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chip brock
(aka raymond brock) professor of physics department of physics and astronomy michigan state university east lansing, michigan 48824 |
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| research physicist |
professor (incl. CV)| chairperson
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| Let's
face it, it's confusing having two names: All my life I've been "Chip", although my driver's license says "Raymond". Before you ask, nobody claims to know where this started and I gave up years ago trying to patiently explain. Please note before being really proud of yourself: "Chip off the old Brock" is not new, it's not funny anymore, and all of you think you were the first to invent it... Here is an example of the kind of pressure that I sometimes face... Here are some random pictures.
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is in elementary particle
physics primarily at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and
The European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN)
I am engaged in elementary particle physics research, which is the study of the "inside of the universe", the fundamental building blocks of nature. My colleagues and I perform experiments of long duration and considerable heft at the highest energy particle accelerators in the world. I was honored to be elected as a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2000. Current Collaborations: experimental physics: the DO experiment at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia Illinois. My current project is the simulation of the L1_CAL trigger for the D0 experiment with my student, Josh Kalk. - my MSU colleagues: students (Josh Kalk); post doctoral researchers (Bob Kehoe, Reinhard Schwienhorst, Reiner Hauser); staff (Dan Edmunds and Philippe Laurens); and faculty (Maris Abolins, Bernard Pope, Jim Linnemann, and Harry Weerts) experimental physics: the Atlas Experiment at CERN in Geneva, Switerland. There I was recently the convenor of the Electroweak Top Quark Production subgroup of physicists from the US, Canada, Russia, and CERN. - my MSU colleagues: post doctoral researcher (Reiner Hauser); staff (Dan Edmunds); and faculty (Maris Abolins and Bernard Pope) joint theoretical-experimental research in the physics of quantum chromodynamics through the unique MSU-based national program, CTEQ. - my MSU colleagues: faculty (WuKi Tung, Joey Huston, CP Yuan, Dan Stump, and Jon Pumplin) Current Projects: co-convenor of the Precision Measurements Working Group (pdf) of the QCD and Weak Boson Workshop at Fermilab. This is done. continuing work in refining my own particular approach to the intellectual history of Physics, currently embodied in the honors course for non-physicists, ISP213H. (See below) creation of an ISP course on the physics of elementary particles and the Early Universe. To be offered, not before, fall 2006. Recent Past Projects: co-convenor of the Hadron and Lepton Collider Working Group (E4) at the 2001 Snowmass meeting. Now, co-convenor of an international effort to coordinate early thinking toward a VLHC and an upgrade to the LHC. The first workshop scheduled for October, 2003. resummation of soft gluon emission in Drell Yan processes...particularly, the pedagogy for experimenters...in progress. Based on lectures at the 1st & 4th CTEQ Summer School for Young Physicists, Lake Monroe, IN. Reprise and update at the 2001 CTEQ Summer School at St. Andrews, Scotland, June 17-26. | talks | selected publications | |
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selected
talks...
transparencies from an MSU Physics and Astronomy colloquium which I gave in May of 1996, "Weighing the Weak Force" (pdf) transparencies from a colloquium a few times this past year, "Millennial Physics at the Fermilab Collider" (pdf) transparencies from an invited summary talk at the 1998 Fermiab Users Meeting, "Collider Physics in Run II and Beyond" (pdf) transparencies from my summary talk at the culmination of the year-long tev_2000 Workshop (pdf). conference Proceedings from the plenary talk on quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at the 1996 International Conference on High Energy Physics in Warsaw, Poland. (pdf) not yet uploaded |
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i have been a member of the Physics and Astronomy faculty since 1982. I have taught at all levels, concentrating on the large lecture courses for engineers and the graduate level courses for students of elementary particle physics. i enjoy teaching, and I am especially proud to have been only the second member of the faculty to have been awarded the MSU Teacher Scholar Award in 1984 and to have been voted as the Best Graduate Instructor by the graduate students in 1994. while previously unable to teach while chairman, during the 1999-2000 academic year I taught the second year graduate sequence in Relativistic Quantum Field Theory. The web pages for this course are still available. Now that I have stepped down as chairman, I'm back into real life in the classroom and laboratory. My current teaching assignment is the creation of a course for non-science honors students which started in the Fall of 2001. Called Navigating the Universe, it is an historical approach to modern physics - relativity, quantum mechanics, elementary particle physics, and cosmology. Special attention will is paid to how we know what we say we know and the criteria for assessing scientific knowledge has evolved. The web is an integral part of the course as a source of outside information, where my lectures originate, and where the students post their homework. The course has now grown into a self-sustaining effort in which history, physics, philosophy of science, and now the history and epistemology of art are all woven into a single entity. It is, I have come to realize, unintentionally "Integrative," although I don't think anyone has a good definition of that concept. The course web site for fall 2004 is at: http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2004fall/ISP213H/ I was pleased in 2004 to receive an MSU Distinguished Faculty Award, to go along with my 1986 MSU Teacher Scholar Award.
my curriculum vitae:
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has been both a satisfying and productive experience. I'm done now. | ||||||||||||||||||
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i have been proud to be chairperson
of the department
of physics and astronomy at michigan
state university for 7 years. During that time we've made
important steps toward strengthening our research infrastructure
and created new opportunities. Ours is a department of 59 faculty,
140 graduate students and 120 majors. We are a part of the College
of Natural Science and home of the National Superconducting Cyclotron
Laboratory and the Abrams Planetarium, We are also lead or major
partners in: Now I'm back to being a part of the
problem, rather than the solution. |
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major initiatives...
