February 3 - 8 2013 Physics Tour - Shawnigan Lake School

2013 Physics Tour
February 3 - 8

Sunday, 3 February
Have you got your phone, suitcase or bag, tour jacket, wallet/purse and
spending money or credit/debit card?
05:15 - Cold Breakfast in Marion Hall.
05:30 - Check-in in Marion Hall for EVERYONE.
05:45 - Depart from SLS by bus for Victoria International Airport. While
checking in, the tour leaders will make your baggage payment. After checkin,
leaders will distribute the $40 daily food allowance.
08:35 - Depart from YYJ on Horizon flight AS 2383 to SEA. What type
of aircraft are we flying on? Did you see the Space Needle or a Concorde
supersonic aircraft?
09:14 - Arrive at SEA. Retrieve luggage and go through US Immigration and
Customs. Have lunch while waiting for the next flight.
12:30 - Depart from SEA on Alaska Airlines flight AS 310 to SFO. What type
of aircraft are we flying on?
STQ1 * How long, in seconds, will the take-off run be? * ________s
14:35 - Arrive at SFO, collect baggage and take 2 shuttle vans to
Fisherman’s Wharf; we will spend 2 – 3 hours there. Then we will drive to
our motel, adjacent to iFly. Based on timings and weather, we will make a
decision about whether we have dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf, or wait until
we get to Union City.
Holiday Inn Express, 31140 Alvarado-Niles Rd, Union City, CA 94587
(Tel: 510-475-0600).
22:30 - Room check and bedtimes.
Monday, 4 February
07:30 to 08:00 - Have breakfast, check in with tour leaders, and collect
today’s meal allowance. Remember, your room will be inspected before
departure! Today we meet our driver for the first time. We look forward to
travelling with you, Edward!
08:30 - Be sure that your bags have been loaded onto the bus and that you
are ready to depart for iFly. This may be our shortest drive – or walk! – of
the entire tour!

iFly San Francisco is a vertical wind tunnel designed to simulate skydiving.
We will first have a workshop on the physics of free-fall and terminal
velocity, examining the different v T
values of objects with various shapes,
sizes and masses. Then the students will have a chance to experience free-fall
themselves for 2 separate one-minute sessions, each “fall” the equivalent of a
vertical descent of about 3 km at nearly 200 km/h!
http://www.iflysfbay.com/ifly-indoor-skydiving
08:45 - Arrive at iFly and meet Mr John Boyce, our tour leader and instructor.
We will have 45 minutes of physics theory, followed by instruction on
how to “fly”. Listen carefully to these instructions – this activity could be
extremely hazardous to your health if you slip up!
Shaughne to thank John Boyce and the iFly staff.
11:30 - Depart iFly for SLAC, a 45-minute drive. Next comes the linear
particle accelerator at Stanford University, known as SLAC. We will arrive in
time for lunch, then have the tour immediately afterwards. Several Nobel
Prizes have been awarded to scientists using this particle accelerator, and the
“Up” and “Down” Quarks were discovered here in 1968! Remember, it takes
3 quarks to make up a proton or a neutron; each proton is composed of 2
Ups and a Down, while a neutron is composed of 2 Downs and 1 Up. One of
the very important questions to understand about our visit to SLAC: How are
electrons accelerated in order that they can smash the elementary particles
in the nuclei of atoms into fragments? (We will be studying accelerating voltages
very soon!) We are exceptionally fortunate to have the opportunity to
visit this world-class physics research centre.
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/

12:30 - Arrive at SLAC and meet Ms Lina Ruhlman and Mr Kirk Stoddard,
then have a quick lunch in the SLAC cafeteria.
13:30 - Tour SLAC.
Watch out for highspeed
electrons; they
could be travelling at
0.999999 c! (Check
with Kirk how many
“9”s that should be)
Kevin to thank Lina
Ruhlman and Kirk
Stoddard.
15:30 - After our farewells
to Lina and Kirk, we now
head off on the 4+ hour
drive to Bakersfield. Let’s
watch a movie, catch up on
sleep, or sing a few songs
(Musical rehearsal?!). We
will stop once or twice for
a leg-stretch and a snack,
but we’ll have a late dinner
when we get to Bakersfield.
STQ2: * What will the bus’s odometer read when we arrive at the
motel in Bakersfield? *
At SLAC:_______________ miles
At Bakersfield?_______________ miles
Hampton Inn & Suites Hwy 58, 7941 East Brundage Lane, Bakersfield, CA 93307
(Tel: 661-321-9424).
22:30 - Time to settle down for the night – we have a very early start tomorrow
morning and, if the weather cooperates, the scenery and views will be
impressive as we head through the mountains to the Mojave Desert!

