Kristen Larson, 2018 AIP Niels Bohr Library and Archives
Kristen Larson
Biography
SPS Chapter: University of Illinois-Chicago
I am currently pursuing my second bachelor’s degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago, at which I am approaching my junior year in the physics program (my first degree is a BS in Communication). I regularly collaborate in my university’s SPS chapter by creating a new website and being part of the team that is building a radio telescope. I also volunteer at the Adler Planetarium as a telescope facilitator and my favorite thing to look at (and show people) is the Sun through the hydrogen-alpha telescope. Last year, I ventured on a road trip through Idaho and Wyoming in search of the perfect place to witness the Great American Eclipse, and the view did not disappoint from Casper, Wyoming.
I am excited to be back in Washington D.C. this summer. In May 2017, I rode my bike solo from Chicago to D.C. and it was such a surreal experience. I took two weeks to bike and then only spent a couple days in D.C. before I needed to turn around and go back home. I am looking forward to spending more time in the area with my fellow SPS interns!
Internship
Host: American Institute of Physics
Project
Abstract
The newest exhibit addition to the Niels Bohr Library and Archives, Sounds of Discovery, highlights the works of Frederick Hunt, Robert Shankland and Marie Tharp. The common thread through their varying research was using acoustics to make discoveries or advance current technologies of the period. This exhibit features sound waves as presented in architectural acoustics, sonar development throughout WWII, and ocean floor mapping. By using the oral histories from the archival collections and a few books to shape the historical side, a supplementary element of current/on-going research is provided for those interested in seeing how events have progressed through time. Given that sound is inherently heard and not seen presented an intriguing dynamic in shaping how to display sound in a visual context. By reflecting on the three most common learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic, elements were added to the design process to enhance the learning of the topic for viewers within a limited scope. These fundamental factors proved to create an ambitious yet successful exhibit.
Final Presentation
Kristen Larson_SPS Presentation 2018.pdf (.pdf, 9 mb)
Internship Blog
Week 1: Going Down Rabbit Holes
This week has already been off to a great start. We began with orientation and building tours, and then by the afternoon we were off to our individual placements. I am the Niels Bohr Library and Archives Intern for the next 10 weeks and my primary responsibility is to create a museum-style exhibit to highlight the human side of physics using the fascinating photographs, oral history interviews, archival collections and books from the library and archives collections. So as part of that process I was prompted by library staff members, Sarah Cochrane and Amanda Nelson, to research a variety of topics for the next week at which point we will discuss what I found and as a group decide which topic to feature in our exhibit spaces within the American Center for Physics building.
To begin Sarah and Amanda took the History interns (Mikayla , Stephanie and I) on an in-depth tour of the library and archives areas. While in the archives we happened upon a gem, Richard Feynman’s Calculus notebook [fn1]!
Over the next few days, I poured over a few different topics, each requiring its own rabbit hole. I spent hours in the library reading/skimming books and then even more hours going through personal notebooks and audio files from the archives. While I was looking through the personal papers of Andrew Gemant [fn2], I noticed something familiar. Every summer, for as long as I can remember, I have gone to the Michigan Upper Peninsula (commonly known as the U.P.) to visit my extended family in Marquette. With a population of approximately 20k, it is not particularly well-known, so imagine my surprise when I recognized the unmistakable Iron Ore Dock and Sunset Point (both views from Presque Isle). It was a nice change of pace to take a minute and reflect on some fun family memories at those locations. I wonder, what took him to the U.P.?
By Thursday, those of us that requested fitness center access were able to begin using the gym. My roommate Amanda and I decided against working out IN the gym and instead opted to bike to work from the GW campus. Biking to work and having the option to get ready in the locker rooms was a fantastic perk and now I am glad that I brought my bike with me from Chicago. During our commute we were able to see beautiful views of Maryland and a deer grazing in somebody’s front lawn.
