Physics professor Margaret Hill educates area about upcoming solar eclipse

Balls of fire vary in size.

There is the sun, with a diameter of more than 864,000 miles.

And then there's Margaret Hill, who stands 4-foot-something.

The former is the energetic core of our solar system and has been the topic of much discussion with a total eclipse to occur over parts of this region on Aug. 21, and the latter is a physics professor at Southeast Missouri State University who has been leading some of the public education about the event.

The eclipse provides one of those rare teaching moments for which educators thank their lucky stars. It creates another phenomenon -- an atmosphere where the public sits up and takes notice and wants to know more.

By line / Cutline:Hill works to align the DayStar telescope she and her team will be using to capture the total solar eclipse at Perryville airport.

Hill has been shedding light on the topic, getting acquainted with Cub Scouts, talking to elementary students and addressing older audiences, including a gathering of more than 100 people at the Cape Public Library in June.

Equipped with bubbling curiosity, friendly nature and about 40 years of teaching experience at a multitude of levels, Hill has been a beacon of enlightenment for the community about the eclipse, radiating her love and excitement for science in a personable fashion.

"I wish we had more [teaching moments]," Hill says. "I grew up in the NASA days, where they were sending men into space -- we had the first space walk. People got excited and got behind the science. They felt a part of scientific discovery, and I think since then things have kind of toned down a little bit. Scientists sometimes become a little standoffish, they sometimes don't believe the public can understand what they do, and yet the public has a great interest in science, if they're given the chance.

"And I think it's a really good time to build those bridges again and get people involved in it because there are so many neat little activities and neat little experiments that you can do to just enjoy life."

She believes learning is fun, full of fascination, questions and discovery. She wears her inquisitive nature quite well, which includes a UV bracelet. When activated, it changes colors and, quite possibly, train of thought.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com Margaret Hill, professor of physics at Southeast Missouri State University, aligns the DayStar telescope she and her team will be using at the Perryville Airport to capture the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

Hill has been probing material magnetism since enrolling as a graduate student at SIU Carbondale in 1986, but the UV bracelet is just as effective at coaxing her inquisitive nature. She looks at it and the questions quickly percolate, an infectious outlook she likes to share with students of all ages.

"Does our sunscreen work?" Hill asks, looking at the beads on her wrist with childlike curiosity. "We can take these UV beads and put sunscreen on them and see if they still change colors or whether the sunscreen works very well. Can you get a suntan under water? You take the beads and you dunk them in a bucket of water and you see if they change color."

In an instant, it becomes quite apparent our surroundings are one giant question mark.

So is the thought process within the cranium of a physics professor, applying one of the basic laws of physics -- a body in motion stays in motion -- to the mind. Her interest is reflected in her voice, with words and questions emerging quickly and with frequent inflections.

"My two favorite questions are: 'Why?' and 'How do we know?'" Hill says.

By line / Cutline:Margaret Hill, professor of physics at Southeast Missouri State University, sets up the DayStar telescope she and her team will be using at the Perryville Airport to capture the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21.Cutline Email/Stock:LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.comBy line / Cutline:

She became the first female physics teacher at Southeast, and remains the lone physics teacher 17 years later. She surveys audiences at conventions and can't help but ask questions.

"There are so few women in physics and engineering," Hill says. "Just last year I reached the point, 'Is it never gonna change?' It's like, I've tried to be patient and I've tried to be open-minded and they keep saying ... and every once in a while you'll see these incremental improvements in the number of women in physics and engineering, and yet, it really hasn't changed. Not much. I guess back then it was maybe 10 percent, but there's only about 18 percent females as professors in physics."

She cites advancements by women in other fields, such as medicine and law, but still finds herself among "five or six" females in a crowd of 100 at conferences. In terms a physicist might use, it's a static state in a culture that has not generated enough energy to affect the condition. In other words -- no momentum. In Southeast Missouri, she says, there are few female science teachers at the junior-high level, a critical stage in developing an affinity for the sciences.

"If you don't see people like you doing the sorts of things that you may get interested in, you don't know about them, you don't get interested in it," Hill says. "The prime time to get interested is when they're in middle school, but if you don't see people out there doing that, you don't think that's a possibility."

Hill started off as a biology major at the College of William & Mary in Virginia but changed course after her first physics class enamored her with its precise predictability. Undeterred in the static environment, she made the climb to her doctorate without a female physics instructor at any level. She acknowledges that fact with a mix of frustration and appreciation.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com Margaret Hill, professor of physics at Southeast Missouri State University, sets up the DayStar telescope she and her team will be using at the Perryville Airport to capture the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

"I have to say, I wouldn't be where I am today if it weren't for some really awesome male mentors, because I didn't have the mentorship or the guidance of females -- they just weren't there. But there were guys at every stage of my education that believed that I could do it and trusted my judgment. That's the only reason I made it."

She says there are numerous career options as a physicist, noting strong math, English and reading skills play well in any arena. Like her questions, the possibilities come rushing.

"In physics, you could become an educator, you could go work for a company and do research and development," Hill says. "You could develop new materials, you could develop new products. Physicists can do the same kind of [research and development] that engineers do, in fact frequently the physicist will do the cutting-edge research."

Hill is doing both the former and latter, passing on her knowledge and helping other inquisitive minds develop and answer questions while at the same time conducting magnetism research on new materials and examining properties.

In fact, she says her focus was on magnetism, when the pending total eclipse was called to her attention about a year ago.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com Margaret Hill, professor of physics at Southeast Missouri State University, aligns the DayStar telescope she and her team will be using at the Perryville Airport to capture the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

"I've had my head down looking at little magnets, trying to make them stronger or more useful, and trying to store more data using magnetic moments and stuff," Hill says. "Even me, who is in physics, I was not aware of [the eclipse], and I certainly didn't know we'd have two of them within seven years. I think that's one of the most exciting things. Not only are we going to be traversed by the one that goes by in 2017, but in 2024 we've got another one coming through, and we're right in the 'X marks the spot.'"

She's now full of facts and figures for the public, presenting them with amazement and wonder. She says the last time St. Louis had a total eclipse was in 1442, noting "That's before even St. Louis was St. Louis."

Her attention is now focused on the CATE Experiment. She'll be in charge of a data recording station in Perryville, Missouri, one of 60 nationally as the eclipse makes its way across the country.

Her team will be focusing a filtered lens on the sun throughout the event, and also doing community outreach by giving away pipe cleaners and UV beads to children and letting them do solar eclipse art.

It will be her second total eclipse she has witnessed, having seen one while in high school in Virginia. A torrent of questions accompany that memory.

LAURA SIMON ~ lsimon@semissourian.com Margaret Hill, professor of physics at Southeast Missouri State University, works to align the DayStar telescope she and her team will be using at the Perryville Airport to capture the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21.

"I remember totality, but I didn't pay attention to the temperature, whether there were any changes in the temperature," she says. "I didn't pay attention to the wind. Was it windier? What about the clouds? Did they change?"

While it's a new angle, it's hard for her to break the pull of magnetism. Her study of the sun will allow her to examine the greatest magnetic field in the solar system.

"What's fun is it makes me look at things in a little bit different way, and I have to consider more things," Hill says. "When you have a bar magnet all the items just sit there, and when you get the plasma -- the sun is actually shedding charged particles -- because the plasma is a gas that has had the electrons pulled off the atoms, so there's the positive part and the negative part. Charged particles of course attract and repel, and they interact with magnetic fields, so all of a sudden things get really complicated."

It gets that way when two balls of fire cross paths.