B Information sources and physics teaching

[PeterDonis]

How does what I said disagree with that?

If it doesn't, that's good. But as you appear to realize from your comment about communication skills, your previous posts did not make this at all clear.

the answer is too often no, that isn't how we do it now.

Possibly it depends on the schools you went to or the classes you took. Certainly education quality is highly variable.

However, what you described in what I quoted is how we intend to do it now. So if your basic suggestion for fixing education is to actually do what we already say we intend, then I would agree, but I also would not call it any kind of groundbreaking teaching insight. Nor is this fix something that will get done by innovation in teaching methods. It will get done, if it ever does, by fixing the various perverse incentives that now largely determine the quality of education. Whatever innovations are needed to get that done are in fields very different from pedagogy, like economics and politics.

 

[gleem]

I would think after 51 posts that it might be helpful @syfry to restate the intent of this thread in one sentence and summarize what has been learned so far, i.e. the take-a-way idea(s) to see where things currently stand.

 

[syfry]

If it doesn't, that's good. But as you appear to realize from your comment about communication skills, your previous posts did not make this at all clear.

Yep, again my words could've been clearer.

I had meant low res with full accuracy, and my reply about agreeing with you was the part where you said for actual research and for actual spaceflight (as opposed to mere fulfillment from being able to imagine futuristic and sci-fi type of possibilities more accurately) that we'd need the more full picture.

Possibly it depends on the schools you went to or the classes you took. Certainly education quality is highly variable.

My reply was in error because I had misread your reply. Thought you had said that the way we currently do things is to give the students an overview of "all subjects" at the earlier levels. But you had actually said, "all types of subjects". (which differs from my 'whole picture' at the earliest we can)

We disagree about what schools have currently done. If I'm understanding your view correctly, it's that early on in our educational studies we dabble on simpler aspects from a variety of fields, then later we specialize.

I'm saying let's test a low res view of the most wide picture of science that we can possibly manage, and then zoom in on whichever parts we'd specialize in. And transform all of the difficult jargon into a much more learnable experience by scientifically verifying that people truly absorbed and grasp the deepest parts of what they're learning.

However, what you described in what I quoted is how we intend to do it now. So if your basic suggestion for fixing education is to actually do what we already say we intend, then I would agree, but I also would not call it any kind of groundbreaking teaching insight. Nor is this fix something that will get done by innovation in teaching methods.

Let's pause on what I'm suggesting and examine a real world outcome.

I think we can agree that the intro to the new video by Veritasium (if it's accurate about random people who by their age almost certainly should've learned how to order the sizes between a planet, a moon, a star, and a galaxy) reveals that people might not really be learning, even if they pass tests. They might instead be temporarily doing 'something', perhaps mere memorizing. And if so, then hopefully we can agree that scientifically testing the effect of the language (packed with difficult jargon) and approach to everything in how we teach, from textbooks to testing to real understanding, is vital:

 

[gleem]

And if so, then hopefully we can agree that scientifically testing the effect of the language (packed with difficult jargon) and approach to everything in how we teach, from textbooks to testing to real understanding:

Can we agree about what?

And if so, then hopefully we can agree that scientifically testing the effect of the language ..... is?, has?, will?, . . .what?

 

[syfry]

Can we agree about what?

That it's vital. Edited that in now.

 

[PeterDonis]

I had meant low res with full accuracy

There is no such thing.

 

[syfry]

There is no such thing.

Perhaps you're considering formalism as accuracy?

I'm considering accuracy as 'matching with reality'. (instead of merely matching with arbitrarily decided phrasing / convention)

Low res and wide scope:

The spinach plant has gotten its iron from the asteroid mix of Earth's crust.

Specializing at a higher res:

The crystal arrangements of certain asteroids. Genetic variations among a selection of spinach plants that affect their iron uptake. Etc.

The low res still presents a grand view that immediately informs people about how so much of what we see in everyday tools and machinery is from impacts and stuff is continually raining down from outer space in micro amounts. Immersive visuals could accompany every object tracing generically unnamed ingredients back to origins from outer space, with the older and more dense stuff from Earth's earlier hotter era having already gradually sunken while Earth was less solid.