Well that’s it for me this week, back to the stacks!
fn1: Collection #AR295, Richard Feynman Papers, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, College Park, MD 20740, USA.
fn2: Collection #AR254, Box 7, Folder 15, Andrew Gemant Papers, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, College Park, MD 20740, USA.
Week 2: Spectrograms FOREVER!
This week has just flown by! On Friday (of last week) I sat down with Sarah C. and Amanda N. and we discussed my exhibit ideas. We narrowed it down to two, one that I determined was easy and the other would be challenging. We decided that I should take the first few days of this week to dive into the subject of sound and acoustics a little deeper. My hesitation with sound as an exhibit is that much of the exhibit cases are visually static and to do sound justice you need well, SOUND! I took Monday – Wednesday of this week just trying to figure out a good way to develop a visually appealing layout for the study of acoustics. And by Wednesday I knew that this was the direction I was going to be doing for the tenure of my internship. I am excited by the challenge and if I can pull this successfully I will be extremely satisfied with how I spent my time this summer.
Mid-week I met with my official mentor Melanie Mueller along with Sarah C. and Amanda N. to discuss some of my plans for the exhibit cases. I got the definite go-ahead for my ideas. However, the more I think about and work on my project the more grandiose it becomes. We’ll see if anything comes of my last “crazy” idea, but you’ll have to wait for those details as I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise if it does actually come to fruition.
In the meantime, I am really excited about creating a 3D model of a spectrogram using pink foam insulation and a hot wire cutter. I will be sure to post pictures when it is time to start my exhibit construction. Want to make your own digital spectrogram? Try out this Google Chrome Music Lab Experiment: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Spectrogram/ , which was a big influencer in how to proceed with my exhibit design.
The rest of my week was getting back to content research and I focused mainly on reviewing oral histories (which are about 6 hours in length, each)! While reading Frederick V Hunt’s session [fn1] he said something that made me laugh but also reflect on how I go about writing my own blog posts.
Beranek: There’s another thing, too, in your life that ought to be mentioned on the record. And that is that you always have written clearly, you write well.
Hunt: I speak lousy, but I write clear. Well, I use different standards. Speech is for communication—writing is for the record. And I take writing seriously, and I care whether what I think is crucial is right or not. So many people say: Well, that’s all right, they’ll understand it. And this is the lame excuse for bad writing I think. And, yes, I’m afraid I’m getting a reputation for being a hard man to write a thesis for on this score. But I’m always gratified when a few of them say: Gee, I’m glad you made me do that—I certainly feel differently about that now.
Beranek: Well, I remember when we’d write a paper—and I did write one jointly, as you know, with you and Maa. You used to put a music stand up in front of your chair and place the paper open on the stand and then flip the pages over as you would pages of music and would edit as you went. And we used to sit and you would read out loud as you edited and have us sit around and be critics: Did we understand this, should we say it differently, and so on. We had a kind of little symphony of writing.
In the midst of this already crazy bike ride I was going down a hill on my narrow bike path, gaining speed and at the base there was a slight turn and I ended up taking it too wide and ended up crashing my bike. While Vanilla Thunder (my awesome bike’s name, holla to my HIMYM fans) got a cushy landing in the grass I ended up on the asphalt of the path. After a minute of regaining my composure I fixed my bike chain and rode the remaining 2 miles to the ACP, where HR supplied giant bandaids and alcohol wipes which were awful but much appreciated (disclosure: if you don’t like blood you probably shouldn’t scroll down to see my picture for the week). But of course with the luck I was having since it was the parade the metro was on rush-hour protocol all day, which meant no bikes on the trains and I had to ride my bike all the way home. Good thing my injuries were minor and my bike just needs a touch of new grip tape.
With that I think that about wraps up my adventures for the week.
fn1: Collection #OH4688, Interview of Frederick Hunt by Leo Beranek and Charles Weiner on 1964 December 18, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics, College Park, MD USA, https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4688-2
Week 3: Collaboration and Destroyers and Infections, Oh My!
Week 3: Collaboration and Destroyers and Infections, Oh My!
This week has been quite a whirlwind.
