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Physicists Work on Physics' Uncool Image
WindowsTroll writes "Since it seems that science doesn't appeal to the youth of today, physicists are trying to make physics kid friendly. From the article, 'Bicycle stunts, rap music and modern dance -- all in the name of Einstein.' I am particularly interested in the modern dance, thinking that this is probably a better approach of studying oscillations than the springs that I used when I was in college."
Real physicists like Stephen Hawking, and fictional ones like Quinn Mallory, are very cool!
Won't it make you look like the crazy bum at the park?
I believe one Bill Nye The Science Guy has already accomplished making Physics (and science in general) "cool".
I think they should get MC Hawking to promote physics
:) I still like " F*ck the Creationists" best :)
http://www.mchawking.com/
He rocks
The flipside of that double-edged sword is that physics will be infiltrated by people who want to be "cool", rather than just smart. Physics is already cool, because it *creates* coolness. Most "cool" kids aren't cool at all; they're just smart at looking cool, copying the people who other people say are cool. Truly cool physics is asymptotically low entropy; that won't be making the cover of the _Rolling Stone_ anytime soon.
--
make install -not war
The shit is hard.
Like computers/programming, kids will pick it up if they have the interest...
It all links to the reasons that smart kids are so unpopular at school. Maybe because being smart is seen as an attempt to suck up to the teachers, or picking on nerdy kids is a defence mechanism to cope with lack of ability, but Physics Expert = Geek in many people's eyes.
Quoth the server, "404."
How do you tittilate an ocelot?
Oscillate it's tits a lot!
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
To make sciences look cool, you need to fix the problem that causes nerds to be unpopular.
As if
Kids know that science is not entertainment, and trying to dress it up as such tells them that you don't think science itself is worthwhile. Enthusiasm for the subject on the part of the teacher is worth more than a world of interpretive dances and rap tunes.
Sigmentation fault - core dumped
Things you probably cant do nowadays but we did in high school (which was only 8 yrs ago)
1) Play with radioactive stuff
2) Use transformers to run some 14kV distribution lines up and down the classroom to show the decrease in cable loss
3) Show that the high voltage back-emf spikes from a relay closing can jam your nerve signals and leave you unable to move (ala taser)
4) Look inside classmates with ultrasound
5) Find out how much voltage it takes to blow up a capacitor
Even then our teacher had a closet full of 'special equipment' that he'd smuggle home every time the inspectors came round to visit.
I loved physics and i can assure you that 90% of my high school classmates concurred that it was better than chemsitry or biology or social "science". The experiments make it fun.
My graduate fellowship (in physics) requires me to spend two days a week working with the science classes at a local high school, and I can say from experience that gimmicky pedagogical tricks like those mentioned in the article aren't the way to get kids (except maybe very young children) interested in science. The stuff just comes off as incredibly lame, and physicists end up looking like bigger geeks than they already are.
The way to engage kids is simply to show them the physics at work. I've got kids making plasma in a microwave, measuring the temperature of the sun with a cup of water, studying paper airplane trajectories, making stereo speakers. Physics is interesting and it's ubiquitous, so there's always something kind of cool that the kids can relate to. The secret is to let them see what's happening, get their hands dirty, and most importantly, let them ask the questions.
Find interesting (but safe) project, put them in charge, and they're hooked.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Raving Lunatic Obviously Took Some Advanced Physics
STANFORD, CA--Known throughout the community for his verbal outbursts and his shopping cart full of trash, area street denizen "Cosmic Stan" must have studied advanced physics at some point, sources reported Monday.
[Photo Caption: Cosmic Stan asks for enough change to take a bus to the Riemannian manifolds.]
"Where's my cheese? Don't take my rowboat! Got no room!" the lunatic screamed from his regular spot near the Campus Drive bus stop. "I need space! Gimme space! Infinite dimensional separable Hilbert space!"
Though his rants seem nonsensical to most passersby, some astute listeners say they contain evidence of higher learning.