Low res after transforming the jargon and conventions (for max learning with the deepest understanding) could rethink how we categorize things, maybe revisit some of the past ways and merge them with our updated understanding from the later discoveries.

We could teach that each of elements are hydrogen (the earliest atom leftover from the start of our models for the universe) in different amounts from its single atom to fused in greater numbers that change their behavior as we can see by the variety we encounter. Take inspiration from Prout's hypothesis and the whole number rule.

Electrons can link together atoms into groups that add or transform behaviors.

These are ideas for low res. Obviously would need work and accuracy by physicists, but a type of accuracy that prioritizes what we observe in nature and experiments, over arbitrarily decided formalism that hadn't ever been scientifically confirmed as effective for teaching.

 

[PeterDonis]

I'm considering accuracy as 'matching with reality'.

"Matching with reality" is not a binary property. "Accuracy" is usually taken to mean not just matching with reality, but matching it to a very high degree, i.e., with very small error bars and very reliable predictions. "Low res", on the other hand, implies matching with reality only vaguely or generally, with predictions being similarly vague or general and therefore not very reliable (since it's much easier to fool yourself into thinking a vague or general prediction has come true when it hasn't).

Let's try an example:

Low res and wide scope:

The spinach plant has gotten its iron from the asteroid mix of Earth's crust.

Do you have a reference for this? What does the reference actually say? What is the actual "high res" science for this?

 

[PeterDonis]

a type of accuracy that prioritizes what we observe in nature and experiments, over arbitrarily decided formalism

I don't know where you are getting this from. Every theory of physics we have is only accepted and taught in the first place because of what we observe in nature and experiments. And the formalism is not "arbitrarily decided": it is driven by what we observe in nature and experiments. Physicists don't make up a bunch of formalisms and then go check to see which ones match experiment. Physicists in general have to be dragged kicking and screaming to new theoretical formalisms, because constructing theoretical formalisms is hard, and once you've spent your education and career learning one, learning a different one is even harder. So physicists would much rather believe that the formalisms they already know will work--which means that when you find them admitting that current formalisms don't work and they have to develop new ones, it's a sign of something very big (as in the development of quantum mechanics in the early part of the 20th century).

 

[syfry]

"Matching with reality" is not a binary property. "Accuracy" is usually taken to mean not just matching with reality, but matching it to a very high degree, i.e., with very small error bars and very reliable predictions. "Low res", on the other hand, implies matching with reality only vaguely or generally, with predictions being similarly vague or general and therefore not very reliable (since it's much easier to fool yourself into thinking a vague or general prediction has come true when it hasn't).

Yep, that's the type. The more accurate, the better. Good point to bring up!

"Low res", on the other hand, implies matching with reality only vaguely or generally, with predictions being similarly vague or general and therefore not very reliable.

And that's a great point. Will keep that in mind. Want to be careful to avoid a counterproductive impression with the wording, will ponder alternatives.

Do you have a reference for this? What does the reference actually say? What is the actual "high res" science for this?

It's only from general knowledge about the more dense things having sunken, got no idea when the papers would've been written. Also an educated guess that plants cannot create elements, probably only molecules.

Part of the reason to bring physicists on board, and physics teachers is to replace my investigate efforts with people who have more knowledge, training, and much better experience.

And every long journey begins one step at a time, so no reason to do nothing until then.

Rather do my best with what little I have, to prepare a rough outline of the vision that'll serve as a crude example and also get the point across. Then, we can refine and do much better than my own efforts.

 

[PeterDonis]

It's only from general knowledge about the more dense things having sunken

Sorry, I don't see the connection. I think you are misinterpreting something, but if you can't give an actual reference, I have no way of knowing what.

