What I learned on the Mayflower 2

Took the kids and some out of town visitors to Plimoth plantation and the re-creation of the Mayflower (the Mayflower 2).  While onboard, one particularly good actor/guide was in character as a seaman from the 1600's and he explained to us that the modern day unit of time of seconds and minutes came first from navigating distance on the globe. Now, I have been telling students for years about the Babylonians and their base 60 numbering system and how all the units of time come from astronomy, but this little gem escaped me.

The 360 degree circle that a line of latitude or longitude is divided into was not accurate enough, so Ptolemy subdivided each degree into partes minutae primae which were further subdivided into  partes minutae secundae! Argh!  How could I have never noticed that seconds are the second partition and that minutes are related to minutiae ??  Also, I had assumed that the division of time into minutes and seconds were the inspiration for divvying up of degrees in an angle into the same units when it was precisely the opposite!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-time-division-days-hours-minutes/

from http://www.edc.uri.edu/nrs/classes/nrs409509/Lectures/4MapBasics/Map_Basics.htm

Former student and I

Ilya J. was in the very first class I ever taught.  He took physics as a Junior at Swampscott and then AP Physics as a senior.  He's now doing engineering work at SpaceX in LA where we visited during a family vacation.  Note Sebastien photo bombing!

He reminded me that I wasn't even married when I started and I reminded him that I didn't know what I was doing. He was kind and said "It was pretty theoretical..."

Well Done, Gentlemen

My only gripe is the clues in the background for those who don't get the science references... Should let those scientific illiterates wallow in the ignorance...

Presbyopia

Something funny happened on my way to a monocle...I got old. I really noticed this when reading out the names at last spring's award ceremonies - turns out when the paper you're reading is on a podium, you can't just extend your arms to bring everything into focus...

Am I Buying a Fish or Teaching Myself to Fish?

My friend, GG, would be proud.  Last year I paid a chimney sweep a ton of money to sweep out all the chimneys (probably hadn't been done in 5 years).  I watched him carefully, bought myself a brush for $25 and did the wood stove chimney myself this year.

Inspired by this, when Drano didn't clear up the slow draining shower this week, I ran to home depot and bought a $15 auger and snaked that pipe out myself.

Now, what I'm not telling you about is the burst pipe and the disassembled sink that have yet to be fixed, but 2 out of 4 ain't bad, right? Oh, and the yard is over-run with weeds.  Let's focus on the positive, people!

Why exactly is home ownership part of the American Dream, again?

The stormtrooper-fruit link

I just read a science fiction book where the protagonist has a genetic anomaly that makes her unique.  The details aren't important but some aliens at one point clone her so they can use the clones (and their abilities) to their own ends.

How bizarre, no?

No.

I think that almost all of the fruit we eat have been grafted from a single plant from the past that was uniquely tasty or uniquely resistant to disease.  We keep grafting or budding over and over and raising these genetically identical fruit.  Clones, actually.

Next time you are in the supermarket look at all those bananas and think about that...

Fruit Fish-stick Train

The five year old mind is a wonder...
(of course he ate it afterwards!)

2 fish stick base with half strawberry, blueberries, and grapes

Tomatoes, Swimming, and Learning

I transferred some tomatoes that we'd grown from seeds to the backyard.  They sat there without growing for what seemed like weeks.  Now, all of a sudden, they've grown a couple of feet in the past couple of weeks!

Isabelle has been taking swim lessons on and off for years.  Now, this week, all of a sudden, she is breathing to the side, learning to dive, and just generally actually starting to swim.

"Mr. Rideout - I don't get it." "Mr. Rideout, this is too hard!" and then, at the end of the year, "Oh, I really thought that stuff we did at the beginning of the year was easy!"

I'm told the tomatoes are working on their roots, out of sight, underground for those first couple of weeks.  Then, when they're ready with their root structure, they shoot up above ground.  Is this why teaching and learning is so hard?  So much unrewarding (for both student and teacher) laying down of roots?

My son may be a muppet

Chongers did his piano recital first and this video picks up with him hopping off the stage.  Then Isabelle performs (very nicely!), but Sebastien is the star of the show:

http://www.chrislyonsphotography.com/misslily/h323b659e#h323b659e

One Note to Bind Them All

I've been teaching about standing waves and their connection to music for years. But I recently discovered I haven't been making the connection explicit enough.  For instance, in a recent class when I remarked "See, that relationship between math and music is for real!", a student then responded "You mean the rhythm?"  But I was talking about pitch!