Monday began with a mystery. I was reading the oral history for Robert Shankland [fn1] and he made a statement that left me puzzled.
You know, the first time they started out from New York harbor with an active sonar on a ship, it was sunk before it cleared Long Island, because the submarine used the sonar pulses to locate the destroyer or whatever it was. Well, really, the Navy was going to stop using sonar right then and there. And of course, if you take a very short term view, if you’d been on that destroyer and swam ashore, you might say, “Why give your position away with sonar?” But those things are only overcome by great leadership, in my opinion.
Now this was a circumstance that I hadn’t heard about before and coming from a military family I feel like I know the significant portions of history, but alas this was something that hadn’t come across my memories. So after a discouraging hour of searching for destroyers that were sunk in or near New York harbor I couldn’t find any validating information. Now Monday also happened to be Stephanie Williams birthday and we had a little gathering to have ice cream. Here I was able to have a quick chat with her mentor, Greg Good, and talk about my little wild goose chase. He recommended that I look into “The Two Ocean War” written by Samuel Eliot Morison who did research on the naval ships throughout World War 2. So while I am waiting to get my hands on that book from a library (where I don’t have a library card) I am back into reading more oral histories.
Do you have any leads for me?
Later this week, my mentor, Melanie set up a meeting with marketing and creative services to discuss some possibilities to make the exhibit cases a bit more interactive. At the end of the meeting we decided that having a web component and an iPad available would be excellent companion pieces to the cases. Side note, we also got approval to move the exhibit cases outside of the library to be in the 3rd floor lobby! Now they won’t be so hidden away and will enjoy more exposure!
Now for the infection portion of my title. Well I ended up getting a stomach infection and couldn’t keep food down, so off to the hospital I went on Wednesday. It felt like it was inconclusive for the origin but they gave me drugs that help somewhat, even though I still feel permaqueasy. I took the rest of the week easy and was also given permission to work from home on Friday (this is where oral histories really come in handy, online transcripts are awesome).
I am super thankful for supportive mentors and roommates.
fn1: Collection #OH4886, Interview of Robert Shankland by Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. on 1974 August 20, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics,
College Park, MD USA, www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4886-1
Week 4: Vision Boards and Test Runs
I can’t believe that an entire month has past by already! Time is going by so fast.
I started out this week by going on a supply run with Amanda N and Sarah C to a variety of stores to gather materials for my exhibit cases. After we finished purchasing our materials I had a plethora of fabric, paper, foam insulation and so much paint, finding a place for everything at my desk was quite the task. I then began doing a test run of the bubble paint method to figure out about the paint to dish soap/water ratio to achieve the exact color combination that I wanted. I took this information to compile an official vision board that I hang in my cube to always remind me where I am going and to give my mentors an idea of how things are coming together (picture below).
In the 2nd floor of the archives there is an exhibit prep area for two of the cases but not for the third case (the one located in the 1st floor gallery area), so I decided to turn my cube into a prep area with all the dimensions mapped out so I can have a better idea of how things are going to lay out and if I need more/less information. This is important because as I am wrapping up my research I want to include everything, but I also have to make smart decisions about which items are going to make the final cut. Because I would hate to try to fit all of it in when the cost would be that everything would then end up being too small. Kinda like when you have to take a group picture but the group is at least a 100 people so you just get lost in the crowd and everybody looks like they have a pinhead.. So yeah, I want to avoid that.
Again the rest of the week was filled with research, pulling out specific quotes for captions and audio excerpts. I also started looking into one of the niche aspects of the subject, which was architectural acoustics. Robert Shankland talked about how he got involved in the field and one of the world leaders in the subject, Wallace Sabine [fn1].