You might think this point is not relevant to the thread, but I think it is. If your claim actually has no scientific basis, it is a bad example of how to give someone a general idea of a field. And if you can't even give a reference for where you got this one simple statement, what am I supposed to think about your chances of success at the far more ambitious endeavor you are embarked on?

an educated guess that plants cannot create elements

That's correct, since plants don't have nuclear reactions going on inside them. Neither do any living things. Elements are created in stars, except for a few of the lightest ones which were created in the early universe.

However, I still don't see how this supports the claim you made about spinach and asteroids.

Part of the reason to bring physicists on board, and physics teachers is to replace my investigate efforts with people who have more knowledge, training, and much better experience.

And yet you somehow think you can come up with a way of teaching that is better than what those people have come up with after centuries of effort. That does not seem credible to me.

 

[syfry]

I don't know where you are getting this from. Every theory of physics we have is only accepted and taught in the first place because of what we observe in nature and experiments. And the formalism is not "arbitrarily decided": it is driven by what we observe in nature and experiments. Physicists don't make up a bunch of formalisms and then go check to see which ones match experiment.

It's possible I'm using the incorrect wording.

I merely meant the language of physics, the choice of symbols, jargon, etc.

Like if for some reason 3n started to be rewritten as 3 • n, and 1x as 1 * x, etc, that shouldn't have anything to do with accuracy or observations of nature. Those are purely human choices on how to represent the mathematical readings, I assume.

Same with labels and categories. What they mean is based on observations, but the actual words chosen are often arbitrarily decided. That isn't tested for learnability.

Orthogonal vs perpendicular vs normal are arbitrarily decided wordings. Rephrasing the wordings and rethinking the categorize to be more learnable while even more useful, has nothing to do with accuracy. Those are approaches. The meaning is what really matters and we can choose words and categories that make more sense intuitively with the meaning we assign, as long as we ensure that everything fits with what we observe in nature and from experiments to a high degree of accuracy.

Some type of UX engineer might be helpful.

 

[PeterDonis]

I merely meant the language of physics, the choice of symbols, jargon, etc.

You seem to think these are arbitrarily chosen and nobody ever stops to think about improving them. That is not at all the case. Some of the most important advances in physics have been advances in notation and language; even if, as you say, none of the actual physics changes when we change notation and language, our ability to advance our knowledge of physics can improve greatly.

For example, Schwarzschild discovered the solution to the vacuum Einstein Field Equations that bears his name only a few months after Einstein came up with the Field Equation itself--it was the first exact solution discovered. But for decades nobody really understood what it meant--because physicists were stuck with bad notation and language (in this case, a bad choice of coordinates and a bad choice of language in describing what we now call the event horizon as a "singularity"). Then David Finkelstein, in a few lines of algebra, discovered a new coordinate choice that drastically changed the way physicists understood the Schwarzschild solution--and the next decade there was a "golden age" of research into black holes (that term itself was invented by John Wheeler during the "golden age"--previous terms for it had hindered understanding). All from a simple change in notation (different coordinates) and a simple change in one term of the language physicists used.

Another example, which has applications in many fields of physics, would be modern vector and tensor notation, as compared with the extremely cumbersome notation that Einstein, for example, had to use when he worked on General Relativity, or that Maxwell had to use when he developed the equations of classical electrodynamics that now bear his name (although the equations as we know them now look nothing like the ones he knew, because of the change in notation). Papers from back then are almost unreadable to people today simply because we are so used to the much better notation we now have that we can't easily wrap our minds around the notation that was used back then.

 

[syfry]

Sorry, I don't see the connection. I think you are misinterpreting something, but if you can't give an actual reference, I have no way of knowing what.

From these very physicsforums the answer seems to be that all iron had gone to the center. Quoting the snippet below:

While residual heat from the collision of the material that formed the Earth was significant, heating from radioactive materials in this mass further increased the temperature until a critical condition was reached, when the material was molten enough to allow movement. At this point, the denser iron and nickel, evenly distributed throughout the mass, sank to the centre of the planet to form the core - an important process of planetary differentiation. The gravitational potential energy released by the sinking of the dense NiFe globules increased the temperature of the protoplanet above the melting point resulting in a global silicate magma which accelerated the process. This event occurred at about 500 million years into the formation of the planet.

