On Jan 21, 5:06*am, "Szczepan Bialek" wrote:


Still, for anyone pursuing a degree in physics with a specialty

in Meteorolgy, at least from any major university, they will have done
at least two balloon lauches ard interpreted the radiosonde results as
a lab requirement. These are the same students that a year or two
earlier would have been measuring the charge on an electron by
repeating the "Oil Drop" experiment (******* and boring experiment
that it is), every physics student has to perform it.

In the "Oil Drop" experiment charged droplets migrate up in the electric
field. If all students perform this experiment than all meteorologist should
know that the charged water droplets migrate up in the Earth electric field.
And that all water droplets in clouds have the excess of electrons
(negatively charged). Why *when in meteorology some parts of *clouds are
positively (deficit of electrons) charged?
S*

Just to explain why I might hold such an openly opinionate view of
meterology, enter Dr. Francis Davis into my life.

http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/broadca...ers/davis.html

Dr. Davis was the local Philadelphia weatherman during the years that
I attended Drexel, and he was the professor of meteorolgy when I took
the subject as a physics elective while I was earning my undergraduate
degree. Dr. Davis was a somewhat harsh taskmaster, and his persona on
TV was nearly counter to the demands for performance that he placed on
his Drexel physics students (I believe there were only 21 of us during
those years), in a college of roughly 3,000 students (back around
1963). He was a very strict grader, and not one exam involved multiple
choice questions. All were computations, required to be performed in
ink in the dreaded Drexel "blue books". Most Drexel grads of that era
know exactly what I refer to.

Actually, at the time, I really liked the guy, but then I also liked
Dr. Tartler in the math department, who was generally believed to have
flunked his own son out of Drexel due to poor performance in math. The
profs at Drexel in those days were pretty "hard core" compared to what
exists today!

At the start of my senior year at Drexel (then Drexel Institute of
Technology), Dr. Davis replaced Dr. Wehr (a nuclear scientist) as head
of Drexel's Physics Department. That was the year that I graduated
and acquired my BS in Physics. So, I guess that you could say that my
undergraduate degree in physics was signed and approved by our local
Philadelphia, TV weatherman. Fortunately, that did no sway Princeton
from both accepting me into their graduate school, or hiring me as a
research employee at Forrestal.

Dr. Davis was a very interesting guy, who in my mind had a dual life
(of the best kind). On one hand he was the most popular TV weatherman
in the Philadelphia/NJ/Delaware area, and at that same time was a
respected physicist. Few people can compete with that!

I post this simply to let readers know the foundations that form the
basis of my blunt opinions. Opinions that if they offend anyone, then
that's just too damn bad.

Harry C.