"When certain elementary particles move through a magnetic field, they are deflected in a manner that suggests they have the properties of little magnets. In the classical world, a charged, spinning object has magnetic properties that are very much like those exhibited by these elementary particles. Physicists love analogies, so they described the elementary particles too in terms of their 'spin.'
"Unfortunately, the analogy breaks down, and we have come to realize that it is misleading to conjure up an image of the electron as a small spinning object. Instead we have learned simply to accept the observed fact that the electron is deflected by magnetic fields. If one insists on the image of a spinning object, then real paradoxes arise; unlike a tossed softball, for instance, the spin of an electron never changes, and it has only two possible orientations. In addition, the very notion that electrons and protons are solid 'objects' that can 'rotate' in space is itself difficult to sustain, given what we know about the rules of quantum mechanics. The term 'spin,' however, still remains.""Spin is the total angular momentum, or intrinsic angular momentum, of a body. The spins of elementary particles are analogous to the spins of macroscopic bodies. In fact, the spin of a planet is the sum of the spins and the orbital angular momenta of all its elementary particles. So are the spins of other composite objects such as atoms, atomic nuclei and protons (which are made of quarks).
"In classical physics, angular momentum is a continuous variable. In quantum mechanics, angular momenta are discrete, quantized in units of Planck's constant divided by 4 pi. Niels Bohr proposed that angular momentum is quantized in 1913 and used this to explain the line spectrum of hydrogen.
"At our current level of understanding, the elementary particles are quarks, leptons (such as the electron) and bosons (such as the photon). These particles are all imagined as pointlike, so you might wonder how they can have spins. A simple answer might be, perhaps they are composite, too. But deep theoretical reasons having to do with the rotational symmetry of nature lead to the existence of spins for elementary objects and to their quantization. Of particular significance is the difference between fermions, particles that, like the electron, have half-integer spins (half-integer multiples of Planck's constant divided by 2 pi), and bosons, particles that have integer spins. Fermions obey the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that two identical fermions cannot exist in the same state; without the Pauli exclusion principle, chemistry would have no Periodic Table. Bosons, on the other hand, tend to congregate in the same state, leading to phenomena such as superconductivity and Bose-Einstein condensation.
"Spin has served as the prototype for other, even more abstract notions that seem to have the mathematical properties of angular momentum but do not have a simple classical analogue. For example, isotopic spin is used in nuclear physics to represent the two states of a 'nucleon,' the proton and neutron. Similarly, quarks are paired as isospin 'up' and 'down,' which are the names given to the two quarks that make up ordinary matter. The rotational symmetry of space and time is generalized to include symmetries in more abstract 'inner' dimensions, with the result that much of the complex structure of the microworld can be seen as resulting from symmetry breaking, connecting profoundly to ideas describing the spontaneous formation of structure in the macroworld. "
Extracted from: Scientific American
Well i’ve just gotten back from my school’s Freshman orientation camp 0910 and it was both tiring and awesome experience i’ve had throughout the 4 days 3 nights of camp in school. I loved my freshies very much! Well they are awesome! All thanks to the help of our seniors, Organizing Commitees as well as the Game Personnels and Group Leaders like me which made this camp possible and everyone loved it! Be it a competitive camp where groups battle against each other to be the best team naming; Coconut, D Cups, Spongebob, Botak, Mcbirds, Parang, Madegascar, Carnage. Were still together to the end of the day! To all those who missed the camp, you have missed all the fun!
Here’s what we did throughout the 4 days of camp!
::D-Day -2: 4th April (Saturday)::
At 8pm i started packing my stuff cause i was informed of a last minute message that we GLs and GPs are supposed to report to school on Sunday which is the following day to prepare stuff for the actual camp date, 6th April. I was chatting with Vera on that night asked if she packed her stuff and random stuff about being excited about the camp.I swear i couldn’t sleep and was too excited to see my juniors.
::D-Day -1:5th April (Sunday)::
Reported to school at about 2 cause i got a message from Delconi that we are gonna have dance lesson at 3pm this afternoon so i went early. I got my haircut on that day and bought a pair of slippers it was pretty last minute though. I met up with a bunch of GPs cause i saw no GLs in school so i left my stuff in their bunk first. Did some last preparation and dance practice and we didn’t sleep much on that day cause were camping out at the T19 3rd Storey where we slept on the benches. its difficult to sleep there. Imagine mosquitoes + Hard Surface + Bright light just over your head. I slept for 2 hours in the end.
