HS Comments on the Fly

I wish I had known about this book sooner; we did not run across it until my oldest was in high school. It is Next Time Questions by Paul Hewitt. It is one of the supplementary and optional books to be used with Conceptual Physics.

Next Time Questions are little daily doses of physics principles presented specially for the uninitiated. Hewitt has illustrated each brain teaser engagingly and humorously. These simple Next Time Questions are supposed to be used by the high school or college instructor to introduce the next day’s physics topic, so they are not as technical as the actual lesson. So most of them are just right for any beginning physics student.

Example:

Who knew that candle burning was dependent on the effect of gravity and convection? Well, physicists, of course, but if kids learn that and the other physics principles early, then it’s like second nature to them when they’re older. Many of us don’t think scientifically, but little brain teasers like these will help students to understand simple natural phenomena while they’re younger providing a foundation to build on when they’re older.

Originally, when we were using these here at home, I was copying these pages (because the answer is on the back) and then taping the two sheets (question side and answer side) up on the tv screen each morning. Then when we were done discussing, I would just toss them. However, once I got through the first 20 or so that I copied, I didn’t make more copies and this little exercise fell by the wayside. A regret.

The way I would do it now, looking back, would be to tape one of those page protectors up to the fridge with Scotch tape. I’d just tape the back side of the pocket. Then I’d just use the page from the book (mine’s perforated) and place it in there. Once everyone had come up with an answer (many of the questions are multiple choice or yes/no), I’d just turn the page over in the page protector for the rest of the day.

I would keep the Next Time Questions book and a 3-ring binder (my book is 3-hole punched) right on top of the fridge or in a cupboard right next to it so that I could put the used lessons away immediately … even if it meant giving up a shelf. For me, unless the system is set up to be completed easily, I won’t be able to effortlessly stick with it. So I would have a system for this. This is the same system I used with the art photos, except the art photos I kept up longer so that the kids became familiar with them–you know, they looked at them every time they opened the fridge for a couple weeks.

But, yeah, I think that these physics principles are definitely worth this effort. If I had to do homeschooling all over again, I would hope that I would do this when the kids were in their elementary or middle school years. It’s no substitute for a science curriculum, but it is a quick thing to do and can be discussed over breakfast. And you get a lot of bang for your buck education-wise. The time investment:educational value ratio is high.

It really doesn’t matter which version of Next-Time Questions you get. Here are links to the less expensive ones at Amazon. You need to buy used because as far as I know, the publisher doesn’t sell new books to homeschoolers. They’re all less than 10 - 15 years old, and I doubt much physics stuff has changed in that amount of time.

Next-Time Questions 3rd Ed. or Next-Time Questions 9th Ed. (Don’t worry about editions. I’ve got the college and it’s easy enough to understand.)

This is about science. And, basically, I just do not get it. But it does sound amazing. It sort of reminds me of the spiral PHI book that my son read — only the visual depiction of this new theory for the universe is just a really pretty spiro-graph-like design.

And to think that an impoverished surfer/snowboarder bum (you know, sorta like “ski bum”) came up with this theory that is receiving rave reviews! The fellow’s name is Garrett Lisi. Okay, so he’s also got a doctorate. But who says the uber-bright can’t enjoy carvin’ lines and catchin’ waves?

From an article from 14 November 07:

… his proposal is remarkable because, by the arcane standards of particle physics, it does not require highly complex mathematics.

Even better, it does not require more than one dimension of time and three of space, when some rival theories need ten or even more spatial dimensions and other bizarre concepts. And it may even be possible to test his theory, which predicts a host of new particles, perhaps even using the new Large Hadron Collider atom smasher that will go into action near Geneva next year.

[Canadian] Lee Smolin at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics … describes Lisi’s work as “fabulous”. “It is one of the most compelling unification models I’ve seen in many, many years,” he says. (British put quotes inside punctuation.)

Lisi’s inspiration lies in the most elegant and intricate shape known to mathematics, called E8 - a complex, eight-dimensional mathematical pattern with 248 points first found in 1887, but only fully understood by mathematicians this year after workings, that, if written out in tiny print, would cover an area the size of Manhattan.

That’s almost unbelievable. Manhattan??? But that’s about 23 square miles!

From another article:

What makes this group of symmetries so exciting is that Nature also seems to have embedded it at the heart of many bits of physics. One interpretation of why we have such a quirky list of fundamental particles is because they all result from different facets of the strange symmetries of E8. I find it rather extraordinary that of all the symmetries that mathematician’s have discovered, it is this exotic exceptional object that Nature has used to build the fabric of the universe. The symmetries are so intricate and complex that today’s announcement of the complete mapping of E8 is a significant moment in our exploration of symmetry.”

From another surfer dude article of 21 November 07:

Hollywood is now chasing the “surfer dude,” who last week electrified the scientific community with his theory of everything, so that his extraordinary story can be told in a movie.

Ever since an article on his work appeared last week online on telegraph.co.uk he has become something of a celebrity and he admitted yesterday that he was finding the attention overwhelming - indeed he has refused to appear on television.

Oh, yeah, and also What We’re Reading is part of the Subject Line, too.

So have you been keeping up with Bree, the homeschooler, in her online show LonelyGirl15? Yea, me neither.

I did watch it way back before everyone found out that she wasn’t actually a homeschooler, but rather just an actress. Our family was trying to figure out the mystery. We weren’t too fanatical about it, but we were intrigued. It was kind of fun to read all the crazy notions people had about the show.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a simplistic and partially ignorant recap. A small group of acting types got together early last year and made a few videos about a homeschooled girl and her friend Daniel. Somehow, the video diary became very popular on YouTube.com. The main character, Bree, actually wrote back to people who emailed her, but as Bree, a character the actress was playing. No one knew that Bree was actually the actress/student Jessica Lee Rose. Everyone wondered where Bree and Daniel were located. Viewers analyzed everything in her room and everything she said, looking for clues. Even their camera choice is discussed. Finally it was discovered that Bree was an acting student and stuff … I can’t remember the whole story.