The previous comment to that might be saying that iron in certain molecules had escaped the sinking, but I'm not sure, But if so, that seems to contradict the quoted part above.

And this reply in a different post seems to differ too:

Separation was never perfect - we still have plenty of iron in the crust, even if the majority went down to the core.

While the next reply brings up the asteroids:

Later comet and meteor bombardment also brought heavy elements to the outer crust.

Then, the next reply after that seems to imply that all of the iron would've sunken at that time:

Iron sank into core not only because it is heavy but because it is insoluble/immiscible in molten rock (and heavier than rock).

No one challenged any of those claims and people appear to take claims seriously at these forums (a good habit!) so now it's difficult to know if all of the iron had or hadn't sunken to the core.

I had gotten the info from a knowledgeable physics person though, about all of the later iron having arrived from asteroids. Which physics person, I don't remember but can do some digging and return with they info if I find it.

what am I supposed to think about your chances of success at the far more ambitious endeavor you are embarked on?

I was expecting from the start that you probably consider my odds at near zero, and possibly lower into negatives. I keep an open mind and could be wrong, though.

It's ok either way, I'm fine with naysayings, a good choice since there's such an overabundant supply for any goals.

I had qualified the part about Iron and the rest with:

"These are ideas for low res. Obviously would need work and accuracy by physicists..."

 

[syfry]

You seem to think these are arbitrarily chosen and nobody ever stops to think about improving them. That is not at all the case. Some of the most important advances in physics have been advances in notation and language; even if, as you say, none of the actual physics changes when we change notation and language, our ability to advance our knowledge of physics can improve greatly.

For example, Schwarzschild discovered the solution to the vacuum Einstein Field Equations that bears his name only a few months after Einstein came up with the Field Equation itself--it was the first exact solution discovered. But for decades nobody really understood what it meant--because physicists were stuck with bad notation and language (in this case, a bad choice of coordinates and a bad choice of language in describing what we now call the event horizon as a "singularity"). Then David Finkelstein, in a few lines of algebra, discovered a new coordinate choice that drastically changed the way physicists understood the Schwarzschild solution--and the next decade there was a "golden age" of research into black holes (that term itself was invented by John Wheeler during the "golden age"--previous terms for it had hindered understanding). All from a simple change in notation (different coordinates) and a simple change in one term of the language physicists used.

Another example, which has applications in many fields of physics, would be modern vector and tensor notation, as compared with the extremely cumbersome notation that Einstein, for example, had to use when he worked on General Relativity, or that Maxwell had to use when he developed the equations of classical electrodynamics that now bear his name (although the equations as we know them now look nothing like the ones he knew, because of the change in notation). Papers from back then are almost unreadable to people today simply because we are so used to the much better notation we now have that we can't easily wrap our minds around the notation that was used back then.

That's great. Thanks for the helpful info!

I'm hypothesizing that doing the same with a goal that everyday people can learn it much faster will benefit science.

Scientific testing will either confirm that it's possible and effective, or, that it isn't.

 

[gleem]

Some type of UX engineer might be helpful.

UX engineer? Now you are doing what you are ranting about, undefined jargon. So I looked it up and learned something. No problem. Why is this a major problem for others?

Orthogonal vs perpendicular vs normal are arbitrarily decided wordings.

These words are not arbitrary, They have a common characteristic right angle but apply to different contexts. Perpendicular: meeting at a right angle, Orthogonal crossing at a right angle, normal meeting a tangent line (or tangent plane) at a right angle. Upon meeting these words for the first time they are either defined by the instructor or if knowledge is assumed you look it up in a dictionary in the corrected context which is assumed to be known.

 

[Astronuc]

Since some teachers seem to reach a greater percentage of students by better results in testing, that's probably sufficient to justify doing a study on ways to better the outcomes for most students.

