One of the perennial problems of teaching intro physics is getting students to do their homework, so I was very interested to see Andy Rundquist on Twitter post a link to a paper on the arxiv titled “How different incentives affect homework completion in introductory physics courses.” When I shared this with the rest of… Continue reading Homework Is Evil?: “The benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory physics course”
Month: May 2013
Mobility on 2+2 Wheels
SteelyKid has a new prize possession: a training-wheel bike! You can’t quite hear what she says at the end of this, when she stops the bike, but it’s “That should be a full video!” She knows her fan base. On the way back, she wiped out (the first bad crash on the new bike) and… Continue reading Mobility on 2+2 Wheels
Wolfgang Pauli, Father of the arXiv
The book-in-progress (which is coming along, albeit slowly, thanks for asking) is built around making analogies between scientific discoveries and ordinary activities. This necessarily means telling a lot of historical stories, which is both good and bad. The bad part is that actual history is way messier than the streamlined version you get to use… Continue reading Wolfgang Pauli, Father of the arXiv
Best. Arbitrary Four-Year Window. EVER!
My 20-year college reunion is coming up at the start of next month (at the end of the week of DAMOP in Quebec– I’m going to be completely wiped out…), so I’ve been thinking a bit about nostalgia. A little while back, the subject of reunions came up on an email list, and somebody trotted… Continue reading Best. Arbitrary Four-Year Window. EVER!
Rocketships Don’t Have Hands
An astute observation from SteelyKid, as part of her jumping game: With bonus photobombing by The Pip toward the end.
Return of The Physics Bus
My parents have a DVD of the Bacon Brothers singing “The Wheels on the Bus” over an animated scene, which The Pip loves and insists on watching over, and over, and over, and over… As the parent sitting through this on Sunday morning, I got a little punchy over on Twitter, and invented some quantum-physics-themed… Continue reading Return of The Physics Bus
Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution by John Gribbin
Erwin Schrödinger is one of the more colorful figures in physics history. He’s best known for Emmy’s favorite thought experiment, of course, which attempts to demonstrate the absurdity of quantum physics through locking a cat in a box. This overshadows the Schrödinger Equation, the central equation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, which won him a Nobel… Continue reading Erwin Schrödinger and the Quantum Revolution by John Gribbin
Preschool Science
SteelyKid takes a bunch of enrichment classes at her day care, none of which are explicitly science. I was, however, thrilled to discover that they were doing actual science in her computer class though. The “Featured Image” at the top of this post (sorry, RSS readers, you’ll need to click through) is a cell-phone picture… Continue reading Preschool Science