Anyway, one thing that made me wonder if she was really a homeschooler was that Bree knew of the physicist Richard Feynman. I thought it was really strange because I think we’re average homeschoolers and we had only just discovered Richard Feynman by looking for science biographies. Maybe I’m way off base (quite possibly), but I don’t think that many average homeschooling moms/students have even heard of Richard Feynman. So, I found it suspicious that Bree, the homeschooler, had heard of him and was even mentioning the book, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! That book just isn’t on homeschooling booklists. I smelled a rat.

Which brings me to What We’re Reading. My daughter’s reading Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! right now, and she’s enjoying it. Feynman could weave a good yarn. It’s part of her science class for this year (remember, she’s a teen). My son and husband read it last spring, right before we found LonelyGirl15 on YouTube.com. I’ve not read the book yet, but my son and husband shared some good bits with me. I’ll read it one of these days.

Warning: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! isn’t a book that everyone will want to just hand to their high school student without pre-reading. I can’t remember what exactly, but there’s something in it that would offend some folks.

I just finished The Second Mrs. Gioconda. I liked it in some respects and didn’t like it in others. But that’s for another entry. One quick comment, though: Way wrong way to title the book.

So the LonelyGirl15 season finale occurs today in 12 separate installments.

Amazon.com has a rating system based on 5 stars. I know you probably already know that, but just in case one reader out there doesn’t, I mention it.

It’s not often that a book can maintain a 5-star rating through 14 reviews. But I found one!

It’s a really cool book because, if a parent reads it, they’ll be able to answer all those pesky science questions that little kids come up with about the world we live in. Okay, it probably doesn’t have all the answers, but it sure has a load of them. And it’s got helpful illustrations to go with the explanations. It’s a fun book for higher levels, too, because the questions seem easy to answer, but often aren’t. Truly cool.

What book am I referring to? Thinking Physics.

We’ve had our copy for about five years now and thoroughly enjoy it. I wish I’d had it when the children were little so that I could have laid a better foundation for them for higher-level science, but, oh well. Anyway, even through all the book purges we’ve had, we’ve kept this book and will continue to do so because the information in it doesn’t go out of style or become stale. It’s not a textbook; it’s a real book and worth hanging on to.

And 5 stars! No one has given this book a 4-star rating yet; it’s that good! Go on … go read about it and see what others are saying. I’m surprised some “homeschooling expert” somewhere isn’t already extolling the virtues of this book … and hawking it. Be the first homeschooler on your block to have your own copy!

And if I can’t figure out who squirrelled away our copy, I’ll have to buy another!

UPDATE: Hey, look at this … a professor at St. Andrews (Prince William’s alma mater) uses some material from Thinking Physics in his optics lectures (passing mention in syllabus). Interesting.

So who invented the radio? I learned it was Marconi when I was in school, but some folks say it was Tesla.

Wikipedia states:

In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited [Nikola Tesla] as being the inventor of the radio.

I have no idea where my husband learned about Nikola Tesla. The Cheney book has been seen around this house for some time, with both my husband and son reading it — and discussing it in front of me. The book is supposedly the definitive biography of the inventor.

Tesla got a little, dare I say, kooky at the end of his life, and he seems to have been expunged from books about inventors. It’s almost like a cover up or something. It’s truly a shame, though, because if you’re studying electricity you can’t just skip Tesla and pretend he didn’t exist.

When we watched The Prestige, we were surprised to see that a character named Tesla was in it. We also figured that without a prior knowledge of Tesla, we’d be a little confused by the portions of the movie that involved Tesla.

After searching a little, I found a couple of videos about him. I’ll see if I can find the titles. I got them through Blockbuster’s online program; Netflix doesn’t have them — or at least that was the status a few months ago.

Movie about Tesla: The Secret of Nikola Tesla

Documentary about Tesla by some Serbians: Nikola Tesla: The Genius Who Lit the World

If you have a high-school student interested in electricity, I think both of these shows would be fascinating. The first DVD has a quality issue, but the value of the content makes up for it, I think, but then I rented them instead of buying.

Do I recommend The Prestige? Sure, with some reservations. I found it intriguing and wanted to watch it again as soon as I had finished. But I went to bed instead. Yes, I am a party girl.

My daughter and I are reading For the Love of Venice together separately. I got it just for the Venice info, but it has some info on the MOSE project, which is a bonus.

In case you don’t happen to be familiar with the MOSE project (which I wasn’t until we recently saw a Discovery Channel show), it has as its goal the saving of the lagoon that surrounds Venice, Italy, by the strategic placement of barrier walls and floodgates. I think this paper, in .pdf format, probably explains the problem and the proposed solution the best — and with some illustrations.

I’m on page 72 of For the Love of Venice and so far we’ve got

• a main character who is high school boy (a senior) w/younger brother, mom, dad
• a main character who is a U.S. citizen visiting Venice for summer
• a dad who is a civil engineer working on the MOSE project
• a mother who is spacey artist
• a short discussion of subsidence of Venice and floodgates
• a short discussion of pollution of the lagoon
• description of life in Venice
• a girl in ice cream store who is probable romantic interest
• some graffiti and intrigue

So far, I think For the Love of Venice is fairly good. If you’ve got a trip to Venice in your future or you need an interesting novel to help with geography class, your children might enjoy it. It definitely gives the reader a feel for the place, and if you have a guidebook handy, you can look the places up on a map.