Plasma physicists can now calculate their parameters anytime and anywhere thanks to the Plasma Parameters Widget and the Apple iPhone. The iPhone does not allow installation of Dashboard widgets (yet), but the online demo of Plasma Parameters provides the same experience through the browser. That means any cell phone with web capabilities can use the widget demo, so this iPhone presentation is just for fun.

The homepage of www.DavidPace.com displayed on the iPhone's browser.

I had the good fortune of being able to borrow an iPhone from a colleague. As a graduate student there is no way I can afford one, but at the same time I am surrounded by technophile post-docs who can. A hearty thank you to this trusting post-doc (and thank goodness I did not drop it).

Getting to the online demo is easy, just browse to the homepage of www.DavidPace.com and find the plasma parameters page. The homepage is shown in the image to the right. You might notice the manta ray in the upper right corner, which is about the only thing that can be recognized with the standard zoomed out view. Be sure to zoom in on a web page before trying to follow links, otherwise you will be going to the wrong place quite often.

Plasma Parameters widget online demo displayed on the iPhone.

After arriving at the online demo, it is very easy to zoom in on the widget area and view the input fields. The iPhone lets you tell it what kind of input you need, so typing in numbers is direct as there are no letters on the display. In the image to the left we are in the process of changing the preset tokamak values. The buttons function exactly as they would using a mouse and a standard display.

In the final image below, a graduate student uses the widget demo to determine some basic plasma properties. That is actually the display of the iPhone with no photoshopping or other digital enhancement.

So if you are ever out with your iPhone and want to know how fast solar wind particles are traveling, then browse on over the plasma parameters widget demo page and have a look.

A fellow graduate student calculates plasma parameters on the iPhone and then puts them in her code.

Tags: iPhone