Dr. Heidi Fearn

Professor of Physics (1991-present)
California State University Fullerton
800 N. State College Blvd.
Fullerton CA 92834 USA.

Primary Education: St. Edmonds, Mansfield Woodhouse, Notts. UK
Secondary Education: Manor School
A good way to contact old chums:Friends Reunited
B.Sc.(Hons) and Ph.D. University of Essex

Graduate Advisor for the Physics Department.
Office: McCarthy Hall - MH-659
Phone: (714) 278-2767 or physics dept.(714) 278-3366
FAX: (714) 278-5810
Email: hfearn@fullerton.edu



Masters Degree in Physics/Graduate Advice


You are STRONGLY advised to apply ONLINE as soon as humanly possible. Get your applications in early!!
All prospective graduate students in physics MUST submit a physics GRE score, which they have taken within the last year, this goes to the graduate advisor for physics. At the graduate committee discretion the physics GRE may be waived only for those students with a BS in physics with a high GPA and good letters of recommendation. All students must submit a statement of purpose (500 word maximum) to the graduate advisor of physics. Students need to have completed at least 9 units (3 courses) of upper division physics before they can apply to the
For information on the Physics Masters Degree program, please send all emailenquiries and documents to the email address below:
Email: master@physics.fullerton.edu
Masters program at Fullerton. The physics GRE score is required as part of the admissions process to the physics dept. You can find a test center online and register either online or over the phone 1 800 GRE CALL. For foreign students a Toefl score is required, you can also take the test locally (see below) 1 800 GO TOEFL.
Prof Heidi Fearn
Graduate Advisor Physics
Physics Department
California State University Fullerton
800 N. State College Blvd.
Fullerton, CA 92834-6900


Please email to master@physics.fullerton.edu NOT to Dr Fearn, thank you.
Admissions document in word sent to all students; Admissions.doc

To find out about the GRE exam and find a test center go to;
GRE tests and practice test
CA Testing Centers for GRE and TOEFL
Worldwide Testing Centers for GRE and TOEFL

The GRE test score should go to the graduate advisor Dr Heidi Fearn. Also send 3 letters of recommendation directly to the grad advisor and a 500 word statement of purpose. (emails to master@physics.fullerton.edu)

Deadlines for Spring admissions close the previous Oct 1st.
Deadlines for Fall admission close the previous March 1st.

For all the university rules and regulations for graduate students, including rules specifically for the physics department, read "The Physics Graduate Handbook", available for download below.
The Physics Graduate Handbook

Grads Apply online here

For main CSUMentor page goto: General information about the Cal. State Univ. (CSU) system for high school students, undergrads & graduates.
http://www.csumentor.edu/

For general Applications CSUMentor page goto:
http://www.csumentor.edu/AdmissionApp/



MS Plans A,B and C explained (word doc)
AJP style guide Sample AJP paper Revtex4 explained revtex4.zip
Choosing a grad school mp4 (~20MB)
Careers to Science and Engineering: A students Planning Guide to Grad school and beyond
(American Assoc. for Adv. of Science) AAAS: Sciences Next Wave.
(American Inst. of Physics) AIP: Career Services.
(American Physical Society) APS: Careers and Employment.

CAREER PLANNING ON CAMPUS:

See Gloria Simms (extension (3766) in LH 2nd floor, Career Planning and Placement Center. Gloria is an industrial specialist for science, engineering and technology. She can critique your resume and give advice on interviewing, and even give you a mock interview if you like. Before applying for a job in industry I STRONGLY suggest you go and talk to Ms. Gloria Simms. Her email and the career planning webpage is below.
Email: gsimms@fullerton.edu The webpage is: Careers and planning webpage:


The International Education and Exchange office, UH 244

International Education and Exchnage office, UH 244
California State University Fullerton,
800 N State College Blvd.,
Fullerton CA 92831.
Fax: (714) 278 7292
Phone:(714) 278 2787
Office hours: mon-fri 8:00am until 5:00pm, LA/Pacific time.

Email: ieoffice@fullerton.edu The webpage is : International Education webpage:



SPECIAL INTEREST:


AIP 75th anniversary aip75.mp4
Solvay Conference 1927 mp4
The Particle Adventure (Standard Model)
2005 year of Physics
For 2004 we had:
50th Anniversary of CERN (1954-2004) and Physics at CERN
CERN.pdf (3368 KB) CERN pdf file Big Bang and the Cosmos

Fermilab National Accelerator Laboratory Experiments

Eleven Physics Questions for the New Century




(1) Colloquia and Seminars 2006


Vacuum speed of light (8 mins, mov)
Vacuum speed of light (8 mins, mp4 ipod's/PSP's)
Download a poster and a short pdf paper for this talk: vacuum06.pdf
Poster.pdf
Optical Analog of the AB-effect (ppt)