Tuesday, 5 February
06:00 to 06:45 Check in with the Lanes, have a quick breakfast, and pack
up your gear. We will give out meal $$ on the bus today while we’re driving
to Edwards Air Force Base.
07:00 We need to be loaded onto the bus and, although it’s an early start,
it would be a good idea to ensure that you have your luggage and valuables.
Did you check under the bed?! Yes, there will be a room inspection!
STQ3: * What were the name and the rank of the test pilot who first
broke the sound barrier? *
________________________________________________________________
This morning we will visit Edwards Air Force Base and have lunch at the
NASA Dryden Flight Research Centre on the same property. Cutting-edge
research is conducted here with advanced aircraft designs. There is also a
wonderful museum that includes, amongst many others, the SR-71 Blackbird
spy plane. (At its normal
cruising speed,
its wings would glow
a cherry-red colour
because of frictional
heating!) With luck,
we may have an opportunity
to see the
new F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter. Be careful
with cameras –
photography is likely to
be restricted here.
http://www.edwards.
af.mil/index.asp and
http://www.nasa.gov/
centers/dryden/about/
index.html
08:45 - Arrive at the West Gate, where we will be met by our military tour
bus, and where we will all have to submit our passports for inspection. The
security personnel are likely to board the bus and ask us questions – no silly
answers, please! We will then meet our host, Mr Dennis Shoffner.

Our tour of Edwards AFB is likely to be fascinating, for it is in this unique
location that aviation has made huge advances. The dry lake bed, the relative
isolation and the typically excellent weather allow for the testing of new
designs of aircraft. Keep an eye on the sky – who knows what you might see
or hear. In its early days, NASA tested the space shuttle here, releasing it at
height from the top of a specially modified Boeing 747 and, on numerous
occasions when the weather at the Kennedy Space Centre was poor, shuttles
landed here at Edwards at the end of their mission. NASA has its Dryden
Flight Research Centre here and we will be having lunch in their cafeteria at
the end of the tour.
Jae Joon to thank Dennis Shoffner.
13:30 - After leaving Edwards, we will drive for about 45 minutes to eSolar.
If we are lucky enough to have sunny weather, the location of the solar
concentration plant will be visible from many kilometers away. Why will the
location of eSolar stand out so clearly?
At Lancaster, CA, we visit the eSolar Research Plant. At this site, tens of
thousands of mirrors track the Sun, allowing infra-red radiation to be focused
on a boiler at the top of a tall tower, and the steam that is generated is
piped to a turbine/generator system.
http://esolar.com
Our guide at eSolar will be Mr Karl Elizondo. Be safety conscious, and wear
your hard hat at all times! How many mirrors do you see? Are they clean?
Can you tell whether they are in motion all the time? If not, do they all
move simultaneously? If a utility company were to install a power plant like
eSolar within a few kilometers of your home, what would your reaction be?
How old is the electrical generator at eSolar?

STQ4: * List the variables that affect the rate at which solar energy
strikes the mirrors at eSolar? *
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
STQ5: * What is the rate at which solar energy is incident at the surface
of the Earth in the vicinity of Lancaster CA – a numerical value is
required with correct units!? * ________________________________
STQ6: * How many homes can be supplied with power by this eSolar
plant? * _______________ homes
STQ7: * What is the power output in megawatts of eSolar? *
_______________ MW
Chris to thank Karl Elizondo.
When we leave eSolar, we will have a little more than a one-hour drive to
our motel in Pasadena. Relax, enjoy the scenery that is so very different from
Shawnigan, and perhaps catch up on a little sleep!
Holiday Inn Express, 3500 East Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91107
(Tel: 626-792-1363).
You can have dinner with your friends whenever you like, but please remember
to always be in a group of at least two. Check out with the Lanes before
you head out to dine. If you wish to go into old town Pasadena, you will
need to take a bus or the light rail system – we will help you with schedule
information after check-in.
22:00 - Room check and bedtime story time!
Wednesday, 6 February
07:30 to 08:00 - Breakfast check-in and $$ distribution,
followed by room inspection.
This morning we visit the famed Mount Wilson
Observatory, site of the pivotal discoveries made by
Harlow Shapley and Edwin Hubble. This amazing site,
perched on the San Gabriel Mountains at the north
end of the Los Angeles basin, houses the 60-inch and
100-inch telescopes used by Shapley and Hubble in
their discoveries of Earth’s position in the Milky Way

