Extension resource for advanced high school / pre-university students

[philevans1745]

I have developed a website aimed at bright students who are getting towards the end of high school or are in the gap before they go on to university, and who want to stretch themselves a bit and tackle some physics that goes well beyond the school curriculum but is nevertheless accessible with the mathematical skills they have developed at that level. In my experience (teaching in the UK), there are quite a few students who are frustrated by the gap that exists between popular science, which is fun but not challenging, and mathematically inaccessible university level texts. This is my first attempt to create something that might be valuable to these students:

It's a free, open-access website called Schrödinger’s Cormorant (link: s-cormorant.com).

It provides an introduction to special relativity and quantum mechanics using an approach that is mathematical but should be accessible to students at this level (I'm basing that on the UK curriculum but hopefully it would be similar in other countries too).

The key things about it are:

• It’s a free resource, open to anyone.
• It’s a maths-based approach, rather than popular science.
• The maths skills are all familiar to people who have done A-level maths (with a couple of extensions which are not a huge leap and are fully explained).
• It is structured so that the students do most of the work themselves, deriving and applying the equations. This should, I hope, lead to greater understanding and retention of what has been learned. It should also provide a sense of ownership and achievement (for example, they get to derive E = mc2 for themselves).
• All problems are presented in a step-by-step way and fully worked answers are provided.
• It's structured as a logical progression through SR, the mathematics of waves, wave-particle duality and quantum uncertainty, all culminating in constructing the 1-D Schrödinger equation and exploring its use.

It would be great if anyone had the time to take a look at it and let me know what you think. In particular, if you think it could be valuable, I would be grateful if anyone had suggestions for how to bring it to the attention of the right people.

Many thanks.

 

[PhDeezNutz]

I look forward to looking through it. I will let you know my opinions shortly.

“‘Math based instead of popular science”

That’s what we all like to hear.

 

[Nugatory]

It would be great if anyone had the time to take a look at it and let me know what you think. I

It would be a good thing to remove all references to photons from the relativity section. "Flash of light" and "light signal" will work without reinforcing the popular misconception about what photons really are.

Explanations of relativity aimed at your audience often dwell too much on time dilation and length contraction, too little on relativity of simultaneity - and your presentation is no exception. You would be doing your students a great service if you could show how relativity of simultaneity underlies both time dilation and length contraction.

Minkowski diagrams might be the single most effective teaching and visualization tool available for your target audience. Teach them and use them.

 

[PeroK]

I have developed a website aimed at bright students who are getting towards the end of high school or are in the gap before they go on to university, and who want to stretch themselves a bit and tackle some physics that goes well beyond the school curriculum but is nevertheless accessible with the mathematical skills they have developed at that level. In my experience (teaching in the UK), there are quite a few students who are frustrated by the gap that exists between popular science, which is fun but not challenging, and mathematically inaccessible university level texts. This is my first attempt to create something that might be valuable to these students:

It's a free, open-access website called Schrödinger’s Cormorant (link: s-cormorant.com).

It provides an introduction to special relativity and quantum mechanics using an approach that is mathematical but should be accessible to students at this level (I'm basing that on the UK curriculum but hopefully it would be similar in other countries too).

The key things about it are:

• It’s a free resource, open to anyone.
• It’s a maths-based approach, rather than popular science.
• The maths skills are all familiar to people who have done A-level maths (with a couple of extensions which are not a huge leap and are fully explained).
• It is structured so that the students do most of the work themselves, deriving and applying the equations. This should, I hope, lead to greater understanding and retention of what has been learned. It should also provide a sense of ownership and achievement (for example, they get to derive E = mc2 for themselves).
• All problems are presented in a step-by-step way and fully worked answers are provided.
• It's structured as a logical progression through SR, the mathematics of waves, wave-particle duality and quantum uncertainty, all culminating in constructing the 1-D Schrödinger equation and exploring its use.

It would be great if anyone had the time to take a look at it and let me know what you think. In particular, if you think it could be valuable, I would be grateful if anyone had suggestions for how to bring it to the attention of the right people.

Many thanks.

I must say that site is not my style. It's too much talk and too little substance. If a bright high-school student wants to learn SR, for example, I would point them at Morin's book. If they are prepared to roll up their sleeves and knuckle down, then they can learn it. But, if they need to be entertained and see the physicist as a dancing bear, then why bother?

If someone wants to study physics (or mathematics) at university, then they are going to have to learn to knuckle down sooner or later. I saw a piece recently about a student at a prestiguous US University who complained that she'd never previously been expected to read a whole book! It can't be put off forever.

When a student hits SR or QM, then that's the time to wean them off the antics of the TV physicist, even if that feels like cold turkey. In fact, when I was learning SR (after I retired) a key point was when I decided to ditch the extraneous padding. SR is first about time and space coordinates and transformations between inertial reference frames. Then it's about relativistic energy-momentum, definitions, equations, particle decays and collisions.

Sorry I can't be more positive about your approach.

 

[WWGD]

This resource sounds fantastic! For in-app communication, a forum or real-time chat feature could help students collaborate and get instant support. A progress tracker might also keep them motivated as they work through the material. Some of the in-app chat solutions you consider are MirrorFly, ApphiTect, and Sendbird.

Bing's ChatGpt stores the question-answer history too. Without any tracker by Gpt, requiring active involvement in tracking by the user.