Consider the following, seemingly simple question: how many times does the minute hand overlap the hour hand on an analog clock? Well, the rotation rates are just for the minute hand, and for the hour hand. The minute hand moves 12 times as fast. I could simply write down the angular position of the hands …
Category Archive: Science
Oct 03 2008
Bill Maher is not the spokesman we need
Thomas Henry Huxley was Charles Darwin's public face in the 19th century. He acted as the public advocate for evolution, engaging in a well publicized debate with the English bishop Samuel Wilberforce. Huxley was a prominent biologist, a scientist and great thinker, open to new ideas, though skeptical, and, so far as I am aware, …
Aug 13 2008
A cool week for science
Fundamental Physics: The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox is taught in every intro quantum mechanics class. It goes something like this: Suppose you have an event (like an electron and a positron annihilating) which emits two photons that travel in opposite directions (required for conservation of momentum). The principle theory of QM (Heisenberg interpretation) is that the spin …
Sep 09 2007
Dawkins' TV Show
Highly recommended is Richard Dawkins' documentary on Channel4 called "Enemies of Reason", which is available on Google Video Part 1 Part 2 Dawkins, I would say, practices a bit more patience than I am used to seeing him display. Additionally, the camera work is rather striking for a documentary produced for television. I wonder if …
May 09 2007
Seminar notes: On teaching physics
Several lessons learned from Randall Knight: Students fail to learn mechanics from "physics 101" type classes for some identifiable reasons. For one thing, they come in with extensive phenomenological knowledge, but their understanding of it is extremely flawed. A student has ridden a bike at one time or another in his life, and he knows …