galaxy (Shapley) and the expansion of the Universe (Hubble’s Red-shift). We
will see some of the original equipment used by these giants of astronomy.
Note that, due to its elevation, weather conditions on Mount Wilson can
change rapidly and unpredictably and, if there is snow or heavy ice on the
roads, we will have to give the MWO a miss.
http://www.mtwilson.edu/
08:30 - We need to leave punctually for our trek into the San Gabriel
Mountains and the Mount Wilson Observatory. If you have a tendency to
motion sickness, it might be helpful to know that the road up to the site is
very twisty with a number of hairpin bends. Hopefully, you didn’t overload
on donuts for breakfast!
09:30 - When we arrive at the observatory gate, we will meet our tour
guide, Mr Gale Gant. He is a charming man who possesses an intimate
knowledge of, and love for, the facilities at Mount Wilson. Remember, this is
a very real link with the past, and the research that lead to our understanding
that we live in an expanding Universe and the Big Bang that started it all
13.8 billion years ago. Now, I wonder if anyone famous ever popped up here
and had a look around…?!
Jack to thank Gale Gant.
11:30 - We will have to leave punctually to rush down the mountain, grab
a quick maybe-not-so-nutritious lunch, and ensure that we arrive at JPL on
time.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) comes next. I sometimes feel that
this is the most exciting place in the Universe! Located on the campus of
CalTech, JPL has been responsible for building and guiding some of the most

successful unmanned spacecraft ever. They have made pivotal discoveries in
our Solar System (Pioneers, Voyagers, Mars Rovers…). As well, some of the
original modules, and corrective optics, for the Hubble Space Telescope were
assembled here. Most recently, JPL guided MSL Curiosity to a successful soft
landing on Mars and since then this robot has been sending us incredible
images as it makes its way across Gale Crater towards Mt. Sharp!
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/ and http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
STQ8: * Where are Voyager I and Voyager II now? * _______________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
13:00 to 15:30 - We visit NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, home to some
of the most exciting space research and exploration that has ever been done.
It is easy to be rendered speechless by all that JPL has done over the decades.
What do you feel is JPL’s most significant contribution to the advancement
of science?
Clarke to thank Tour Guides.
15:30 - Now we have to drag ourselves away from JPL but, after a stop for
a snack, we’ll be heading south to Anaheim and Disneyland – hurrah! Be
patient on the drive, as we will likely be battling the dense LA traffic, which
is slightly heavier than the volume encountered during Shawnigan Lake’s
rush hour.
Best Western Park Place Inn, 1544 S. Harbor Blvd., Anaheim, CA 92802
(Tel: 714-776-4800).

STQ6 *At what time will the bus come to a halt outside the Best
Western Park Place Inn in Anaheim? *
Departure from Pasadena: __________ Arrival in Anaheim: __________
Thanks – and gift – to Edward, the driver, by George.
22:00 - Room check, $$ distribution and planning.
Thursday, 7 February
Fun day – I think we’ve earned it! After a leisurely breakfast, with meal
money being handed out, and – yes – room checks, we’ll meet in the motel
lobby at 09:30 am to head off to the Magic Kingdom. Remember to be part
of a group of 2 to 4, with at least one of you carrying a phone. We’ll depart
together, show tickets and enter, then stop for a group picture. Do you have
any creative ideas for a photo op? We will meet at 14:00 for a check-in at the
entrance to California Adventure Park. You may want to see one of the special
shows or parades that are on today – we’ll give you details at the time, or
check the website yourself. Unfortunately – boohoo! – neither Splash Mountain
nor Big Thunder Mountain Railroad will be working as those attractions
are currently being refurbished.
Final Tour Dinner tonight
DO YOUR PACKING
TONIGHT AS WE
LEAVE CRAZY
EARLY TOMORROW!

Friday, 8 February
Time to say goodbye to California and to our fellow Physicists. We hope you
have had a great time!
04:30 to 05:00 Ouch – that seems early! Check under the beds and, yes,
those nasty Lanes are still going to do a room check. Make sure you’re in
the lobby of the hotel at 5:10 sharp. Do you have your baggage and wallets?
Your passports will be handed to you just before check-in at the airport.
05:15 - Board the shuttle vans for our 20-minute drive to John Wayne Airport
(SNA).
05:45 to 06:30 - While you are checking in, the tour leaders will make
your baggage payment. Then there’ll be hugs and tears and fond farewells!
You’re now starting your Mid-Term Break travel. Only 61 hours until Tuesday
night’s Seminar – who brings cookies?!
08:00 - Depart from SNA on Alaska Airlines flight AS 515 to SEA.
10:55 Arrive at SEA. - Check your onward flight/s and departure time immediately
upon arrival. Which gate do you depart from and are you in the
correct terminal? Some of you may have to change terminals.
Emergency Contact numbers:
Mrs Lane’s Cell 250-686-5839
Mr Lane’s Cell 250-686-7275
SLS Switchboard 250-743-5516
Local Services 911

Shawnigan Lake School