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Quantum Physics For Everybody
fiziko writes in with a self-described "blatant self-promotion" of a worthwhile service for those wishing to go beyond Khan Academy physics: namely Bureau 42's Summer School. "As those who subscribe to the 'Sci-Fi News' slashbox may know, Bureau 42 has launched its first Summer School. This year we're doing a nine-part series (every Monday in July and August) taking readers from high school physics to graduate level physics, with no particular mathematical background required. Follow the link for part 1."
Of course, he neglected to point out that mathematics is applied philosophy, and that philosophy is applied sociology...
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
My personal opinion is that you CAN discuss the principles without going into more details. I think it's pretty easy to explain the concept of a Hilbert space with absolutely no knowledge of calculus, because it's just geometry and common sense.
It is problematic to teach physics without math, because you can get it horribly wrong. But you can explain graduate level concepts without math, and you can certainly describe the experiments that prove a formula works, even if you don't go through the complicated math involved in connecting the theory, formula and experiment.
It took some time to get from quantum physics to the specific heat of metals in the statistical physics course. But I can tell anyone on the street "look, if we measure the way metals conduct heat, we find that they behave in a certain way. we are only able to explain that if we use quantum physics to describe part of the electrons as a gas moving around inside the metal. classical physics fails.", and that should be enough for a basic idea.
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