“When he [Wallace C. Sabine] was asked to design the acoustics of Boston Symphony Hall about 1900... When he was the acknowledged world leader in architectural acoustics, he was asked to design a new Symphony Hall for Boston. Well, what he did, he spent several summer vacations in Europe, listening to concerts in all the concert halls that he could find, talking to people and deciding which were the best. And after his detailed study, he decided that the Gewandhaus in Leipzig was the best one, and he came back and designed Boston with that as a model. Now, it doesn’t look like the Gewandhaus, but in architectural acoustics it’s very very close. And I think the humility of Wallace Sabine in his approach to that problem is something we can all learn a lot from. He could easily have told the Cabots and the Lodges, “Well, I’ll design something entirely new for you. It won’t be like anything in Philadelphia or anywhere.” And they’d have been pleased, I think. But that wasn’t his approach. He did this: successful designs always take all the information they can from earlier successful designs.”
On a lighter note, the SPS intern family got to have dinner with Michael Moloney, CEO of AIP. Once we got to the restroom I laid my stuff down at a chair and went to use the restroom, but when I got back I was surprised to see that I was sitting directly across from Michael himself! I was feeling quite intimidated but SPS is such a wonderful group that between the intern-family dynamics of the group and Michael’s friendly demeanor I was instantly comfortable again and we had a nice conversation around our end of the table.
I have been having so much fun getting to know D.C. but this weekend I am off to explore new ground! I am going to NYC for the first time. However I am excited to get back to D.C. for the Fourth of July, I just have this feeling that celebrating Independence Day on the National Mall is going to be a once in a lifetime event and I can’t wait to experience it.
fn1: Collection #OH4886, Interview of Robert Shankland by Loyd S. Swenson, Jr. on 1974 August 20, Niels Bohr Library & Archives, American Institute of Physics,
College Park, MD USA, www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4886-1
Week 5: Halfway There
How is it that we are already half way through the internship already? End of week 5?! I almost don’t believe it.
The main stand outs for this week were mainly the extra curriculars, namely going to explore NYC and experiencing the Fourth of July in our nation’s capital. For the fourth, I was on my way to meet up with the group on the steps of the capitol building to watch the fireworks, they took the metro but I figured that I would walk and I went through the first security gate I could, because I figured that meant I could walk through the mall without having to worry about security again, however they sectioned off the mall so once you were in one section you would have to leave that section and go through security again to get to another security station to enter a different area of the mall. By the time I realized this I saw the time and it was going to take me too long to get to the group before they totally shut down all the entrances when the fireworks start. So I decided to just find a spot on the Lincoln Memorial steps, and being just one person it was easy to weasel into a highly coveted spot on the steps. The fireworks were probably the best I had ever seen for a Independence Day celebration, but that may also be because of the location and how the monuments are highlighted with the glow of the explosions. It was a very picturesque experience.
The other fun portion of the week involved getting to bubble paint the backdrop for the exhibit. It consisted of three colors, so it took a while in between drying times and the 5 posters I filled up. But of course, I timed this project to take place during some of the most important World Cup games on Friday morning and afternoon so I could be painting/working while the games were on in the cafeteria. The green turned out to be more vibrant than I originally planned but I still think it works out okay, especially since the purple was subtler than I aimed for, so in the end I think it turned out balanced.
The rest of the week was filled with researching more about Marie Tharp as I really want to include a section about her in the exhibit, but I am having a hard time choosing a direct quote from her oral history transcripts. So far I have enjoyed reading from a chapter that she wrote for the book, “Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia Twelve Perspectives on the First Fifty Years 1949-1999.”
After another six weeks to arrange and piece together the profiles in proper order from west to east, I completed six more-or-less parallel, transoceanic profiles of the North Atlantic. I noticed immediately the general similarity in the shape of the ridge in each profile. But when I compared the profiles, I was struck by the fact that the only consistent match-up was a V-shaped indentation in the center of the profiles. The individual mountains didn’t match up, but the cleft did, especially in the three northernmost profiles. I thought it might be a rift valley that cut into the ridge at its crest and continued all along its axis.
When I showed what I found to Bruce, he groaned and said, “It cannot be.It looks too much like continental drift.” At the time, believing in the theory of continental drift was almost a form of scientific heresy. Almost everyone in the United States thought continental drift was impossible. Bruce initially dismissed my interpretation of the profiles as “girl talk.”
