- #1
steve lawson
I would categorize myself as a learning disordered visual genius. I can visualize up the wazoo [ie thought experiments], but have a hard time fixing symbolic information in my long term memory. I also don't do well in a classroom environment. I would need the ability to pause the teacher.
My mind tends to fixate on aspects of a lecture, and my attention wanders off in pursuit of greater meaning, with a romp through implications and connections, resulting, usually, in an amassing of questions that require attention before any further "learning" can occur.
The professor introduces quantum energy levels in an atom, and ties that to colors of light emitted, and my mind is off. Could I, possibly compute these frequencies? Maybe I can write a program to do so. It works for Hydrogen, but how to do it for the more complex elements... could I mathematically predict the colors emitted, say, by a Helium-Neon laser, or the excited mercury gas in a fluorescent tube?... wait...what did I miss? [true story]
Lectures pique my imagination, thus they need to be discussions, rather than lectures. Bingo! This forum!
I'm more of an armchair Physics/Astrophysics/Science dabbler. Electronics and embedded design are more my forte--and even that, I learned, mostly, on my own. I gave up on traditional education, but all my life I've puzzled over Gravity, Electromagnetism, Space-Time, and their relationships. I have ideas--mostly uninformed by math...or even a competent grasp of physics. It's a plaything for me. Hopefully that's acceptable, here.
In fact, I found my way here because, after verifying my belief that gravitational force is nullified at the center of a planet, I wondered if gravitational time dilation still occurred there. Not only did I get a great answer, it informed a more intuitive [visual] solution.
My mind tends to fixate on aspects of a lecture, and my attention wanders off in pursuit of greater meaning, with a romp through implications and connections, resulting, usually, in an amassing of questions that require attention before any further "learning" can occur.
The professor introduces quantum energy levels in an atom, and ties that to colors of light emitted, and my mind is off. Could I, possibly compute these frequencies? Maybe I can write a program to do so. It works for Hydrogen, but how to do it for the more complex elements... could I mathematically predict the colors emitted, say, by a Helium-Neon laser, or the excited mercury gas in a fluorescent tube?... wait...what did I miss? [true story]
Lectures pique my imagination, thus they need to be discussions, rather than lectures. Bingo! This forum!
I'm more of an armchair Physics/Astrophysics/Science dabbler. Electronics and embedded design are more my forte--and even that, I learned, mostly, on my own. I gave up on traditional education, but all my life I've puzzled over Gravity, Electromagnetism, Space-Time, and their relationships. I have ideas--mostly uninformed by math...or even a competent grasp of physics. It's a plaything for me. Hopefully that's acceptable, here.
In fact, I found my way here because, after verifying my belief that gravitational force is nullified at the center of a planet, I wondered if gravitational time dilation still occurred there. Not only did I get a great answer, it informed a more intuitive [visual] solution.
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