That is already occurring with the American Association of Physics Teachers, a professional membership association of scientists dedicated to enhancing the understanding and appreciation of physics through teaching. https://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/

Then again, "Physics teaching in the United States has a chicken-and-egg problem. Many districts and schools (typically, diverse urban schools and rural schools) do not offer the course or perhaps have a single section. Independent of the national teacher shortage, universities produce few physics teachers, with two-thirds of institutions producing none."
https://www.edutopia.org/article/ho...-math-teacher-can-confidently-tackle-physics/

The problem in most countries is a diverse regional approach to education and economic activity in general: urban, suburban, rural, remote. I have observed this in my personal life and in my ancestry.

Teachers and physicists are stuck using the technical language they were taught with. So the problem is rooted elsewhere in the approach.

Do we try to teach understanding of how the universe works, or do we instead teach familiarity with arbitrarily phrased words and models that, after first a mighty struggle, will only then start to offer more insights into the next realm of struggle?

Teachers and physicists, or more generally, mathematicians, scientists and engineers are not 'stuck' with language with which they are taught. Folks tend to use an established convention or terminology.

In teaching science, we try to teach an understanding of how the universe work, and in some cases manipulated it on a local level (applied physics/engineering), and part of that teaching is using a convention/terminology. All language is arbitrary, and one has to learn a language over time - hence primary education (kindergarden through 12th grade, then university, then a career)

If we were promoting understanding of how the universe works, how would we reply to a person from a lost tribe who asks us to explain energy?

Is the population of the lost tribe in the paleolithic, neolithic or later stage of development. Somehow, I don't think a member of a lost tribe (say in the depths of the Amazon jungle) is going to ask about an explanation of energy. That might come years or decades later after first contact. Meanwhile, folks would be learning to communicate. Then maybe someone might ask about how the universe works, or how things work.

Would we expect a farm laborer since childhood who never heard of internet to learn English or any major language that's compatible with physics and maths in order for us to properly explain the concept of energy in a useful way?

This odd query is an example of non sequitur. Many of my ancestors were farmers/laborers or miners from childhood, yet they spoke English, or at least a dialect of English. More recent ancestors received more education, but it was certainly not uniform.

Maths and science textbooks were hard for me,

That appears to be the crux of the matter at hand.

Learning/understanding is part individual capability (nature) and part education (nurture), and each person represents a unique combination. For whatever reason, some folks will absorb information readily and others will struggle. Some will obtain advanced degrees, while many others may not even complete a primary education, and there is everyone in between.

Some will have careers devoted to various aspects of physics (SR/GR, cosmology, astrophysics, HEP, . . . ), or more generally math and science, while others will never experience those same aspects of physics or science on a personal or daily basis, and most of the latter group will never have such a need.

 

[PeterDonis]

No one challenged any of those claims and people appear to take claims seriously at these forums (a good habit!) so now it's difficult to know if all of the iron had or hadn't sunken to the core.

No process is 100% perfect, so the "iron catastrophe" referred to in that previous thread, while it explains why the Earth's core is made of iron, in no way required that every single iron atom went to the core. Even a tiny residue remaining in the crust would be a lot in terms of the Earth's biosphere.

To run some numbers, the Earth's total mass is about $6 \times 10^{24}$ kg, of which about 32% is iron [1], so the total mass of iron in the Earth is about $2 \times 10^{24}$ kg. By comparison, the Earth's crust is only about 1% of its total mass [1], or about $6 \times 10^{22}$ kg, and of that, about 50,000 parts per million, or 5%, is iron [2], for a total mass of iron in the crust of about $3 \times 10^{20}$ kg, or about $1.5 \times 10^{-4}$ of the total iron in the Earth. That's a tiny residue which could easily have been left behind in the "iron catastrophe". Of course we also know that meteorites that hit the Earth often contain iron, so some of the iron in the crust is from that source; but that's very, very different from claiming that all of the iron in the crust is from meteorites.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_mass

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust

I had gotten the info from a knowledgeable physics person though, about all of the later iron having arrived from asteroids. Which physics person, I don't remember but can do some digging and return with they info if I find it.

