Jon Fernsler
Teach
Helping students develop intuition and curiosity in physics, while mentoring a whole person.
Inspire curiosity
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Who hasn't wondered why we see our reflection in a lake, how does a musical instrument make its sound, why is it cold at the top of a mountain, how do we see and hear the world around us? I love physics and one of the biggest gifts I try to bring to my students is my enthusiasm for the subject. I love finding the answers to these, and an infinite number of other questions - and so many of them are found in physics. Physics borders on the edge of philosophy and science... it is a new way to think about everything in life. The world is a complicated place, but physics trains us to trim the noise and commotion and focus on what is most important. In my classes, I teach students to use and interpret diagrams to better see a problem, use approximations to make a hard problem possible to solve, and find joy in an unexpected solution that explains how something you've seen all your life actually works.
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Physics is life
I love surfing and ocean waves are slow enough that we can SEE what they do as they travel across the ocean for 1000's of miles, until slowing and finally breaking at a beach near us.
Waves
Rincon, a surf break at the line between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties |
I love surfing, and ocean waves are slow enough that we can SEE what they do as they travel across the ocean for 1000's of miles, until slowing and finally breaking at a beach near us. Although the waves move across the ocean, the medium that carries them (water) mostly moves up and down, e.g. it doesn't travel with the waves. Waves on the ocean move very fast (often 26 m/s = 60mph or faster), but they slow down to running speed as the grind along the shallow water of the beach. Just like a series of runners in a race who slow down, the distance between two wave fronts becomes closer, and at a "point break" like the picture, this makes them bend (see the curved wave fronts that are white after breaking). This is called refraction and is the principle behind all the optics in cameras, like in your phone!
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Music and resonance
My Rickenbacker guitar. I made some modifications, including a custom neck piece for fantastic tuning and removed the bridge guard for palm muting.
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Musical notes are determined by the frequency (times per second) a string, air inside a tube, or a speaker cone vibrates. For example musicians usually tune instruments to 440 Hz (cycles per second). For a string or air in a musical instrument to vibrate loudly, the frequency must be resonant, and a wave on the string or air must fit perfectly inside the instrument. Multiple frequencies of waves can resonate inside an instrument and it turns out that their frequencies form a pattern where each resonant frequency is a multiple of the lowest frequency (e.g. the instrument plays 440 Hz, 880 Hz, 1320 Hz, etc.). These different frequencies form the basis for musical notes in the songs that we all love! Even more amazing is that these resonances form not just in musical instruments but many other things from lasers to atoms that make up all the stuff we see around us!
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Build a Community
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My favorite aspect of teaching at Cal Poly is working and playing with my undergraduate research groups. Classes are a wonderful place to learn, but when students do research, we all learn together. I work with several small student research groups where we meet weekly in person. I like hearing from students about what is going on around campus, because they typically know more than I do. I have a lot of outside hobbies and love hearing about weekend adventures. And I love sharing my passion for the outdoors by surfing with students, and music by meeting with students at concerts and other events. I believe that each of us is a whole person with a variety of interests and needs and I have a passion for building a supportive community at Cal Poly, in the surfing community at Pismo Beach, in music with my two bands, and with my own family.
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Launch Futures
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College was one of the most formative periods of my life, but my experience didn't end after graduation. I am conscious of that fact with my students and my own children. There's nothing better than hearing from a former student that they landed a great job, a position in graduate school, or accomplished some dream that they had for a long time. Through a long-time collaboration with my former research group at the University of Colorado, Boulder I've helped propel student careers with summer internships (Research Experience for Undergraduates). I've visited grad schools where my students have gone for their Masters or PhD, and I've helped current students connect with Cal Poly alumni from my classes and research group.
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