physics

Moses H. W. Chan

Moses H. W. Chan is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Moses H. W. Chan rather than just read about it. In short: Moses Chan Hung-Wai (Chinese: 陳鴻渭; pinyin: Chén Hóngwèi) is a Chinese-American physicist who is Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University. He was a postdoctoral associate at Duke University and has been a professor at Penn State University Park since 1979.

Key takeaways

Moses H. W. Chan belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Moses H. W. Chan to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Moses H. W. Chan from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Moses Chan Hung-Wai (Chinese: 陳鴻渭; pinyin: Chén Hóngwèi) is a Chinese-American physicist who is Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University. He was a postdoctoral associate at Duke University and has been a professor at Penn State University Park since 1979. Through the years, Chan's work has spanned many diverse topics. For his numerous contributions to low-temperature physics, in 1996 he shared the prestigious Fritz London Memorial prize with Carl Wieman and Eric A. Cornell. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004. Chan is known for the experimental discovery of evidence for a new supersolid quantum state of matter, predicted theoretically in 1969 by Alexander Andreev and Ilya Liftshitz, and its subsequent refutation. Other significant discoveries include the experimental observation of Critical Casimir effect and the experimental confirmation of 2D Ising model.

Biography Born in Xi'an in 1946, he moved to Hong Kong in his childhood and completed his primary and secondary education in Yuen Long District. In 1967, Chan received his bachelor's degree from Bridgewater College in Virginia, United States. From 1969 to 1970, he taught at the University of Hong Kong. In 1974, he received his doctorate from Cornell University. From 1973 to 1976, he conducted postdoctoral research at Duke University. From 1976 to 1979, Chen taught at the University of Toledo. In 1979, he joined Pennsylvania State University.

Honors He received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986 and the Fritz London Memorial Prize in 1996. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1987, a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.

References

External links His faculty page at Penn State University

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Moses H. W. Chan

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Moses H. W. Chan claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Moses H. W. Chan before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Moses H. W. Chan ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Moses H. W. Chan

In research: Moses H. W. Chan appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Moses H. W. Chan in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Moses H. W. Chan is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1946 births, 20th-century American physicists, 21st-century American physicists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Moses H. W. Chan outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Moses H. W. Chan in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Moses H. W. Chan means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Moses H. W. Chan out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Moses H. W. Chan in simple terms?

Why does Moses H. W. Chan matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Moses H. W. Chan?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Moses H. W. Chan.