Physics Dept. at U.S. Naval Academy still shines a hopeful light into the darkness in acoustics undergraduate research and education

The art of teaching physics concepts, in Underwater Acoustics and Sonar to physics majors, oceanographers, engineers, and general science students, has been the corner stone that has allowed midshipman to pursue acoustics research projects, present papers, and perform demos at ASA or other conferences. The Physics Dept. teaches all sophomores (STEM or non-STEM) fundamentals of physics, while a dwindling few acousticians also teach Acoustics to senior physics majors, along with Sonar. Acoustics emphasizes mathematical methods of physics with connections to quantum mechanics. Words like “now I understand what an eigen-function is and what an eigen-values is,” are very encouraging. Sonar emphasizes “physics of sound in the sea” and includes interference, refraction, method of images, and connections to normal modes. Demos by the famous UCLA group, among others, have motivated demo presentations by USNA students at ASA meetings—for over 40 years. Physics building blocks and demos evolved into experimental research: sound speed to sound scattering in bubble clouds, nonlinear scattering of sound by turbulence, PIV flow visualization to Lighthill turbulent streaming jet flow to crossed jet flow, light absorption to photo-acoustics, and resonance and hysteresis to the nonlinear mesoscopic elastic soil—elastic plate oscillator to acoustic landmine detection.