But I thought the rift valley was real and kept looking for it in all the data I could get. If there were such a thing as continental drift, it seemed logical that something like a mid-ocean rift valley might be involved. The valley would form where new material came up from deep inside the Earth, splitting the mid-ocean ridge in two and pushing the sides apart.
Week 6: Really Experiencing DC on Capitol Hill
Week 6 truly went by so fast and I can’t believe installation of my exhibit is next week!!
My highlight of the week was on Thursday when we went to Capitol Hill to tour the sites of fellow interns Sam Borer and Sarah Monk. We began the day by going to a hearing on the advancement of AI and the role of Congress. Which was fascinating to see how sub-committees work and the politics of who gets to choose witnesses. I was a little surprised at how much the control of the House and Senate determines the dynamics of almost everything. For example, in the hearing that we went to there were four witnesses and three of the witnesses were called by the majority party and the minority party only got one witness. On certain issues this would give me pause, because the implications of that can be huge. However, from my experience science is non-partisan and this hearing was no different. Some congressional representatives asked really smart and thoughtful questions, and others perhaps watched too many sci-fi movies as preparation for the meeting, but overall I really enjoyed the time spent in the hearing.
One of the committee members that asked excellent questions was Dr. William Foster from IL (holla to a neighboring district!), he actually met with our group and asked each of us what we were doing over the summer. After I explained my summer project he gave me some great leads for the exact area that I was facing a dead end for! I had previously found a lead on the topic of the effects of climate change on sonar activity but the papers were classified, or at least inaccessible, so I couldn’t get a hold of them. I tried to keep my cool but he really helped me out and I am for sure reaping the benefits of the paper he recommend I read on the study from MIT of “Low Frequency Active Sonar Performance in the Arctic Beaufort Lens.”
Afterwards Sam scored us tickets to the Senate Gallery so we could watch Senate members make statements. While we were in there we listened to Sen. Portman from Ohio give a statement on the new Supreme Court judge nominee and then he turned his remarks to the National Parks deficit which, as an avid National Park visitor, I really appreciated his support for addressing the backlog of maintenance issues that many parks across the nation possess. This spurred a lively discussion between my roommate Amanda and I about how we would run the National Parks if we were in charge. And if I do say so myself we would make excellent leaders.
Wow, now that week 6 is over I know that I have a big week ahead of me and I will probably be spending long hours at ACP to make sure I can finish everything and meet some of my goals. And then its smooth sailing until the end, or at least I can leave the building at 5 again.
Wish me luck!
Weeks 7 & 8: I’m in a Hurry
The last two weeks have felt like they have escaped from me. They have been action packed and I am still living to tell the tale. My 28th birthday fell on a Thursday and my roommate Amanda told me that the way I was celebrating was way too adult, aka working until 7 pm and not celebrating until the weekend. I guess I never felt the need to celebrate my birthday on my actual day. By having a summer birthday, I had to bring in treats for class on my half-birthday, and then if I took classes in the summer I regularly had finals on my birthday, and you probably know that finals stops for no one. I have always waited until the weekend to celebrate and this year I made sure that it was going to be a memorable one.
My roommates and I began by going to see Mamma Mia 2 on Friday evening which was just as absurd as the first one, and I loved every second of it. Then brought some weekend outdoor adventures with my roommate Amanda. On Saturday I rented a car (benefits of being 25+) and we drove to Rehoboth Beach just so we could say that we were in Delaware and take advantage of the no sales tax. Then on Sunday we went to Assateague National Seashore and kayaked to try and find the wild horses that populate the area. After about an hour of kayaking I saw a shimmer of white and I saw them! We paddled as fast as we could until we got to a point where we slowed down to not scare off the group that were grazing in the marsh lands.
There! That was it for all the extracurriculars I had planned for DC this summer. I can die happy now.
