Doing Gourd Science With The PAACs

On Wednesday, Oct. 29, the Physics and Astronomy Club (PAAC) hosted the third annual community pumpkin carving event in the Physics Lounge of the Science Center.

PAAC has hosted events open to non-physics students, and even non-physics-related events in the past. ”We did observatory night, and we did a field trip to national labs,” said Renée Ngyuen’26, co-president of PAAC. ”There’s no restriction,” added co-president Iman Khan’26, “anyone can come to our club events. We try to do physics related stuff.”

One may wonder why a subset of the physics department would host a pumpkin carving event. According to Ngyuen, the reason is not, in fact, to hurl jack-o-lanterns off the side of the Science Center into traffic for the purpose of confirming gravity still works. “It’s a false allegation. We wholeheartedly believe in gravity. We don’t need to test it,” said Ngyuen in response to the theory. ”We did pumpkin carving because it’s an annual tradition for the physics department,” she explained. Khan added, ”The professor who started this [tradition] left, so we’re continuing it.”

PAAC’s co-presidents have high hopes for the future of PAAC activities and events. ”We don’t just do physics related stuff… we do fun stuff too,” said Ngyuen. Khan relayed initiative for ”more observatory nights in the future, and field trips to labs.”

Following the event, PAAC made a post on their Instagram page highlighting a handful of students’ jack-o-lantern creations.

Featured Image: Elisa Turner’27