Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Claire Tobin

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Michelle Kuchera

Charles Liam Carriker

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Michelle Kuchera

Chaotic systems are dynamic, physical systems where initial conditions can greatly impact the resulting motion of the system. This project is meant to model a double pendulum, a simpler chaotic pendulum. Double pendulums are a type of chaotic oscillator and therefore, the initial conditions where the pendulum starts greatly affect the path it will take, with each small change in initial position leading to a unique motion. This project models this system using two-dimensional position (x and y) graphs, and graphs of angles (made by the masses on the pendulum) over time.

Evan Frank

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Michelle Kuchera

In this project I compared how different models of an electron trapped between two sulphur atoms compare to experimental data. Specifically I used a quantum harmonic oscillator model (QHO) in an infinite potential well and a quantum aharmoic oscillator(QAHO) also in an infinite potential well. The simpler QHO model actually seems to do a better job describing the electrons behavior then the more complicated QAHO.

Sabid Hossain

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Michelle Kuchera

This project is intended to address the discrepancy in physics exposure/education towards incoming students. The fast-paced nature of the Physics introductory courses often leaves students (those without previous exposure to Physics) feeling lost within the course. The GUI is meant to provide basic concepts of information regarding Simple Harmonic Motion (which was taken as a pilot concept), including VPython Visualization and interactive randomly generated questions.

Jordan Scott

Faculty Sponsor: Michelle Kuchera

The creation of a viable ICBM was revolutionary in the Cold War. Take for example, the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is the closest the United States has ever come to entering full nuclear war. The missiles threatening the United States were stationed in Cuba were less than 1000km away from the US mainland. An ICBM, however, has a minimum range of 5500 kilometers making an enemy on the other side of the globe a viable target. Naturally, this made the global threat of nuclear war much more realistic since distance was much less of a consideration now. The ICBM accomplishes this task with a large and extremely powerful engine fueled by hundreds of thousands of pounds of rocket fuel. The purpose of this project is to explore how the rocket is affected by various forces, namely lift, drag, and thrust, and how different altitudes and velocities affect these forces as the rocket moves through the air. Included in this project is an animation of the rocket’s flight created using VPython. Throughout the flight various values such as angle of elevation, height, distance from launch, and drag are tracked and displayed to explore how they change throughout flight. Although the ICBM is a deadly weapon of war, the wonders of its physics are a testament to modern technology.​

Andrea Robinson

Faculty Sponsor: Michelle Kuchera

The discus throw is a track and field event dating back to the original Olympic Games. The goal is simple: throw your discus farther than your opponents. Several variables detailed below are important in controlling how far the discus travels. This project models the trajectory of a discus throw to see how different initial conditions affect the distance thrown. It does so by using computational methods to solve the equations of motion for the discus.

Evan Cox

Faculty Sponsor: Michelle Kuchera

The purpose of this project is to create a Python program capable of plotting the motion path of a particle around a central static particle. This will be accomplished by using differential equations for both Newtonian gravity and general relativity. The two methods have the potential to yield different results due to the differing conceptions of gravity behind them, one as a force and one as a distortion of space-time. Differential equations cannot be plotted directly as functions of time, so Fourth-Order Runge-Kutta (RK4) must be used to be able to plot these functions. Since the differentials are in terms of r and Ø, the particle motion will be displayed on a polar plot.

Faculty Sponsor: Dr. Brandon Eberly

After years of an ongoing, unsuccessful search for weakly interacting massive particles, the possibility of the existence of lighter particles on the magnitude of a few GeV/c^2 has been growing as an area of study in dark matter. One such model of interest is the vector-portal dark matter model (VPDM), which proposes a light dark matter particle that interacts with ordinary matter via a dark photon mixing with a standard model photon. The project explores the possibility of detecting evidence for this general model with the MicroBooNE experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. The parameter space of the dark matter interaction in which a single nucleon is ejected from the nucleus – neutral current elastic interaction channel – is explored through use of the ROOT data analysis software framework.