Question: "What animal is the subject of Schrodinger's famous paradox concerning the measurement process of quantum mechanics?"

The 5 people on the Landstander's team answered "cat" without hesitation, while the Yokish team howled at the easiness of the question and waved their hands in disbelief. Audience and contestants were engrossed in the battle of physics wits. The group trivia round ended with the Landstanders a few points in the lead.

Next, each team selected a representative to answer a series of 10 questions in 2 minutes. The 10 questions for the individual round were contributed by Dr. Louis Bloomfield, author of How Things Work: the Physics of Everyday Life. Earlier in the day, he had stopped by the SESAPS registration counter at the Hilton where Justin Cohen and I were desperately searching physics textbooks and even old physics GREs for trivia question fodder. Dr. Bloomfield had a huge store of fun physics questions at his fingertips e.g. "You tip over a 1 m stick and a 2 m stick. Which hits the ground first?" The representatives from the two teams, Yogesh Sharma from the University of Central Florida and Alex Daly from our own department, excelled under pressure, and they were rewarded with bottles of sparkling grape juice.

In the last round, the teams had 5 minutes to build the tallest possible free-standing structure out of drinking straws and masking tape. The Landstanders utilized a tripod base, and the Yokish team tried to implement an assembly line process that never quite took off. The Landstanders scored a definite victory and were awarded UF SPS quarks t-shirts. As a consolation prize, SpongeBob Squarepants mechanical pencils were given to the Yokish team.

The physics game show was one of several events in the SPS zone meeting mixer. Around 4 PM, participants in the SPS poster and oral presentation sessions at the SESAPS conference began arriving at the New Physics Building where they were entertained by Drs. Lee and DeSerio with physics demos. Later, winners of the poster and oral sessions were presented with prize money and certificates signed by physics department chair, Dr. Alan Dorsey. The awards were followed by a talk from SPS national director, Dr. Gary White, entitled "Why Physics? Why 2005? Why Einstein?" At one point during his talk, he asked the audience to grab the edges of a large piece of red spandex and roll marbles over it in attempt to simulate planetary motion, drawing some parallels between the spandex and gravity.

After Dr. White's talk, representatives from SPS chapters introduced themselves and discussed their activities. A movie created by SPS webmaster, Harold Rodriguez, was played about life in our own physics department. (It's available for your viewing pleasure at www.phys.ufl.edu/~sps.) Dinner catered by Moe's, the physics game show, and liquid nitrogen ice cream followed. With around 60 participants and activities running from 8:30 AM to 9 PM, it was an eventful day for our UF SPS chapter.

Kudos to Drs. Yoonseok Lee and Robert DeSerio and zone meeting student helpers Erica Bolin, Don Burnette, Justin Cohen, Kaitlin Harley, and Sumeet Jain.