About the EDI Committee
The equity library can be found on this floor of Rutherford
What is the second floor?
Kip Thorne, co-awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the LIGO detector, was the scientific consultant for this 2014 sci-fi film
What is Interstellar?
This physicist studied radioactivity and was not only the first woman to receive the Nobel prize, but the first person to receive two Nobel prizes.
Who was Marie Curie?
Laurie Rousseau-Nepton is the first indigenous woman to obtain a physics PhD in Canada. She obtained her PhD at this institution, located near Quebec City.
What is Université Laval?
Thousands of cosmic rays (protons and nuclei from space) pass through you every day. But don't be worried about the radiation, this common fruit is much more radioactive.
What is a banana?
The EDI committee is responsible for this survey, which is sent out every ~two years.
What is the climate survey?
This car company is named after the Japanese name for the constellation known as the Pleiades, represented in Japanese culture and many others as the "seven sisters"
What is Subaru?
Willie Hobbs Moore was the first African American woman to earn a PhD in physics. She worked to characterize secondary chlorides, including this material, which is a common material used for plastic plumbing.
What is PVC?
What is the Higgs boson?
The United Nations has named the year 2025 the International Year of ______.
What is Quantum Science and Technology? (Just quantum is okay!)
These can be found in all gender washrooms in Rutherford now, thanks to the EDI committee
What are menstrual products?
These countries or religions are among those that use a lunar calendar (name at least three)
What are (any combination of):
Hebrew, Chinese, Hindu, Buddhist, Tibetan, Korean, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Somali, and Igbo
Allie Vibert Douglas was an astronomer who graduated with a PhD from McGill in 1926, which focused on stellar spectral classification. She went on to become the first female president of this international physics organization.
What is the International Astronomical Union or IAU?
Anja Boisen works on microdevices for drug delivery. She uses this force (which you may remember from first year physics) that acts outward on spinning masses, to deliver medication by mixing blood samples with magnetic nanoparticles.
What is the centrifugal force?
This McGill professor started the Canadian Conference for Women in Physics (CCUWiP) in 2014.
Who is Prof. Brigitte Vachon?
This position is currently unfilled on the EDI Committee
What is the postdoc representative?
In 200 BCE, Indian philosopher and physicist Kaṇāda theorized that everything can be subdivided, but this subdivision cannot go on forever, and there must be smallest entities (paramanu) that cannot be divided. This theory would eventually lead to the discovery of the ____. (Hint: this is no longer known to be the smallest entity)
What is the atom?
Bibha Chowdhuri was the first Indian woman to earn a PhD in physics. During her Master's, she travelled high up into the Himalayas to detect this cosmic messenger. Hint: there are four cosmic messengers.
What are cosmic rays?
Shirley Ho is a cosmologist who uses machine learning and computational physics to build models of dark matter structure in the universe. Dark matter composes this percentage of all matter in the universe. (Within +/- 5% is okay!)
What is 27%?
Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson from Bell Labs almost attributed the noise of cosmic microwave background radiation to this on their antenna
What are pigeon droppings?
The title of the debut novel of McGill biophysics PhD alumna and former EDI committee member Lili Zheng
What is Dear Haider?
Physicist and Mathematician Sophie Germain was the first to solve the Academy of Sciences contest to "give the mathematical theory of the vibration of an elastic surface" in 1811. Her entry did not win, but was used by this mathematician to claim the prize. Hint: his work is used to describe the dynamics of a system.
Who is Lagrange?
What is the weak nuclear force?
Mildred Dresselhaus was a materials physicist, whose experimental and theoretical work on Carbon molecules, led to the discovery of this soccer ball shaped molecule.
What is buckminsterfullerene (or, more colloquially, buckyball!)?
This experiment, which sought to detect the "ether" but in fact disproved it, has been called by some the most famous failed experiment in history
What is the Michelson-Morley experiment?