the SOAR telescope is a significant effort on behalf of our astronomy group. This is a world-class 4m optical-IR telescope currently being constructed on Cerro Pachon, high in the Chilean Andes mountains. The consortium which is constructing this instrument consists of MSU, The University of North Carolina, NOAO, and the nation of Brazil. First scientific-level images were just take on Christmas eve, 2004. The thing is going to work. the construction of a new building for the PA Department has been the culmination of decades of effort. We now have begun this major initiative in partnership with the Departments of Microbiology and Physiology. departmental organization... in order to memorialize departmental customs and publicize my own policies, I've created a literature of Chair Policy Statements. These are reviewed annually by the departmental advisory committee and I seriously consider suggestions from them. They will "live" as long as I am Chairperson, and go out of existence when I come to my senses and go back to being a professor. They are:
in addition, I reorganized the adminstrative structure of the Department in order to significantly enhance the computer services offerred to our faculty, staff, and students. The reorganization included budgetary responsibility and planning under a group of associate chairpersons. They governed the day-to-day operations:
finally, in an effort to renormalize periodically, every year that I was chairman I commissioned an anonymous review of myself, administered by the chairperson of the ADCOM. departmental future... in December of 1998, we held a retreat to discuss the next 5 years for the Department of Physics and Astronomy. The result is a Departmental Plan which will be updated with future adjustments to our vision of the future of physics and astronomy at michigan state. |
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has led me into interesting areas of my profession.
i have had a variety of assignments within the professional high energy physics community and the american physical society. |
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at
Fermilab...
in the US high energy community at large...
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My role as family member keeps me sane and happy ..well, mostly sane.
Terry... my son has turned into a tall, clever productive young man who managed to live in a variety of communities within the large and specialized East Lansing High School. In schoolwork, he was good student in math and science, but especially in writing and history. He was regular soloist in musical theater and "EL-Singers" and studied jazz vocal privately for two years. Here's a sample from a senior concert (mp3). Now in 2004/5, he's a senior at MSU, having graduated last year with a Classics major from Kalamazoo College. After two long trips to Rome – one on a new archeological dig of the emporer Maxentius' villa – he seems pretty well hooked on ancient history and literature. His time at MSU is going to be spent in getting both History and English BA's. The future will tell which direction he'll go. Terry was a productive baseball player for East Lansing
and played first base in DIII collegiate level at K College, his
senior year as captain. After a serious hamstring tear his freshman
year, he's no longer stretching singles to doubles or beating out
bunts like in HS, but he had two 400' dingers his junior and again
his senior year and so his strength caught up with his handspeed.
Here's a picture of him
Kimberly... kimberly is a witty, quick young lady and this year is a freshman at MSU as an Interior Design major. In high school she was a section leader in the orchestra (violin), a skill entirely on her own; a good student, and a 4-year letter winner in gymnastics. She qualified for state Regionals every year, missing an invitation to States this last year by 0.05 points. As far as her mother and I are concerned, she did amazing things on the ground and in the air and this will get more exciting as time goes on (on the ground). It was great to see her being successful at something that she carved out for herself, all by herself. I try hard to understand this sport, but it doesn't have a ball. Academically, Kim's a very good student and enjoyed math and science the most. She seems comfortable so far in her choosen major and had a terrific first semester at State. Janet... after 15 years away from the classroom, Janet re-certified and took the state exams with all of the hundreds of newly graduated college seniors...and did great. I was impressed - I don't take exams any more, I give 'em and am glad of it. She then quit her job at the Child Development Lab at MSU and became a substitute teacher for a couple of years. To her surprise, she was constantly asked for by name into classrooms where she had been as the kids and the teachers like her work. She ended up being pleasantly surprised at her comfort after all this time, and also pleased to find substituting a pleasant job. (I could have done without the 6AM calls...) Next, she went back to teaching on the regular faculty in 4th, 2nd, and 5th grades at the same school that both of our kids attended. Now, she's been in the 5th grade at Whitehills School for 2 years. Like I say, I'm impressed. Chip... i used to play racquetball regularly but no longer play that or baseball, after three ACL surgeries - and now a fourth, fifth and sixth...the last three in 14 months last year. I played summer softball for a few years and I found that I'd not forgotten how to hit – had 2 home runs – but I have forgotten how to run. I now struggle to walk around the block and just cannot imagine that I'm not headed for a replacement in the near future. Trying to get through this academic year without anethesia. i was an ELHS assistant baseball coach for three years and coached the HS team during the summers, where we did well. My coaching years have come to an end, but I've enjoyed about a decade as coach in East Lansing with many trophies to show for our talented class. ELHS has become a baseball school with first place finishes in the CAC conference two of the last three years and District Champs and Regional finalists during Terry's last year. This period has helped me to maintain my sanity given my other jobs and led me into a circle of good friends and colleagues similarly bitten by this great game – Denny Petrowich, Gary Croskey, Ed Outslay, Randy Hackney, and Mark Pendred. I invented and hosted a web site for the team that year. Each April ELHS baseball players and coaches go to
Florida for pre-season training. Here's a picture of Terry at 1st
and me at 2nd in a scrimmage
i'm an avid Chicago Cubs fan, sick of Sammy
Sosa, and have been having fun with the new Lansing Class single-A
mostly, I try to remain active in my
research and stay as connected to my family as much as possible
while we're still all together. Easier, and quite bizzare this year
with everyone in East Lansing. |
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research physicist | professor
(incl. vitae)| chairperson | citizen
| family | | geek| coordinates (how to reach me) | |
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| I
can be reached many ways:
TELEPHONE
FAX
US MAIL Prof. Raymond Brock DRIVING or WALKING
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my
family is most important to me. I'm the father of a son, Terry (23)
a daughter, Kimberly (18). (I'm the one in the middle.) I've been
married to Janet Peterkin for 33 years - although, she'll tell you
that I've only been home for half of that time. I try hard to make
my time with them count.
