If the whole astrophysics gig falls through, at least Dr. Michael Guidry knows he can always land a job selling phones for Sprint. That's a talent he discovered on a recent road trip when he used his cell phone to take an astronomy quiz. The UT Astrophysics Group has developed Java programs that allow students to access solar system facts and online quizzes by simply dialing in from a cell phone. One program lets students tap into the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab to get planet information, while another gives students access to parts of UT's Online Journey Through Astronomy course. "You can be standing in line waiting to buy football tickets or waiting for your meal in a restaurant and if you've got 10 minutes, you can take a quiz to study for your next astronomy test," Dr. Guidry said. When a student uses the Java program on the cell phone, it connects to the Sprint network, which uses a Sprint gateway to access one of the UT astrophysics servers. If a student wants to know the position of Jupiter, for example, the server program logs into the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech and accesses programs that compute the positions of planets at that time, packages the requested information, and sends it back to the student's cell phone. Similarly, a student can go through a Sprint gateway to log into the physics department's Online Journey Through Astronomy course, a Web-based program that uses animations and interaction to teach students about the universe. A popular component of the course is the quiz program, which lets students go online anywhere to test their knowledge and get immediate feedback. With the quizzes available on a cell phone, students have yet another level of convenience. "This is just for studying purposes," Dr. Guidry said, although he is offering optional extra credit to any student with a Sprint phone who would like to try out the programs and offer feedback. "They have to have a phone that will run Java," he explained, adding that right now Sprint has the best selection of products with that capability. In fact, Sprint is indebted to him for some free advertising. On a recent trip to the University of Virginia to visit his daughter, Dr. Guidry said people would watch him connect to astronomy programs with the cell phone in restaurants and ask him how they could get a phone that would do that. "I probably sold four or five Sprint phones," he said. However, Dr. Guidry says other companies are also adding Java-enabled phones to their product lines. Industry estimates suggest that there will be tens of millions of Java-enabled phones in use world-wide within a year. UT graduate student Reuben Budiardja will present a poster on the Java projects at the next American Astronomical Society meeting, scheduled for early January in Seattle. While Dr. Guidry explained that the cell phone options are a great learning tool for students, the main purpose was to demonstrate capabilities and the technology is really aimed at PDAs (personal digital assistants). The group hopes to have both phones and PDAs equipped with the Java programs to demonstrate at the AAS meeting. Cross Sections, Fall/Winter 2002 Issue, Contents Page UT Physics News & Notes Page UT Physics Home Page This page was last updated on December 9, 2002. Please send comments to cal@utk.edu.