"I'd always see him around that bus stop, dressed in his ragged wool clothes, duct-taped shoes, and that plastic sheeting covered over with symbols drawn in magic-marker," Stanford Ph.D. candidate James Willard said. "Then, a few days ago, he was out there waving his tin-foil wand at random strangers, and I heard him yell, 'I demand that you buy me an ice-cream cone! My third-favorite flavor is strange! My second-favorite is top! My favorite flavor is anti-charmed!' Suddenly, I realized the guy was talking about quarks."
Willard said he spent the next several minutes listening to Cosmic Stan's rant.
"Mixed in with the usual stuff about CIA mind-control beams, talking dogs, and monkey-people, I heard him mention beta decay, instantons, density matrix, and subspaces of n-dimensional Riemannian manifolds," Willard said. "I'm not sure where he got it, but he definitely seems to have had extensive schooling in theoretical physics. Man, what could've happened to him?"
Stanford theoretical physicist Carl Lundergaard seconded Willard's theory on the loonball.
"He's definitely had some advanced training, though I'm not surprised that it went unnoticed for so long," Lundergaard said. "It's hard for the layperson to differentiate schizophrenic ramblings like 'Modernity chunk where the sink goes flying on the ping-pang' from legitimate terminology like 'Unstable equilibria lie on the nodal points of a separatrix in phase space.'"
Lundergaard said he first became intrigued by Cosmic Stan in December 1999, when the homeless man threw a chicken bone at him and said, "Components of the Weyl conformal curvature tensor." The professor said he initially suspected that Stan was repeating a phrase "from a textbook he'd found in the garbage." Then, several weeks later, the screaming nutcase shouted some things that indicated a strong grasp of high-level science.
"As I was buying coffee in the quad one morning, Stan came by waving those roller skates he sometimes wears on his hands," Lundergaard said. "I distinctly heard him say, 'I can't be in two places at once! I can't meddle in my own affairs! I can't destructively interfere with my own future plans! What do I look like--the uncollapsed wave function of an electron?' He was referring to the seemingly paradoxical aspects of wave/particle duality as illustrated by the 'two-slit' experiment in electron diffraction. Stan wasn't just mouthing phrases: The crazy homeless man knows his stuff."
Added Lundergaard: "I almost approached him the other day to see if he had any ideas regarding the general solution for the relativistic force-free equation describing the structure of the pulsar magnetosphere, but he was busy smearing a plastic doll with glue."
Cosmic Stan also appears to be versed in other academic subjects, Lundergaard said.
"He seems to have a working understanding of several of the higher maths, including Zurmelo-Fraenkel set theory, category theory, and algebraic topology," Lundergaard said. "He also seems to be quite interested in the subjects of religion, sexuality, fast-food restaurants, Ferdinand de Saussure, malevolent evil, '70s TV shows, and shadowy authority figures."
Lundergaard said he has no knowledge of Cosmic Stan's past, but theorizes that his nickname derives from the physic
Three of my friends and I wanted to take pictures of exploding balloons. So, we built a circuit to trigger a flash (a strobe actually), and borrowed a camera. We got some amazing pictures out of it (http://www.benza.us/group4/. See second- and third-to-last), while at the same time ended up with extra credit we never intended on. We even ended up doing a short lesson on it.
To make physics cool, all you need are teachers who make it fun. When it's fun, it's cool.
Prior to the balloons, we made a potato cannon. Our next project is a ballistic pendulum...If that's not bringing cool and physics together, I don't know what is.
--<Mike>--
I guess they should add more interesting images and stories about scientists. Like the one about Newton blowing up his alchemy lab ^_^
:P )
:P, you could make it speak any phrase you'd like)...
:)
Or how about Einstein's tongue?
Or Lenna? (Lenna is a 70's playmate whose picture is widely used by image processing scientists. The image is cut JUST at the RIGHT point, so nothing "interesting" is seen
However, I think that the most critical part of science is HOW it's taught. Richard Feynman made an astonishing discovery on science being memorized and not taught (Excerpt from book: Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman).
