Modern research sourcesFollow

It's been a long time since I had to do a research paper. When I was fresh out of high school, most of my teachers frowned upon the internet as a source, because the internet wasn't quite the integral part of society it is today.

Next week, I have to turn in a topic for a research paper for a physics class. It can be on any topic that has to do with physics in any way at all, and I've chosen to do it on theoretical energy sources and propulsion systems for future space travel. I know the kinds of sources I want, I'm just not really familiar with where to find them.

So my question for the Asylum is: do you know of any reputable science journals/magazines or any other legitimate sources of scientific information that may be helpful to me?

Does Jstor collect scientific journals? I don't do any real research anymore but I do occasionally get on there and waste tons of time.

I never understood why Wikipedia is always singled out when, to my understanding, secondary sources are a no-no in a serious research paper anyway.

Have you actually tried searching NASA's site yet?

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/researching/aspl/plasma.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/researching/aspl/vasimr.html
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/support/researching/aspl/reference.html

All of the above seem like interesting leads for your topic.

For more results:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=Xk&q=site%3Anasa.gov+space+propulsion&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

Also

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/warp.html
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/home/antimatter_spaceship.html

Also, don't make the mistake of one of my former room mates and UPDATE Wikipedia with information from your own research until the class is over.

She was hauled before the student judiciary for plagiarism from Wikipedia, when she was the one that wrote the damn article in the first place.

Wikipedia is singled out for the simple reason that it's the first place students wind up going. So you might as well just nip it in the bud immediately and say "No Wikipedia or other secondary sources".

You can come here to Zam for any info you need. Don't worry, we're certifiable.

national space society
Nasa as already mentioned
Goddard Space flight center
John's Hopkins Applied physics laboratory Aka APL
National Science foundation.
All should have websites and some are linked at http://www.bsfs.org
edit
Yep lots of links to reputable sites on the Bsfs site. Look under the heading Science.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2009 10:40pm by Jonwin

Don't forget to include my future space-time travel device!

Strange, I was always told not to use Wikipedia in part because of the general frowning down on using general encyclopedia, but mostly because it's not reliable because any jackass with an account can edit it. Sure, the information is generally correct for most articles, but if you're just looking at an article without any prior knowledge you don't know what you're getting. You can't also verify the authority of the authors.

However, most of the good articles also have their sources linked, which are probably better for academic purposes, so seconding the idea of Wiki as a good place to start.

Try Physics Today.

http://www.physicstoday.org/

You'll likely need to do it from on campus to download the articles.

You can also try: Science, Nature, Scientific American as they are generally more readable for a broad variety of people then, say, physical review.

Anything that is a conference proceeding is almost certainly less peer reviewed (if peer reviewed at all) then a normal publication.