The Academics Thread

[Cancer]

For fun, ask the instructors in each class about the Late Heavy Bombardment.

[Pariah]

Sounds entertaining!

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

I passed my CITI training!

 

Human test subjects here I come!! ?

[Old Man]

I have no idea what any of that means but congratulations and good luck on your future mad scientist endeavors!

[Cancer]

It's a cross-institutional program to ensure you know how to feed humans through a chipper properly. 

[Pariah]

So I've officially got everything out of my old classroom and into the new classroom now.

 

I don't have anything set up in the new classroom yet, but that's a battle for another day.

[Pariah]

I came across this in a first-year college General Science (e.g., "Science for Business Majors") textbook:

 

Six “Self-Evident Truths” for Understanding the Universe

 

1. Existence
There exists a physical world separate and distinct from our minds that is comprehensible through our senses….{I}t is governed by certain generalities called the “laws of nature”.

 

2. Causality
Events--effects--in the physical universe have natural causes. Causes precede effects and can be explained rationally in terms of the laws of nature.

 

3. Position Symmetry
The laws of nature are the same everywhere in the universe.

 

4. Time Symmetry
The laws of nature have remained the same through time. They are the same now as they were in the distant past, and they will be the same in the future.

 

5. Principle of Noncontradiction
Of two contradictory propositions, both cannot be true.

 

6. Occam’s Razor
If alternative explanations of any phenomenon are available, where each are logical and explain the phenomenon equally well, then the simplest explanation shall be chosen. Explanatory principles or factors are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. On the other hand, explanations cannot be too simple; they must be adequate to explain consistently the available data.

 

--

Moody, J. W.; Knowledge, Science, and the Universe. In Physical Science Foundations; Harrison, B.K., Ed.; BYU Academic Publishing: Provo, UT, 2006; pp. 7-8

[Cancer]

#4 isn't a necessary assumption, and it is testable.  It is generally assumed, but there are guys in the physics community who look for tests to perform about that.  Clearly it holds for the whole age of the Universe we have been able to check, which now extends at least back to the Era of Recombination (about 400,000 years after Big Bang) when the microwave background was released), and very probably back to when nuclei started forming (3 minutes after Big Bang).  

[Pariah]

Three or four years ago, when I was first toying with the idea of teaching s astronomy, I was talking with a rep from one of the book companies. I asked for samples of anything they had having to do with astronomy, and they sent me a couple of books. One of them was a consumable, kind of like a workbook you would fill out as the class progressed.

 

Now that I'm taking an astronomy class starting a week from Monday, I got notification of the required books for the course. That consumable is one of them. And yes, I still have it.

 

I love it when stuff like that happens.

[Cancer]

I have to look at what I sent you before and see what else I can add.

 

I have something in the not-quite-fully-developed state for my Astrobiology class next spring that might be of use, but it does invoke three-dimensional thinking, which is never called for ever in the K-12 curriculum, so you would be starting from literal nothing with that.  Do you have an actual 3-d celestial sphere model available to you? (e.g. the plastic thing in this video)   I have found it nearly impossible to convey the ideas without a truly 3-d model for students to run their hands over.  Even planetarium software won't do it if it is coming off a flat display.

[Pariah]

I don't have a 3D celestial sphere model, but my principal has been asking me if there's anything else I need for the class. Sounds to me like that might be a good thing to order.

[Bazza]

7 hours ago, Pariah said:

I came across this in a first-year college General Science (e.g., "Science for Business Majors") textbook:

 

Six “Self-Evident Truths” for Understanding the Universe

 

1. Existence
There exists a physical world separate and distinct from our minds that is comprehensible through our senses….{I}t is governed by certain generalities called the “laws of nature”.

 

2. Causality
Events--effects--in the physical universe have natural causes. Causes precede effects and can be explained rationally in terms of the laws of nature.

 

3. Position Symmetry
The laws of nature are the same everywhere in the universe.

 

4. Time Symmetry
The laws of nature have remained the same through time. They are the same now as they were in the distant past, and they will be the same in the future.

 

5. Principle of Noncontradiction
Of two contradictory propositions, both cannot be true.

 

6. Occam’s Razor
If alternative explanations of any phenomenon are available, where each are logical and explain the phenomenon equally well, then the simplest explanation shall be chosen. Explanatory principles or factors are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. On the other hand, explanations cannot be too simple; they must be adequate to explain consistently the available data.

 

--

Moody, J. W.; Knowledge, Science, and the Universe. In Physical Science Foundations; Harrison, B.K., Ed.; BYU Academic Publishing: Provo, UT, 2006; pp. 7-8

 

I agree #5 is an axiom. But even this is subject to investigation. 

[Badger]

7 hours ago, Cancer said:

#4 isn't a necessary assumption, and it is testable.  It is generally assumed, but there are guys in the physics community who look for tests to perform about that.  Clearly it holds for the whole age of the Universe we have been able to check, which now extends at least back to the Era of Recombination (about 400,000 years after Big Bang) when the microwave background was released), and very probably back to when nuclei started forming (3 minutes after Big Bang).  

 

Well, I know the last 20 minutes of work last 3 and a half hours.  

 

Anyway, how far do the majority of your students get on those rules?  Still having trouble with #1?

 

[Cancer]

4 hours ago, Pariah said:

I don't have a 3D celestial sphere model, but my principal has been asking me if there's anything else I need for the class. Sounds to me like that might be a good thing to order.

 

After a while people do ok looking at a globe and are OK thinking about walking on the outside of that.  Flat maps distort the scale, but not that many people assert that Greenland is bigger than South America.

 

But looking out (or up) at the inside of the celestial sphere is different, especially since Earth's equator plane, Earth's orbit plane, Moon's orbit plane, and midplane of the Galaxy are all tilted with repect to each other, and not around the same axes.  Having the model to look at while talking is hugely clearer than making flat drawings on a board.  Until real 3-D displayed are routine and easy to use, the model is the best option.

[Pariah]

2 hours ago, Badger said:

Anyway, how far do the majority of your students get on those rules?  Still having trouble with #1?

 

 

René Descartes famously summarized #1 as, "I think, therefore I am." I'm convinced that more than a few of my students have trouble with that statement--specifically the part before the comma.

[Bazza]

Cognito, ego sum. Or is it "cognito, ergo sum". 

[Badger]

38 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

René Descartes famously summarized #1 as, "I think, therefore I am." I'm convinced that more than a few of my students have trouble with that statement--specifically the part before the comma.

 

I think that applies to 80% of humanity.

[Cancer]

"I think I think, therefore I think I am."

 

Alternately, Cogito ergo boggum.

[Ragitsu]

 

[Starlord]

deleted

[Cancer]

The answer depends on whether the final performance is the digitally-mastered sum of individual tracks recorded separately.

[Pariah]

2 hours ago, Starlord said:

 

That figure of 120 can't possibly include the choir necessary for the 4th movement. The question is invalid.

[Starlord]

And that is why you're such a pariah.  

[Cancer]

15 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

That figure of 120 can't possibly include the choir necessary for the 4th movement. The question is invalid.

Technically, the strings and percussion section could double up and do vocals too.

 

/pedant

[Bazza]

8 hours ago, Starlord said:

And that is why you're such a pariah.  

 

No, he's the conductor.