Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I plan to enter the Siemens Westinghouse Math, Science & Technology Competition this year and I have found interest in the area of Astrophysics/Astronomy.

I thought of several topics within the area of astrophysics like wormholes, black holes, quasars, pulsars, white holes....
I am currently studying these topics to further my knowledge in these areas, but i need help in formulating a descriptive and specific topic
could you give me some ideas?

Also, i was recently looking at mentors and their areas of research and i'm thinking of showing interest in thier area of research not because i need a mentor but because i'm amazed and fascinated by these different topics. Would this be a good idea to pursue and also would I be able to get a mentor using this idea? my project is due 10/1/09, it seems like i have a lot of time ahead of me, but actually i need all the time i can get since this is a time-consuming and complex project so please respond ASAP, i appreciate all your help!!!

Hi,

Hopefully some of our physical sciences experts will chime in about project ideas, but I think that you getting a mentor is a great idea. I suspect that you would be able to do much more with a mentor with astrophysics equipment than without.

Science Buddies has a guide for how to get a mentor, here: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml . There's also some information about putting together an advanced research project; you might want to read through all of that.

Sorry I can't help with project ideas--I'm a biologist, so you probably know more about pulsars than I do!

I've been using this site already, but thanks for referencing it because it does give me helpful tips. Once again, thanks for responding!!!

To anyone else, could you please answer my previous question listed above....thanks so much !!!!

Hi,
Welcome to the Ask an Expert forums. Can you tell us more about your interests, your experience in math and science, and what sort of project you'd like to do? Without knowing more, the best we can do for you is to give links to the science buddies project ideas pages and to general sources of information about the topics you've listed. I'm guessing that's something that you've already done.
Looking forward to hearing more,
Chris

Hi Chris, thanks for responding to my post

I am currently entering my senior year in high school and I'm a big fan of science, especially astronomy / astrophysics. Math however, is not a waeakness, but sometimes it can be tough. I've already taken AP Calculus AB and passed the class with a B. Math is not one of my best strengths, however since astrophysics contains major components of math, I am willing to engage with it. So far in my high school year I've taken AP Biology, and AP Chemistry and Honors Physics I've gotten a B+ and and and A- in both AP course respectively and in physics I earned an A+. I really enjoy physics and how it applies to our universe.

So after some seroius thought, I've decided to do my research project on the topic of Astophysics/Astronomy. During the summer I hope to learn more about this subject than ever before and also to discover something new. The main problem is I have wide range of interests in this topic, but my problem is to narroow my idea down to one precise and understandable topic. I've already used the Science Buddies topic finder and found it useful, but I need help formulating an exact topic. I enjoy astrophysics especially topics dealing with, galaxiy formation, the theory of the big bang, black holes and their components, white holes and their existence, pulsars and quasars, and the birth and death of stars. I need help building these topics into a research project format. By making several topics available to me I can then narrow them accroding to originality and diificulty. I am currently studying these topics so I can futher my knowledege and prepare myself for the upcoming deadaline.

Lastly, I've searched for mentors form various universites and have been analyzing heir profiles and their area of research. I'm wondering should I undertake the same topic of research as one of the mentors so I can have access to their data and information ( which would be helpful in creating a research project) and also to gain their respect so that they can be my mentor in this project? I hope this can give you an idea of my background and what I aim to do my project on. Please respond ASAP ! I'm really behind on time and need all the help I can get. Thanks so much for your help, I really appreciate your time to read this response!!!! thanks!!!

Hi,

Thanks for all the info about your background and interests. That's really helpful. I wouldn't be too concerned with the grades, but rather focus on what you love to do.

Having a very wide range of interests does present a challenge for choosing a topic. You will need to narrow down your focus to something very specific. If you are working on your own, you can make a list of topics, as you've already done, and then just pick one that seems particularly interesting. Dont' worry too much about originality and difficulty - they are all good topics - and don't look back on the decision (unless you run into a major roadblock). Keep digging into the literature on that topic until you have made a lists of sub-topics, and then pick one of those, and then repeat, repeat, repeat, until you have identified a very narrow topic of interest that you can tackle for a science fair project.

As you've mentioned, it is very helpful to find a mentor and to follow in their footsteps for choosing a research topic. This is not necessarily a simple task. Most researchers love to teach and to help students, but at the same time they are very busy and may not have a lot of time to discuss research possibilities. To get their attention and interest, you need to sell yourself as being an asset to that researcher in the sense that you can, for example, do work for them, help them conduct ongoing research, and generally give something back to the researcher in exchange for your use of their data, facilities and expertise.
I hope that helps,
Chris

Hi dthomas518,

Here's something to think about that might end up narrowing your choices down (which doesn't necessarily seem like a bad thing at this point): With most high-school-level science projects, when you decide what variable you wanted to manipulate (independent variable) and what you want to measure (dependent variable) to test your hypothesis, you end up with an experiment that you can more or less hold in your hand, repeat at will, and measure with relatively inexpensive devices. An example would be changing the ratios of two reactants and measuring the amount of heat produced in a calorimeter.

However, with astrophysics experiments, you might for example have a hypothesis concerning how the mass of a black hole affects the wavelength or amount of radiation it produces. You can't make black holes, much less black holes of arbitrary masses, and you probably need an enormous and enormously expensive telescope to get good measurements. On top of that, you might only be able to observe the events you need to test your hypothesis over a span of many years. (I'm not an astrophysicist, so some statements might not be true of this particular example, but these are definitely pervasive issues in astronomy/astrophysics.)

Now, this isn't meant to discourage you -- I just want you to think about this so that you can make sure you end up with a hypothesis and experiment that you can actually carry out. The good news is that because high-quality observatories, telescopes, cameras, and satellites are so expensive, they are usually built with a great deal of government funding -- and as a result, a lot of the data they produce is public. It just takes a lot of work to understand what it means, and often this takes the form of image analysis. If you have any interest or experience in programming, that's definitely something to mention to potential mentors, as often it makes sense to write a script to look for certain events in data sets rather than poring over them manually.

So, a major thing you need from a mentor is for them to help you find a tractable problem for which there is data available. I can't really go any further than this general description, and I don't *think* there are any actual astrophysicists among the experts. I'm pretty sure you don't have time to apply for time at a telescope (and that would have to be done through a professor anyway, in all likelihood), but there is definitely a lot of data out there that hasn't been fully analyzed. This is doable! You just need to find a mentor (probably an astro professor) who will point you toward a project and get you started dealing with the data. :)

Some resources that might be helpful:
http://adswww.harvard.edu/ (index of publications, so you can get an idea of what current topics are and how they talk about data)
http://tdc-www.harvard.edu/astro.data.html (huge list of astro data online)
http://www.eso.org/~ppadovan/astronomical_data_web.html (another list)

Hope that is somewhat helpful -- keep us updated!

Amanda