Physics Buzz

It's back to school season, and for many aspiring graduate students, it's standardized testing season. Future lawyers have the LSAT; doctors have the MCAT; but many graduate programs require a more general test: the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company behind the GRE, administers a general test (with three sections) and a slew of section tests for areas ranging from physics to psychology. The general test remains the most popular of ETS's offerings among both test-takers and admissions officers. And each year, ETS releases more data about how test-takers fared based on their intended graduate area of study. As fans of friendly competition, we've compiled the data from the past three years into charts to arm those seeking bragging rights for their particular graduate school major. ETS has data for each section of the general test: Verbal Reasoning, Quantitative Reasoning, and Analytical Writing. After checking out the

Imagine that you begin your day at an auction, purchasing a myriad of equipment for your laboratory. You then spend the afternoon recording data on the radioactive half-life of uranium, and you end the evening by looking at your tax return. The prices you paid for the auction items, the values comprising your research data and the depressing numbers on your tax return all follow a pattern called Benford’s law. Benford’s law describes the frequency of leading digits. Lower numbers such as one or two appear as the first digit more often than higher numbers, and the fall-off frequency follows a logarithmic scale. Meaning that more than 50 percent of the prices you paid for the auction items will likely begin with the number one, two or three. Research indicates that the same rule applies to large samples of numbers describing radioactive half-lives, tax returns, statistical physics distributions, geological stream-flow rates and more. Credit: Alberto G. Numerous numerical datasets

Fall is just around the corner, and that means many college seniors will soon face an enemy more daunting than senioritis itself: the Graduate Record Examinations . Many schools require GRE test scores for admission to their graduate programs, and the tests are supposed to be one of the most objective measures of prospective students. GRE scores can make or break a graduate school application, so how should students prepare? Although there are a plethora of study books and materials available, decisions made freshman year may determine your score more than your cramming habits weeks before the test. Ever year, the Educational Testing Service — the organization behind the GRE — releases scores for the general test and categorizes them by the test takers' intended graduate major. Although the GRE made significant revisions to the test this academic year, one fact remains: Physics and philosophy students still rocked the test. Physics majors tied for first in the math section, a