You should do this before making a claim, not after. Part of science is supposed to be that you don't make claims that you can't back up. If you can't remember a source for the claim, you can't back it up.

 

[gleem]

Is the population of the lost tribe in the paleolithic, neolithic or later stage of development. Somehow, I don't think a member of a lost tribe (say in the depths of the Amazon jungle) is going to ask about an explanation of energy. That might come years or decades later after first contact. Meanwhile, folks would be learning to communicate. Then may someone might ask about how the universe works, or how things work.

Maths and science textbooks were hard for me,

Textbooks are written in different styles for different types of readers. Sometimes the author in an explanation uses words that we usually associate with a slightly different meaning that does not fit the context of the text leaving us confused. The author has a particular train of thought and a lot of prior knowledge that will determine how things are written. The author has to make assumptions about the reader's knowledge which may not be suitable for all readers. Some texts are better for some topics than others. Text tend not to be designed for self-study. One might need several texts to learn a subject well.

 

[Mark44]

Part of the reason to bring physicists on board, and physics teachers is to replace my investigate efforts with people who have more knowledge, training, and much better experience.

And yet you somehow think you can come up with a way of teaching that is better than what those people have come up with after centuries of effort. That does not seem credible to me.

Nor to me. And yet, our archaic way of teaching the sciences has led to manned landings on the moon and unmanned landings on Mars, not to mention such scientific advances as computers, cell phones, GPS, and many other wonders of the modern world.

I merely meant the language of physics, the choice of symbols, jargon, etc.

"Jargon" seems to be one of your favorite words, seemingly used to subtly denigrate the terminology used in subjects that you either don't understand or have great difficulty in understanding. Every field of study, and not just in the sciences and mathematics, has its own set of terminology and symbolism. These all stem from some individual or group of individuals, working independently, who first started thinking about and recording their thoughts about that field. Given that multiple people wrote about these fields, it's natural that they came up with different terminology.

Most of the scientific or mathematics textbooks that I have seen include a glossary at the back that contains definitions of important terms used in the book. Many will also have a list of the symbols used, also with definitions of these symbols.

 

[PeterDonis]

You should do this before making a claim, not after. Part of science is supposed to be that you don't make claims that you can't back up. If you can't remember a source for the claim, you can't back it up.

Btw, if you, @syfry, were to ask why this is relevant to the thread, it's because someone who wants to revolutionize how science is taught should at least be able to justify a scientific claim they make, or have the self-control to not make the claim if they can't justify it.

 

[syfry]

UX engineer? Now you are doing what you are ranting about, undefined jargon.

You're right, and shouldn't be surprised. It's hard work to communicate how I'm proposing and the time I can dedicate to replying in an internet forum isn't nearly enough.

Rest assured the actual effort will receive the amount of time it should.

These words are not arbitrary, They have a common characteristic right angle but apply to different contexts. Perpendicular: meeting at a right angle, Orthogonal crossing at a right angle, normal meeting a tangent line (or tangent plane) at a right angle. Upon meeting these words for the first time they are either defined by the instructor or if knowledge is assumed you look it up in a dictionary in the corrected context which is assumed to be known.

They appear arbitrarily phrased for a goal of people understanding what they learn. Did the people who decided base their decisions on a number of peer reviewed studies of how learnable their choice of wording is?

On the spur of the moment trying to choose the phrasing (to later scientifically test for how learnable it is), I might instead say as temporary placeholders until confirmed as accurate: crosswise meeting, crosswise intersecting, and crosswise whatever a tangent means. (did a search and failed to decipher its meaning, looks like a straight line is rested on a curve, and perhaps you zoom in until the curve appears parallel to the straight line for whatever reason)

However, merely choosing words isn't enough, even if carefully over a longer time.

You must collaborative with an expert to confirm that the meanings of simpler wordings will still accurately match the meanings of difficult jargon, you must test with real people to find confusions then rephrase any problem wordings until they're faster to learn, you must rethink the number of categories by asking if a single category with obvious variations can do what the 3 current categories are doing or if that many variations are absolutely necessary, you must ensure their purpose is quickly apparent to learners, you must be temporarily anonymous when doing any of this to avoid problems of ego, etc.

