaser pointers, necessary because the low price of these toolsmakes them readily available for children: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/NEW00609.html.

For all of us, there is a very important page on the stateof math/science: http://nces.ed.gov/timss/. Go the Third Inter-national Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for dataon half a million students from 41 countries. We all havelots to learn from this site.

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A Science Odyssey: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/

Atom Builder: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/atom

FDA Issues Warning on Misuse of Laser Pointers: http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/NEW00609.html

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Laser Programs:http://lasers.llnl.gov/lasers/

How a Laser Works: http://lasers.llnl.gov/lasers/aboutlasers/how.html

NASA Organization Search Page: http://www.nasa.gov/hqpao/nasa_subjectpage.html

NASA/Marshall Space Science Help Page for Tutorials: http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/help/tutorials/

Crab Nebula from the Hubble telescope: http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/images/hubblecrab.gif

Pulsar Tutorial–NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center As-tronomy: http://wwwssl.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/help/tutorials/pulsar.htm

Science Hypermedia Index page: http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/scidex.htm

Lasers–Science Hypermedia: http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/optics/sources/lasers.htm

Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS):http://nces.ed.gov/timss/

UIUC Laser Safety Tutorial: http://phantom.ehs.uiuc.edu/~rad/laser/tutorial2a.html

access date for all sites: March 1998

Carolyn Sweeney Judd teaches at Houston CommunityCollege System, 1300 Holman, Houston, TX 77004; phone:713/718-6095; email: cjudd@tenet.edu.

http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/optics/sources/graphics/gaslaser.gif

http://www.scimedia.com/chem-ed/optics/sources/graphics/dyelaser.gif