(2) Introductory Lectures on Nanotechnology: CLE talks 2005


There will be 5 talks in this series. The talks are intended for a general audience. This is a non profit series of talks. The first talk Jan 24th will be a DVD (Dr Fearn will not be present). I will give a bibliography as before at the end of this mini-series. There are many interesting books out there on this subject and also several interesting websites which I will list for you. To get you started look up these interesting articles:
The stuff of dreams.
Ribbon to the stars.
The Foresight Institute has a special online bookstore for books on nanotechnology, it is associated with amazon.com, the link is below.
The Nanotechnology bookstore.
Unbounding The Future: book download.
For general articles on nanotechnology see: http://www.nanotechweb.org.
For more webpages and general books on nanotechnology see word document: refs-nano.doc

Lectures Follow:

(I'll show smileys when a download is possible of word or ppt files.)
nano1.ppt (1.6MB)Feynman's 1959 lecture on Nanotechnology brought up to date. (approx. 45 mins + discussion).
For a copy of Feynman's talk entitled "There's plenty of room at the bottom" , go to: http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html.
nano2.ppt (1.7MB)Nanotechnology: Fact from Fiction, what's real and what's not. (approx. 65 mins + discussion).
nano3.ppt (1.06MB)Hardware: Real nanobots and nanocircuits. (Carbon nanotubes) (approx. 1 hour + discussion).
nano4.ppt (2.50MB)Wetware: Biobots and biological manipulation.(approx. 1 hour + discussion).
nano5.ppt (1.99MB)Micro Robotics: Robots that swim, fly and walk up walls(approx. 1 hour + discussion).

nano-physics.pptPhysics dept seminar Feb 16, 2005.(approx. 1 hour + discussion).
book.zip"Unbounding the Future", book in zip format (opens into word doc)


(3) Introductory Lectures on String theory: CLE talks 2004

These are a set of 10 colloquim talks requested by the CLE (Continued Learning Experience) group on campus. This group consists of a general senior audience who have asked to learn something about string theory. The lectures are intended for an audience with little or no physics background. The lectures are necessarily of a tutorial form with little mathematics. (The lectures are given on a volunteer basis and no money is involved. I hope people will not mind if I have borrowed their pictures for my presentations!)
Power point lectures follow, sorry NO audio commentary yet. If I have time I may add commentary later. These lectures are being prepared on the fly so to speak, and I'm a bit busy so please be patient. I have compressed the pictures in the first 3 lectures which has drastically reduced their size. Lecture2 is still 5,896 KB and will take a minute or so to download with a fast broadband (DSL/Cable) connection. The rest should be a few seconds.
If you are using a modem, a typical speed is 5 KB per second. It will take 5 mins to download a file of 1,500 KB. If your transfer rate is 4 KB per sec then 6 min 25sec for the same download. Longer for older modem with slower transfer rates. I'm using a new Tablet PC, writing eqns directly onto the screen, with a stylus pen, so some of the hand writing looks a little rough, I'm not used to it yet.

Lecture1.ppt (1,759 KB) Intro & Quantum Weirdness (45 mins + NOVA program 1)
Lecture2.ppt (5,896 KB) Gravity and General Relativity (45 mins + NOVA program 2)
Lecture3.ppt (1,084 KB) The Standard Model of elementary particles (45 mins + NOVA program 3)
Lecture4.ppt (729 KB) Superstrings and vacuum jitters (what "super" means 1 hr) moderately hard core
Lecture5.ppt (1,517 KB) Multidimensional space and Topology (Flatland model and curled up space 1 hr, audio talk Dr. Yau) pictures
Lecture6.ppt (1,220 KB) Quantum geometry and Duality (1 hr 30 mins) hard core
Lecture7.ppt (940 KB) Black holes and elementary particles (holographic principle 1 hr, and audio talk Dr. Thorne KITP colloquim) pictures
Lecture8.ppt (520 KB) M-theory (5 different string theories and supergravity? 1 hr, and audio talk by Dr. Witten KITP colloquim) hard core Lec8-audio.mp3 (5.25 MB)
Lecture9.ppt (1580 KB) Experiments underway (LIGO, proton decay, sparticle hunt and extra dimensions 1 hr) mostly pictures Lec9-audio.mp3 (8.34 MB)
Lecture10.ppt (1783 KB) Technical QFT talk (Batchelors or higher, in science or math required ~1 hr) Really hard core!
References.doc (word doc~45 KB) List of both non-technical and technical references on QFT and string You should also find a good book on conformal field theory, Springer pubs. for example. I haven't bothered listing algebraic and differential topology, since I am hardly an authority in those areas! Some good websites included (see below also).

(3) What to learn to be a "good" theoretical physicist:

List of topics compiled by Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel Laureate 1999)


(4) General Interest society webpages:


American Inst. of Physics (AIP)
American Chemical Society (ACS)
American Inst. of Biological Sciences (AIBS)
American Mathematical Society (AMS)
Geological Society of America (GSA)
American Assoc. for the Adv. of Science (AAAS)
National Research Council (Canada): NRC
Human Genome Project
American Physical Society (APS)

Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)


(5) Ph.D. Pre-qualifying examinations; what to study??


