Famous Women in CS and PHYS
A physicist and chemist, she was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different scientific fields. She worked on radioactivity (1867-1934).
Who is Marie Curie
This term describes the condition in a recursive function that stops further recursive calls and prevents infinite loops.
What is the base case?
Who is the chair of the physics department?
What is Nelson, Jeffrey
Popular high-level computer programming language with dynamic typing and garbage collection. Named after a British comedy series.
What is Python?
The principle that a qubit can be in some combination of ground/excited state. Hint, can also be the description of a wavefunction that has not been forced into one particular measurement basis.
What is a superposition
A naval officer and computer programming pioneer. Invented the first computer compiler, which converted written English commands into machine code.
Who is Grace Hopper
The point of infinite density at the center of a black hole, where the laws of physics as we know them break down.
What is a singularity
Names of the newest concentrations for B.S. and M.S. degrees in CS.
What are AI/ML and cybersecurity?
What is the unit of a Newton (SI form)?
What is (kg·m/s²)
In many programming languages, an uninitialized variable can have this kind of unpredictable value, making its state unknowable until accessed.
What is a garbage value?
An American astronaut and physicist. She joined NASA in 1978, and in 1983 became the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space.
Who is Sally Ride
This method of solving problems by breaking them into smaller subproblems, solving each recursively, and combining the results is fundamental to recursive algorithms.
What is divide and conquer?
What class is PHYS 256 (hint, think about these numbers!)
What is Practical Computing
The ability to engage with elements of a program while safely ignoring low-level details
What is abstraction?
What are eigenvalues in Schrödinger's [solved] wave equation? Hint, the time-independent reduced Schrödinger's equation is H|ψ⟩ = E|ψ⟩.
What are possible energies
Credited with coining the term software engineering. Directed the MIT Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which wrote software for the command and lunar modules used for the Apollo Missions.
Who is Margaret Hamilton
The theoretical process by which a black hole slowly loses mass and energy through the emission of particles, eventually leading to its "evaporation".
What is Hawking radiation
This professor was selected for the GOAT award in CS last year.
Who is Professor Matt Chapman?
What kind of drag do you apply to larger, faster-moving objects in less viscous fluids (like a ball falling through air)?
What is quadratic drag
An undecidable problem of determining whether a given program will halt or run forever.
What is the Halting Problem?
Chinese-American particle and experimental physicist who made significant contributions in the fields of nuclear and particle physics. She worked on the Manhattan Project, where she helped develop the process for separating uranium into uranium-235 and uranium-238 isotopes by gaseous diffusion
Who is Chien-Shiung Wu (Wú Jiànxióng )
This type of recursion occurs when a function makes its recursive call as the very last operation before returning, allowing for optimizations like stack frame reuse.
What is tail recursion?
Who was the FIRST chair of the W&M Physics department serving from 1907-1919? What is a W. H. Keeble
What is a W. H. Keeble
This principle of object-oriented programming allows a subclass to provide a specific implementation of a method that is already defined in its superclass. (Hint: this is Professor Davis’ favorite programming principle)
What is method overloading?
The highest energy level occupied by electrons in a system of fermions at absolute zero temperature (0 Kelvin)
What is Fermi Energy