I belonged to a scientific group in my school. (I'm talking about college). We had LOTS of funs making robots that actually walked (one was a crane-like biped robot), programming computer simulations (or making cool flashing lights with electronics), a talking program (you would train the program with your voice, and a few hours of manual labor later
And of course, just talking about science, of any topic that interested us. We even talked about religion - in a scientific way (WEIRD math ideas), fractals (fractal geomety of nature), chaos theory (remember Jurassic Park?), etc.
We were like the "deat poet society" of science. The LINDA group was pretty succesful, and we published some papers in international physics journals.
Perhaps making groups like this in your school would attract youngsters. Science, without the grades. Just for learning and fun
My sophomore chemistry teacher once did a fun demonstration. He attached a rubber hose to the propane supply and the other end to a small funnel. He dipped the wide end of the funnel into a shallow dish of soapy water. When he turned on the propane, large propane bubbles formed and sank because propane is heavier than air. On the floor was a candle and the propane bubbles then burst into flames.
He did this while playing the song "Great Balls of Fire". He was a cool teacher.
I have to agree. Special Relativity, General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Electromagnetic theory, Relativistic Thermodynamics etc. requires some serious study and discipline to master and to gain the "coolness" of what it means and what it can accomplish.
On an elementary level, making the axioms of Special Relativity into a rap song and silly dance moves will not make somebody understand it better but make the student yawn or be uninterested even more.
Perhaps some published results that are "visible" would be more interesting such as "What happens when you fall in a black hole" , The so-called twin/clock paradox, and other things that made Relativity famous?
Lastly, no need to end it there... why not show some other cool things in ultra-advanced physics? Atom smashing, neutrinos, detecting gravity waves? There is still a lot more to learn and discover, because in the end, we are all students.
Some call me Howie Feltersnatch
Seriously, did he EVER get laid in those 7 years?
Now that you mention it, no. And I don't remember him getting any on Reading Rainbow either.
Enthusiasm for the subject on the part of the teacher is worth more than a world of interpretive dances and rap tunes.
Absolutely!
I'm a professional mathematician. I've had to help a lot of people with their math, and there seems to be a pretty common problem: A bad teacher. Oddly, if you ask most people, they actually enjoyed math for a while, then had a bad teacher and they fell behind or were otherwise discouraged, found it hard, and stopped enjoying it. More often than not the "bad teacher" occurs in early primary school. Ask a few questions about why the teacher was bad and it can be easily tracked to a complete lack of enthusiasm and interest in the subject. They teach it in the most rote, boring way possible, because they (the teacher!) doesn't really want to be doing it. The reason is easy enough: The majority of people who have an interest in primary education are the sort of people who hated math at school. They then help instill this attitude in all the impressionable young kids. Attitude is infectious, especially to young minds, and someone who doesn't care about math will teach the kids not to care either.
The fact is, kids are taught that mathematics is hard and that mathematics is boring from a very young age. Tell people that it is easy, and that they can do it, and present it with a little enthusiasm and interest, and people do get interested in mathematics again. I've had little difficulty in getting people interested in mathematics no matter how old they are - all you have to do is break through the instilled "it's hard and it's boring" attitude, there are no gimmicks required.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
I'm working on my PhD, and teach. What has worked for me:
* Demos, demos, demos. The louder, brighter and more mysterious-seeming, the better.
* Some students are into technology, others are into cosmology and exotic topics. Draw connections between their lives and physics, esp. the possibilities stemming from new developments.
* Be very crisp in your own treatment, so the students see the beauty through complication.
You are not going to achieve social engineering through physics. The goal is to give bright students interested in science something to think about, and hopefully excite their imaginations if they are so inclined.
For the first time in his life, the kid sees a point to his schooling. School still isn't cool (not by a long shot), but now it provides the means allowing him to accomplish his goals.
...is to figure out how to get all the really boring teachers onto Mars. (I had one who, no kidding, handed out photocopies of the course textbook as lecture notes. The lectures involved a painful reading from said notes, with nothing added. Oh, and to add to the torture, he wore a really hideous polka-dot bow-tie.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
you might think you're cooler than the parent, but you're the one arguing star trek on slashdot. need I say more?