There are several good question and answer books available for purchase for around $50 a piece. These include Major American University PhD Qualifying Questions and solutions books by World Scientific publishers;

"Problems and solutions on quantum mechanics": Edited by Lim Yung-Kuo, paperback (World Scientific 1991 ?)

"Problems and solutions on Electromagnetism", Ed. Lim Yung-Kuo 2002.

"Problems and solutions on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics", Ed Lim Yung-Kuo 2001.

"Problems and solutions on optics" Ed. Lim Yung-Kuo 1991.

Other titles are available for mechanics and atomic and nuclear theory etc.

Also,

"University of Chicago graduate problems in physics with solutions", (Addison-Wesley, 1967).

"Princeton Problems in Physics with solutions", (Princeton press, 1991).


For a set of online problems from the Qualifiers of the physics dept of Urbana Champaign:
Download pdf exam questions from Illinois
I have not got the solutions to these questions and I would not give them out if I did! so don't ask me!!


MIT has a webpage with general guidelines for study which I would also recommend looking at, a list of books is given there also.
MIT general guidelines for PhD Qualifiers


Feynman's thesis has just been published with a couple of his papers. Very nice, check it out.


(6) String theory webpages

10 unsolved physics problems for the next Millennium

"A First Course in String Theory", by Barton Zweibach.
This is a text book for undergraduate physics students. Cost $60.00, available from www.amazon.com (linked above). A very new 2004 book on string theory, designed for undergraduate students. Written by an MIT professor of physics, Barton Zweibach.

String theory: Dr Michio Kaku's website

I would strongly recommend the book by Dr Kaku entitled VISIONS. It is a physicists view of what technology will be available in the next 100 years.
I have also read "Beyond Einstein" and "Hyperspace" both excellent! and of course his technical books entitled, "Quantum field theory. A Modern Introduction.", and "Introduction to superstrings and M-branes"

Prof. Joseph Polchinskis webpage; String theory downloads

Prof. Allen Hatchers webpage; Topology links and downloads

Prof. Brian Greenes webpage; String theory Author of "The Elegant Universe".

The Nova mini-series on superstrings was shown this Fall 2003, hosted by Brian Greene. See their website, view online; NOVA WEBPAGE

Official SuperString theory website

(7) Other interesting sites

How to build a Beowulf Cluster

e-prints Cornel Univ. (previously LANL)

Science, Maths and much more.. huge database online.



History of Physics (AIP)

HYPERMATH

Physics resources: the-science-lab.com; A directory of physics related webpages

HYPERPHYSICS

Physics Central Logo


Heidi's Information:

If you click on the construction icon at the right of this page it will take you to my JAVA applet construction zone. I have a couple of useful conversion tools there, one for a few length scales and another for 14 different energy scales.

Vita (pdf)

Publications (pdf)

MS thesis, Projects and paper downloads

Student Involvement

Hobbies


Research Interests

My speciality is theoretical quantum optics, which is the study of the interaction of light with matter. I conduct research in a variety of topics which come under that general heading. I am also very interested in quantum field theory and have done work in that area (QED in particular). I am currently reading books and familiarizing myself with superstring theory.

I am a member of the American Institute of Physics, AIP .

My thesis advisor was Prof. Rodney Loudon FRS, Essex University (Physics dept. which no longer exists!) I have worked with Prof Marlan Scully at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching Germany and at UNM, and Prof. Willis E. Lamb, Jr. at the Optical Sciences Center, Tucson Arizona.

Current Professional Associations

I am the graduate advisor for the physics masters degree program. During the summers, I regularly visit Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and conduct research with Dr Peter W. Milonni, and Dr Daniel James in the theoretical division T-DO and T4. Los Alamos . A few years ago I worked on Adaptive Optics. Visit the Starfire Optical Range SOR at Kirkland airforce base in Albuquerque NM.

I have several computers, and enjoy playing about with linux, and attend the Linux Users group at Fullerton whenever I can on saturdays, once a month. For info on the Orange County Linux Users Group, click on the juggling penguin.

KITP Fellowship

I have been fortunate enough to be selected as a KITP Fellow for 2003-05. This entails three, 2 week visits to the Kavli Institute of theoretical physics in Santa Barbara CA over a 3 year period. I will be studying string theory and field theory in general. I hope to add to the expertise at CSU Fullerton and this experience will, I hope, enable me to conduct research into a new and exciting area. I also hope to involve Masters students in string/high energy QED research, for thesis projects. My contact at KITP is Dr Joseph Polchinski. He is the author of "numerous" papers on string theory, M-theory, D-branes, monopoles etc and has also written a two vol. set on String Theory. See Dr Polchinski's book on the right - click on it to see its contents.
Santa Barbara has a very pretty campus, UC Santa Barbara and the Kavli Institute is affiliated with the campus KITP Institute .





Physics Courses: I've taught or am teaching

FACULTY ABE-books