Nathan Means

Nathan Means '04 is a doctoral candidate studying nuclear particle physics at Stony Brook University.

Your specialty is spin physics. What does this mean?
Spin physics is looking at the quarks and gluons to see why the proton has a spin of 1/2. Since the proton is understood to be made up of two "up" quarks and one "down" quark, it was thought that there would be two quarks with a spin of 1/2 and one with spin of -1/2.  However, when this was measured it only added up to about 1/10 rather than 1/2. So spin physics is looking to see if the gluons contribute to the overall spin of the proton, or if the quarks or gluons have orbital angular momentums that would contribute to the spin. 

Did you feel well-prepared for graduate school?
Cornell did not get me the same level of knowledge as other students in my grad program. They mostly came in with a BS rather than a BA, but we all had to take the same courses again. Sure they were ahead of me, but at Cornell I learned how to study and focus and that helped me to level the playing field.

What was best about studying physics at Cornell?
The availability of professors who were willing to answer any questions that you would have. At Cornell the professors are there because they want to teach. If you are really looking to learn, this makes a small college like Cornell the place to go.

Did you do any research as an undergrad?
I spent a summer working jointly with the math and physics departments on a solution to what the electric field that is inside of a cube would be when reading it on the surface of the cube. This was to model the body so that electrical impulses in the heart would be able to be read and mapped by putting electrodes on the skin. I also spent a summer researching at Notre Dame. My research there was to diagnose why electronics pieces were not working in a detector at FERMI Lab.