::Day 1: 6th April (Monday)::
Woke up at 9am, took a shower and got ready to welcome the freshies at about 2pm when we gathered them at the foyer at T19. Started to introduce ourselves to the freshies at FC6 cause of bad weather that afternoon. Broke them up into groups and started ice breaking games with them as well as taught them some songs. My group the girls weren’t that quiet i know from the start Alexia and Peiwen would hype the whole group up without the work of me and Vera. LOL! But the guys were pretty quiet on the first day and were clinging to themselves. Nobody knows that Ferguson was a catalyst in our group and i kept laughing when i see him trying to act as a freshie. (But he did pretty well!)
We made our shield on that night and it was SPONGE BOB! Yeah thats our team name! it was night walk that evening and i was a scarer at T19 one of the lift with James. I managed to make a few of them scream their wits off but i got molested by some dude touching the black cloth i couldn’t say anything or else it won’t be fun i gould have said “GTFO”! lmao!
::Day 2: 7th April (Tuesday)::
Started off very flipping early in the morning i think was 6+ am if i remembered and had only 1-2 hours of sleep. i was damn tired but i tried not to show it to my group or else i would appear as a weakling i’m supposed to encourage them to endure. The highlights on that day was the Amazing Race that we had and our team left first cause we did well with our cheers; it was loud and clear and we left together with botak team led by James and yan Ting. We had our face painted on that day before we left school for Bugis as our first checkpoint outside school. Having painted faces certainly attracted the eyes of the public lmao! Bugis was definitely embarassing as we sang a song so loud everyone looked at us but who cares! we are shameless! hahhahs! A few caucasians took photos of us though so we smiled at them. We merged with Botak thoughtout the Amazing race and we worked together before ending out last station at Far East Plaza. The station at HMV was blowing condoms till it burst of course the guys didn’t have problems but the girls were a little reluctant but in the end it ended with lots of laughs. it was really epic!
And we went back to school for dinner and prepared ourselves for campfire and we made a skit along with it. it was actually a song which i forgot the lyrics The campfire, No its a fan blown “fire” cause we cant have real fire setting off in school thats pretty sad on that day most of us lost our voice. Except me i dunno why. LOL! right after Campfire was Battle Royale and it was quite a failure. First, we left for moberly and we saw devils there, so we walked back to the starting point at SAC to approach a station and we sung a song to them at we got light sticks from them! next we took a detour to sector 3 on the map where we found out that the map was a wrong one and thesector was closed. meaning that a bunch of devils are around to ambush us anytime. I led the team and we ran up to T17 to t15 and we got pinned at lv4. At first i brought them to FC4 and grabbed a few lightsticks when Ferguson said he saw a few devils coming our way and that, we backed off. we ran like mad and saw mcbirds also at lv3. At that time 2 groups were together for a short while before we split up and eventually got caught by devils and lost a few lightsticks.
::Day 3: 8th April (Wednesday)::
Sentosa outing! Woke up pretty early and again didn’t have much sleep so was physically tired but mentally strong and took my group for a quick shower. We reached there and Quiditch on a friendly match before we started with our station games there. Run like mad whats pissing me off is the sands on my feet when i wear my slippers. Other than that, we all enjoyed the outing. Sung camp songs and stuff. We didn’t complete 2 more stations cause we stopped earlier to take a shower before leaving. Damn tired until slept in the bus. The girls in my group damn funny lah! when i sleep they kept pushing my head cause i slept until like going to fall off the chair. LOL! talked with Nicholas about programming and stuff along the way and tell him whats all about poly life.
After dinner, Shim night LOL! where we choose guys to dress up as girls omfg HanFeng look damn chio as a girl sia! And Shi hui, the mamasan, see her also uber chio! Wasted didn’t get to see the whole even we GLs had to practice for the dance later that evening.
The night ended up with disco and i danced for 2 hours before going back to bunk with Alvin to rest. We were really dead tired already. And we slept at about 4am till the next day 6am waking up slightly later than the planned time so everything was pushed back an hour.
::Day 4: 9th April (Thursday)
Grats to Alexia for winning the best camper award in our group! Well in fact today was quite a sad day for us all its like we are going to miss each other. The camp was then over. We had a photoshoot with everyone in the scene and a Debrief till 8pm before the GLs went for dinner. I couldn’t join them cause i had to go home and like, sleep. LOL i was too tired that evening. Went home, chat with a few campers before knocking out at 1am and waking up the next day at 3.30pm.