Without the people such as physicists and effective teachers, plus real scientific testing, I can supply only flawed examples.

Finally, to be crystal clear, even with all of that it isn't guaranteed to be effective. Isn't that why we scientifically test things, for the results to confirm or dispute what we're hypothesizing? And even then, they'd have to be continually and independently replicated.

 

[syfry]

That appears to be the crux of the matter at hand.

Learning/understanding is part individual capability (nature) and part education (nurture), and each person represents a unique combination. For whatever reason, some folks will absorb information readily and others will struggle. Some will obtain advanced degrees, while many others may not even complete a primary education, and there is everyone in between.

Yes the material is difficult to me, but my main motivation was from having taught people who struggle to learn the material a lot faster than I did.

Since that's from my own experiences then we'll wait and see what scientific testing of the method will result in. Instead of merely relying on my own personal accounts of such experiences.

Thanks for your detailed reply, I did read all of it and you make some good points. I don't have time to reply to the rest.

 

[syfry]

No process is 100% perfect, so the "iron catastrophe" referred to in that previous thread, while it explains why the Earth's core is made of iron, in no way required that every single iron atom went to the core. Even a tiny residue remaining in the crust would be a lot in terms of the Earth's biosphere.

Of course we also know that meteorites that hit the Earth often contain iron, so some of the iron in the crust is from that source; but that's very, very different from claiming that all of the iron in the crust is from meteorites.

That's good. I can rephrase. You already should be aware that I'm well aware that you know the things in physics that I don't. If I'm providing a quick hypothetical sample for only the purpose of showing a method, that's all it is.

The actual process would involve physics people. They aren't here yet. But you can volunteer if you want!

You should do this before making a claim, not after. Part of science is supposed to be that you don't make claims that you can't back up. If you can't remember a source for the claim, you can't back it up.

Which is why I add that my understanding is likely needing accuracy. I chose to communicate with you as best as able, The other option would be to ignore your comment, if qualifying my words as likely inaccurate isn't enough. I prefer to reply.

And I do have a life outside of here, busy at work, so often write fast, making errors if that's understandable. In this case I did multiple times say that my quickly written attempts likely have inaccuracy because of my lack in knowledge.

Cool?

 

[syfry]

"Jargon" seems to be one of your favorite words, seemingly used to subtly denigrate the terminology used in subjects that you either don't understand or have great difficulty in understanding.

The word jargon is so we're on the same page. I try to remember to say 'difficult jargon'. Please don't take critique of the wording as some kind of attack. Instead it's a statement from my own stance that science belongs in everyone's hands.

Every field of study, and not just in the sciences and mathematics, has its own set of terminology and symbolism. These all stem from some individual or group of individuals, working independently, who first started thinking about and recording their thoughts about that field. Given that multiple people wrote about these fields, it's natural that they came up with different terminology.

Makes sense. But they aren't teachers and what's needed if we want more people to learn, is to ensure the wording we teach is a proper fit for the best learning.

 

[syfry]

...it's because someone who wants to revolutionize how science is taught

Merely want to better how science is taught, and it'll be a lot more people than me and with a lot more knowledge who'll be doing so.

My purpose in elaborating throughout the 3 pages was to reply to people's questions they probably asked in good faith. Also replied to hopefully gain some insight from people here, which I did. There isn't anything I could prove or showcase about methods and whatever potential effectiveness because 1), it's only myself at the moment without the more knowledgeable people including teachers and physicists, and 2), the methods need to be fully developed and tested. (preferably in a double blind manner if possible)

We're at the early steps. I cannot display any unforseen future steps at the moment. So unless you want any further elaborating, we can finish the thread. If so, thanks for participating.

 

[berkeman]

So unless you want any further elaborating, we can finish the thread. If so, thanks for participating.

Thread is closed now.