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>> Joining me now over the phone
to give us a little more insight

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into the American Physical Society is Becky
Thompson, who is head of public outreach

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for the APS, Becky, first off I want
to thank you for joining me today.

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Why don't you give us a little general
overview real quick about your organization?

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>> Hi, thanks very much.

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I work for the American Physical Society, it's
a professional organization for physicists.

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Its main goal is to get physicists
talking to each other through meetings

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and journals and things like that.

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But they also have a commitment to exciting

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and inspiring the general
public, which is where I come in.

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So we have a small department,
three full-time employees,

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and we do a ton of different outreach programs.

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Probably our biggest is the web site
that is actually hosting the science

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of the sphere [Assumed spelling]
videos, Physics Central.

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We also do a series of comic books, a program
specifically for middle schoolers where we send

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out equipment to do fun physics experiments,
as well as a lot of the different,

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exciting, education and outreach programs.

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>> Okay, and can you tell us how did you
-- how it you guys get hooked up with Don,

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did you reach out to him or did he --

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because he know he always liked to do the
Saturday science stuff on his last flight.

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How exactly did you guys get linked up with him?

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>> Actually, it was a happy
accident, just a lucky meeting

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at the National Science Teachers
Association Conference.

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We had a booth there where we were
distributing our materials, letting people know

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about all the programs that we run, and someone
from Johnson Space Center, Cindy McArthur,

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happened to stop by our booth
and see what we were doing,

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and we told her all about our web site.

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And she knew that Don really enjoyed
doing Saturday morning science.

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But the biggest issue was that there wasn't
quite the right place to host the videos.

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So she got in touch with us and it kind of went
from there, and we ended up being able to host

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and -- and have, you know, create
an audience for these videos,

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starting with the audience we
already had for Physics Central.

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And it's a wonderful partnership,
a great way for --

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to let people know about our programs,
to be able to show Don's videos.

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We have a wonderful time getting the footage.

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He is just fantastic to work with.

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Sends us amazing, amazing amounts of footage
and we edit them and put them on our web site,

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and have really created a
following for that program.

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>> Well, he's certainly gotten
down some great videos so far.

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Why don't we talk a little
bit about your audience.

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You said you're focused on getting
physicists to talk to everybody, so --

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and from what I understand most
of the people that are actually

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in your organization are
physicists, is that correct?

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>> Yup, that's correct.

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We represent about 50,000 physicists,
both in the US and internationally.

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And you know, we're really the go-to
organization to both publish --

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we publish the premier journals in physics.

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And to go to our meetings and just have a way
to talk to other physicists about what they do,

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and you know, learn about the current
research in different fields of physics.

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But one of the things that E P S really
has [Inaudible] to is other programs

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to get more people interested
and excited about physics.

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And we have our department to do that, we
have an education department that's focusing

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on creating physics teachers that have the
knowledge to teach high school physics,

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also to make sure that undergraduate
education in physics is, you know, successful.

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We have a department that's specifically
for -- specifically talks to Congress,

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let's them know about the
importance of research.

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And we have a group that reaches
out to people internationally.

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So in addition to our commitment
to getting people --

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to getting physicists to talk to
each other, we also have a commitment

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to getting the rest of the population excited.

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>> Got you.

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And so with these videos, you know,
I mean, we're taking a look again

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at that water droplet one, and
that certainly caught my eye,

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and I can imagine any school child or
even high school kids, anything like that,

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that are watching are just going to
be instantly fascinated about it.

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What about the -- what about
our physicist population,

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are they -- have they been really excited?

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Because I would imagine they
don't get, you know,

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a ton of video from this micro gravity
environment, unless it's somebody

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on the International Space Station.

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What's their response been like?

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>> It's been wonderful.

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As you saw in the video that was just shown,
every week Don poses a challenge question.

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And one of the ways we can see who's viewing the
videos and who's really engaging is by looking

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at the people who are responding
to the challenge question.

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And what's neat is we get a wide range.

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We get people that are, you know, professional
physicists or physicists by training

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that have moved into different
careers, and that's neat to watch.

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We even had one challenge submission that
once sited physical review letters article.

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And so we have a wide range of people, and
then we have middle school science classes

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that are also submitting answers.

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So the physics community
is absolutely loving that.

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Loving seeing what's going on, loving having
a different way of looking at concepts

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that they've spent their life studying.

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>> Okay, and real quick question,
among these videos is there any --

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has there been any one in particular
that's been very popular with people?

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>> Well, there's one that comes to mind, that
anti bubble video which wasn't this past week

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but the week before, was
picked up by a group in the UK

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and has at this point almost
gotten 200,000 views on YouTube.

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So that was extremely popular.

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And we're really, really excited about the
one that's going up today, it should be up in

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about an hour or two, with
water droplets on a speaker.

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And I think internally, we are
very, very excited about this one,

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it even has some neat music at the end.

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So we're hoping that that
one gets the same reception

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that the anti bubbles video has gotten.

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>> Well, it certainly sounds pretty
cool, and we'll be watching out for it.

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What about for the future, do you guys plan on
doing these for the rest of Don's space flight?

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>> Absolutely.

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We will put up anything that he sends down.

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We're constantly excited about new footage,

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we really hope he continues doing
this for as long as he's up there.

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We've gotten such a great reception, people
are so excited about it, and we definitely,

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definitely love it, and we want it to
continue as long as it possibly can.

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>> Well, it certainly seems like
he's having a lot of fun doing them,

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and I know we're all having
a lot of fun watching them.

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Well, Becky, I want to thank you so much
for joining me today, and anybody interested

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in seeing those videos be sure and check out
the American Physical Society's web site,

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at www.physicscentral.com/explore/SOTS.