Something just occurred to me: is mathematics more difficult because it is constantly building on things that came before it? Students who get behind during one year of math are still at a disadvantage the next year because they can't multiply, or add fractions, or the like. If you get behind in English or history, on the other hand, you can probably do OK in following years because the skills you develop there are more gradual.
The majority of people who have an interest in primary education are the sort of people who hated math at school. They then help instill this attitude in all the impressionable young kids. Attitude is infectious, especially to young minds, and someone who doesn't care about math will teach the kids not to care either.
Perhaps the converse is true, too: the majority of people who have an interest in math do not have any interest in general elementary education, which involves playing a major role in the lives of a classroom full of children. In my elementary school we had special art, music, and phys ed teachers. Why not have the school mathematician and the school scientist as well? (Ignoring the whole funding issue of course.)
Any chance Western culture had of retaining it's thousand of years legacy of science and the arts went out the door with television and the rise of post-modernism and consumer culture.
Is it really any surprise that the sciences and arts are all going out the window. After all, most of Western culture nowadays is anti-intellectual anyhow. Society rewards degenerate rappers on the television who can't speak coherent English and actors extolled as role models. Reality television actually gets watched! Who of these people will become a physicist despite the fact that we're on the brink of physics' new golden age?
With Hollywood churning out so many vacuous and innanely stupid movies, along with the mindless slop music industry, is it any wonder that kids would rather not go into jobs that afford them no respect or decent pay. Most of them wouldn't get the chance at a sufficient education to become a physicist anyhow even if they wanted it.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
Am I the _only_ one reading this that knows how to correctly spell the names of the characters on Star Trek: TNG? C'mon, the name is Geordi LaForge, not Jordi! And Cue?! His name is Q for crying out loud. Get with the program folks.
Animals have rights!
You've obviously haven't seen the Britney Spear's guide to Semiconductor Physics.
Here: http://britneyspears.ac/physics/basics/basics.htm
This shows how quantum physics can be fun when "dressed up". Well, I guess geeks just want to look at Britney's pictures anyway ~
In America money is always cool. If we needed more physicists, they would commend high salaries and everyone would want to be a physicist. It's the American way.
I dunno, but it seems more likely the fact that genetics and pharmacology are getting funded up the yin-yang at the moment, while physics research isn't, might have something more to do with the declining enrolments than "coolness" factors.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
... and that was the bicycle flip designed by the physicist. The rest of the stuff is sensless drivel that will only repel kids, who will see it as putting lipstick on a pig (this concept well described in other comments).
The good part is DOING SOMETHING and GETTING KIDS INVOLVED. I once saw an article on a math program where kids were presented with a problem and asked to solve it. Any method they wanted was fine, e.g, formulas, iteration, successive approximation, etc. Then they discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each method, i.e., whether it produced a good answer, was understandible, quick to use, etc. This was started out in grade school at the earliest levels, when they only had the most basic of tools.
I thought this was wonderful, as it is exactly the way math is done at the edges of research. No one tells the researcher to solve the problem with method X, (s)he just has a goal, a toolbox, and a blank sheet of paper.
Unfortunately, this was years ago, and I've seen nothing of it since. Yet, every successful math or science program I've seen involves the kids in the real experience of measuring, quantifying and predicting stuff they liked, i.e., real science, not some rote memorization process. If they have a goal, then they have the motivation to overcome the obstacles.
Without direct involvement, it is just some dumb teacher handing out meaningless tedious assignments. Of course the teachers' union will never acknowledge that some teachers will utterly ruin their students' chances of learning. but that is a topic for another day.
The result is very instructive, and covers a HUGE range of topics, including conservation of Warren Sapp's momentum when he hits Doug Flutie! He discusses the flight of a thrown or kicked "oblong spheroid," and even does some statistical analysis of how likely a fan is to participate in "the wave" as it moves through a stadium (or attempts to).
As one of the reviewers on Amazon.com states, "If Timothy Gay doesn't rewrite this book into a high school level physics text he's really missing a bet." I couldn't agree more.
Tim