We are fast approaching the end of the internship and I have been working really hard to finish up my exhibit which has been scheduled to debut during week 9! After regularly pulling long hours to make sure all the pieces are coming together I am ready for ACP to finally see what has been oddly taking up space in random places like my cubicle, spray painting on the lawn, bubble painting in the cafeteria, melting/cutting foam on the back patio, etc.. It is all coming together!
I did have to take a break from all the preparation to go on a few tours. NASA was by far so interesting and the one I was looking forward to the most. I learned that the campus is really modelled after a university campus, and it oddly felt familiar as we walked around some of the lab places, it truly reminded me of being back in classes and I remembered that I needed to put in my order for my books for classes that are starting back up in just a month!
From the perspective of my internship, I really enjoyed that visitors center. They had a poster illustrating how the Earth’s magnetic field helps protect it from solar wind. And if you looked up you happened to see the same graph in a 3D form. I love how it’s the little details that can really make a difference and I hope that one day I can develop exhibits on a large scale regularly. But for now I am happy to have the opportunity to work on my small exhibit here, gain some insight and experience.
Week 9: Every Second Counts
This week everything has settled into place. The internship is coming to a close and I wanted to make sure that I finished up everything that was on my plate by Friday. So in order to do that I finally crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s.
Which included:
Adding Citations to my Quotations
Color Printing
Spray Mounting (tutorial: https://youtu.be/sDGDgW_K8Ww )
Cutting the Foam Board with a Box Cutter
Burning Holes in the Foam Board (to later hang up the captions)
Measuring and Tying Fishing Line to the Printed Captions
Place Transparent Command Hooks in the Display Cases
Putting Everything Up, then Taking Items Down, Fixing Them and Re-Hanging Them
Getting Help from Three Other People to Attach the Case to the Display Base
So while many of the items on my to-do list were easy they included a few set backs that required on the spot thinking. For the spray mounting, I was planning on using a giant paper cutter, but that ended up tearing up the foam core, the next step was to use a box cutter (which took more time than expected); I wanted to use a hole punch to create the holes in the foam core, but the foam was too thick so it got stuck in two different hole punches and then ended up needing to be ripped out, so as a solution I remembered that I still had access to the the hot foam pen (originally used for the finishing touches on the pink foam insulation models) and it would make a more discreet hole in the captions (a much better end result).
The work was taxing but it feels so rewarding to have it finished and for people to finally see what I have been referring to this entire internship. I stayed really late on Friday (7:30 pm, 30 minutes past the time the building closes, but shout out to Josh for letting me stay late to wrap up the last display case) because I didn’t want another week to go by without my exhibit being on display. It would also allow me to have some time to really reflect on my final presentation and make any final adjustments to the exhibit cases if needed.
So without further ado, see below for pictures of the process and the finished cases!
Week 10: DC, Adieu
This week definitely felt surreal.
Between staying up late practicing our presentations multiple times each night and encouraging each other to not be nervous, it was hard to acknowledge this week as a conclusion. Now that my exhibit was finished, I felt ready to begin another project but it felt odd to remember that my next project was to return to Chicago and start another semester. After being in a regular flow for so long, stopping and beginning a new flow will be an adjustment, but such is the life of a student, this should feel normal after dealing with numerous semesters.
It was fun to have a final reflection this week with the rest of the interns, by listening to their presentations and hearing about their different experiences over the course of the last 10 weeks. As physics majors it is nice to see all the different paths that we can take.
My internship allowed me to reflect the course I want to pursue in my life and where I want to take my career once I graduate in 2020. I knew that I would like developing exhibits, but I learned that I LOVE it. What I expected to do post-graduation, I realized that my internship confirmed those original impressions and I am so excited for the future.
Thank you to my mentors: Melanie Mueller, Amanda Nelson, and Sarah Cochrane
My roommates: Mikayla Cleaver and Amanda Williams
Thank you to the SPS National Team and 2018 interns for all the support and encouragement they freely gave. I hope to run into you all during the future, I expect many of us will be doing great things in the future.
Adieu.
The pictures below reflect some of our final experiences.
You can watch a video of my final presentation here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/cyzg4vt12cphvgjTA
