s a way of introduction, I should say that this is my first attempt to start a blog. I have, generally, been a private person and I cannot imagine why anyone might be interested in the musings and ruminations of a person they have never met. However, I have developed attitudes, thoughts, reactions, etc. that pertain specifically to physics. By airing them in PF, I might elicit reactions and comments from like-minded individuals and perhaps resolve issues that I have never resolved, reach conclusions that I would have otherwise never reached, adopt new attitudes and so on. I intend to post on this blog material that will always have a physics angle and my personal take of it. Feel free, gentle reader, to comment if so inclined and, by the way, just so that I can be placed in the order of things, I earn my living teaching university physics in the US.
Next: Why the hatred?
Next: Why the hatred?
Physics and I
Breaking the vicious circle.
If the goal is to enable the student to do physics, then (by golly) the student should do physics! Doing physics is a lot like learning how to drive a car, an analogy that is universally understood. This is what I say to recruit the students' cooperation. "As a child, you have watched others get behind the wheel and drive a car. You may know all the rules of the road and the meaning of traffic signs, but if I put you behind the wheel for the first time, will you be able to drive safely from point A to point B? Unlikely, and it's not because you don't know which way the car will turn if you turn the wheel to the left or because you don't know the function of the gas or accelerator pedal. It's because you haven't done it. So what is needed to become an accomplished driver? Practice, practice, practice. Of course, you will need a skilled instructor next to you to help you out, but you will have to be the one behind the wheel. Understandably, this involves a lot of work by both of us, however, I think that the best way to build up your confidence is by actually doing it and seeing for yourself that you can do it. Yes, you can."
So much for the pep talk. The idea here is that victories, small at first and bigger later, build confidence as an antidote to the sources of fear mentioned earlier. The key question is, does this work? The honest answer is sometimes and with some students. Different students learn differently and the reversal of fear may take time, perhaps longer than the duration of the course. Psychological fear is hard to overcome. I append an example that, to this day, still sticks vividly in my mind.
Two hours before the final exam, "Anna" comes to me see me for help with a particular problem that she cannot solve. It so happens that this exact problem is on the test. There is no issue of a security leak because this is a probelm from the textbook; both she and I evidently thought it would be a good one to put on the test. So I guided Anna through to the end of the solution simply by asking prodding questions, "Where do you start, what equations do you have, what do you think you should do next, what have we always done under these circumstances" and so on. I did not write a single equation or draw a single diagram and Anna finished the problem. She thanked me and left. Anna took the exam and when I graded he papers, I saw that she completely bombed this particular problem. Just a few scribblings but nothing substantial, basically a zero. I was obviously perplexed because it was clear to me that Anna knew how to do this problem. Next time I saw her I said, "I know you can do this problem, you know you can do this problem, so what happened?" "I don't know", she said, "I just froze. I kept looking and looking at that problem and I was, like, paralyzed." Echoes of FDR's, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Neither Anna nor I could have done anything more.
Of course, I was faced with the task of grading Anna's effort. In assessing a student's performance, I take all available data into account and here I was faced with two conflicting pieces of evidence. Can she do the problem or can she not? A "normal" person would probably say that Anna did the problem once and could not do it for the second time so she should get something like half the credit, an average. Normal people, however, do not view the world the same way as people with training in physics. I felt that in this case, whatever action I took, it has to be justified. Here is my reasoning. I performed a measurement and Anna's wavefunction collapsed to the eigenstate "Knows how to solve the problem." It stands to reason that any subsequent measurement should yield the same result, but this has proved not to be the case. Therefore, Anna's wavefunction was reset between measurements (did fear have something to do with this?) so that the next measurement yielded the orthogonal result "Knows not how to solve the problem." Clearly, then, one has to consider the expectation value, namely half credit. Please note, gentle reader, that through the sophistry of dubiously applying Quantum Mechanics to everyday life, I reached the same conclusion as a "normal" person, except that I have the satisfaction that my action is formulated in terms of a "higher" principle.
I will be the first to admit that I have acquired an offbeat way of looking at things, I call that enhancement, but I think I am not alone in this. From what I have seen, other people who have studied physics extensively are similarly enhanced.
Next: What happened to Anna? Followup and denouement.
If the goal is to enable the student to do physics, then (by golly) the student should do physics! Doing physics is a lot like learning how to drive a car, an analogy that is universally understood. This is what I say to recruit the students' cooperation. "As a child, you have watched others get behind the wheel and drive a car. You may know all the rules of the road and the meaning of traffic signs, but if I put you behind the wheel for the first time, will you be able to drive safely from point A to point B? Unlikely, and it's not because you don't know which way the car will turn if you turn the wheel to the left or because you don't know the function of the gas or accelerator pedal. It's because you haven't done it. So what is needed to become an accomplished driver? Practice, practice, practice. Of course, you will need a skilled instructor next to you to help you out, but you will have to be the one behind the wheel. Understandably, this involves a lot of work by both of us, however, I think that the best way to build up your confidence is by actually doing it and seeing for yourself that you can do it. Yes, you can."
So much for the pep talk. The idea here is that victories, small at first and bigger later, build confidence as an antidote to the sources of fear mentioned earlier. The key question is, does this work? The honest answer is sometimes and with some students. Different students learn differently and the reversal of fear may take time, perhaps longer than the duration of the course. Psychological fear is hard to overcome. I append an example that, to this day, still sticks vividly in my mind.
Two hours before the final exam, "Anna" comes to me see me for help with a particular problem that she cannot solve. It so happens that this exact problem is on the test. There is no issue of a security leak because this is a probelm from the textbook; both she and I evidently thought it would be a good one to put on the test. So I guided Anna through to the end of the solution simply by asking prodding questions, "Where do you start, what equations do you have, what do you think you should do next, what have we always done under these circumstances" and so on. I did not write a single equation or draw a single diagram and Anna finished the problem. She thanked me and left. Anna took the exam and when I graded he papers, I saw that she completely bombed this particular problem. Just a few scribblings but nothing substantial, basically a zero. I was obviously perplexed because it was clear to me that Anna knew how to do this problem. Next time I saw her I said, "I know you can do this problem, you know you can do this problem, so what happened?" "I don't know", she said, "I just froze. I kept looking and looking at that problem and I was, like, paralyzed." Echoes of FDR's, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Neither Anna nor I could have done anything more.
Of course, I was faced with the task of grading Anna's effort. In assessing a student's performance, I take all available data into account and here I was faced with two conflicting pieces of evidence. Can she do the problem or can she not? A "normal" person would probably say that Anna did the problem once and could not do it for the second time so she should get something like half the credit, an average. Normal people, however, do not view the world the same way as people with training in physics. I felt that in this case, whatever action I took, it has to be justified. Here is my reasoning. I performed a measurement and Anna's wavefunction collapsed to the eigenstate "Knows how to solve the problem." It stands to reason that any subsequent measurement should yield the same result, but this has proved not to be the case. Therefore, Anna's wavefunction was reset between measurements (did fear have something to do with this?) so that the next measurement yielded the orthogonal result "Knows not how to solve the problem." Clearly, then, one has to consider the expectation value, namely half credit. Please note, gentle reader, that through the sophistry of dubiously applying Quantum Mechanics to everyday life, I reached the same conclusion as a "normal" person, except that I have the satisfaction that my action is formulated in terms of a "higher" principle.
I will be the first to admit that I have acquired an offbeat way of looking at things, I call that enhancement, but I think I am not alone in this. From what I have seen, other people who have studied physics extensively are similarly enhanced.
Next: What happened to Anna? Followup and denouement.
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