David P. Stern

Site Map

David P. Stern

Retired September 2001 (continuing as emeritus)

Home: 31 Lakeside Drive, Greenbelt, MD 20770
tel 301-474-4527

stargaze(symbol"at")phy6.org
(no twitter, no facebook, just plain e-mail!)

Born in Czechoslovakia, grew up in Israel; studied physics at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) in Haifa, with doctoral thesis on an underground experiment on cosmic rays. In 1959 joined Fred Singer's space group at the University of Maryland, then in 1961 came to Goddard Space Flight Center.

Main interests are mapping and physics of the global magnetosphere, also science education and history of science (headed AGU Committee on the History of Geophysics 1981-88, Eos history editor 1999-2001). Likes to write, keeps extensive notes, also travelogues of trips in the US and abroad. More detailed curriculum vitae as a web file here, or as a PDF file, here.

Some recent work:

Educational web sites

"The Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere" (1995)

"From Stargazers to Starships" (1998)

"The Great Magnet, the Earth" (2000)

All Things Electric and Magnetic" (2010)

(All links are to home pages. Spanish and French translations exist for most files, "The Great Magnet" has a German and a Japanese version, "Stargazers" has been translated into Italian, and other translations have been started.)
Miscellaneous cultural, personal and science-education files at Welcome to my World.

A central linking page "Science Overviews" is at http://www.phy6.org/readfirst.htm.

Some Fairly Recent Work

"A Historical Introduction to the Ring Current", p. 1-8 "The Inner Magnetosphere: Physics and Modeling," Geophysical Monograph #155, Amer. Geophys. Union, Washington, D.C., 2005
"A Millennium of Geomagnetism" Rev. Geophys., 40(3), p.1-1 to 1-30, Sept 2002
"Systematic Identification of Preferred Orbits for Magnetospheric Missions: 2. The "Profile" Mission"J. Astronautical Sciences,50, 149-171, 2002; also see here
"Yuri Ilich Galperin" (obituary) Physics Today, p. 66-68. August 2002
"Systematic Identification of Preferred Orbits for Magnetospheric Missions: 1. Single Satellites"J. Astronautical Sciences",49, 559-583, 2001
"Remembering Robert Goddard's Vision 100 years Later, " Eos 21 Sept. 1999, p. 441.
"Using Space to Teach Physics" by D.P. Stern, The Physics Teacher, 37, 102-103 (February 1999).
"Planning the "Profile" Multiprobe Mission", p. 136-141 ; Science Tasks for "Profile", p. 66-71, in Science Closure and Enabling Technologies for Constellation Class Missions, edited by V. Angelopoulos and P. V Panetta, U. Berkeley, 1999
"Space Physics for Poets," by D.P. Stern and M. Peredo, The Physics Teacher, 35,, 38-9, 1997
" Developing a Stategy for Magnetospheric Research", Eos, 4.23.1996.
" A Brief History of Magnetospheric Physics during the Space Age", Rev. Geophysics, 34, 1-31, 1996. (Part 1 "...before the spaceflight era", Rev. Geophysics, 27, 104-114, 1989.)
"The Art of Mapping the Magnetosphere", JGR 99, 17,169-98, '94 (solutions to the problems mailed upon request).
"A Simple Model of Birkeland Currents", JGR 98, 5691-5706, '93 (a solution for Region 2 currents).
Four GSFC workshops on "Physics and Modeling of the Global Magnetosphere", most recent held 5/31-6/3, 1994.

Less recent:

"Math Squared", a math-enrichment book for middle school students, published 1980 by Teachers' College Press of Columbia University.

More dubious:

License plate PHY6.
Poems in Eos (63, 588, ;82; 70, 130,'89). Also here.
"All I Really Need to Know...", Physics Today, May 1993, p. 63.

Back to the Index Page

Timeline

Glossary

Author and curator: Dr. David P. Stern
Spanish translation of the web sites by J. Méndez

Last updated 29 April 2005

Disclaimer: The following material is being kept online for archival purposes.

Although accurate at the time of publication, it is no longer being updated. The page may contain broken links or outdated information, and parts may not function in current web browsers.

David P. Stern

Some recent work:

Less recent:

More dubious:

Above is background material for archival reference only.