For standing waves:

Even though a note is identified by the fundamental frequency (the largest wave pictured above), it will have many higher harmonics buried within.  It is this distribution of higher harmonics (all obeying the mathematical relationship: Frequency of higher harmonic = N * Frequency of the fundamental), that give a musical note its timbre or unique sound.  It allows us to distinguish a middle A played on trumpet from the same note played on a piano.

Let's run some numbers.  If a string tuned to be a very low pitched "A" is plucked it will vibrate at all of the following frequencies:

N	Frequency
1	55
2	110
3	165
4	220
5	275
6	330
7	385
8	440
9	495
10	550

Compare this to the frequency of musical notes:

 Note that every octave is a frequency doubling.  So our low pitched A string actually contains all of the higher octaves within (N=2, N=4, N=8). What about the other harmonics? N=3, N= 6 are both the note "E".  A and E are perfect "fifths". Also, the N=5 is close to  C#.  Wait a sec!  A- C# - E; isn't that the A major chord??

Let's do another.  Take a string tuned to a low "C".  The first few harmonics would be:

N	Frequency
1	65.406
2	130.812
3	196.218
4	261.624
5	327.03
6	392.436
7	457.842
8	523.248
9	588.654
10	654.06

 N= 3 is a "G", N=5 is very close to "E"  C-E-G:  the classic C major chord!

The complete major chord is already contained within the first note and relationship between the musical notes is, just like everything in this universe, all about the physics!

Thanks to student KO for staying after and helping me investigate the perfect 5th relationship between the tuning fork held far from the ear and then close to the ear which led to this post.



 

Powers of Two

  Friday afternoon, my students are taking a test and I check my school email.  The Tech department sent out a URL for us to consider blocking in our classroom because the students are playing some kind of addictive game.
  You know what I'm thinking at this point, right?  I promptly surf over to the site and start playing the game.  Gotta check out what the student are up to these days, right?

Do you think the exams were graded super-fast? Well, I had an important weekend project...

Saturday Conversation at the Rideouts

Isabelle (2nd grade):  "Daddy, tell me again about the multiverses and how there could be other universes?"
Me: "Well, everything we can currently or will ever be able to see is the Universe, but there are (or could be) other universes out there but we'll never have any evidence for it."
Isabelle: "Then it's not really science, is it?  It's just an idea."
Me: "True, but the idea of multiverses is consistent with the science we do know."
Isabelle: "But why would you say we'll never be able to see something far away? If we wait long enough, won't the light eventually get here?"
Me: "Good point, but the universe is expanding so the distant objects are actually getting more distant all the time"
Isabelle: "But the light it emits now, before it moves away, will still get to us eventually, right?"
Me (starting to sweat): "Yes it seems that way, but it's actually the space between us that is expanding and so that makes it hard for the light to get to us."
Isabelle: "Expanding faster than the speed of light?  I don't understand that"
Me: "Um, yes, well, if the object is really far away then there is a lot of space and every piece of it is expanding, then the object could actually be moving away from us faster than the speed of light."
Isabelle: "But the light should still get to us!"
Me: "But the light is traveling through space that is expanding too, so it's like the light is running towards us while the floor itself is getting bigger and it's as if the light is running in place."
Isabelle: "I don't get it"
Me: "Me neither."(thinking: maybe I shouldn't show her any more episodes of Cosmos)

Those Who Can't Do...

... Teach.

I once said this to a math teacher when I was a high school student.  I hope he knows that I am now a teacher and savoring the irony.  I didn't mean it maliciously, but I did say it.  I've been thinking about that moment a lot recently.

Just the other day I said to a colleague only partly in jest, "I used to have such a high aspirations for myself - now look at me!"  He looked at me a bit incredulously and said "What could be more important than the work you do now?"  I guess part of me agrees but another part of me can't help but compare where I am now to where I thought I would be so long ago (perhaps a writer, a scientist, or, better yet, both!).

Validation comes in many forms but one of the best is the years-later thank you.  I've been teaching for 12 years now which means that my former students are doing all kinds of things.  Some are research scientists, some are switching careers or going back to school, some have even become (*gulp*) physics teachers.  One of the many perks of this great job is when you get an email, letter, or shout out of some kind from a former student who is now an adult and feels that I had some positive influence way back when.  (I'd like to give a special shout-out to DK who recently wrote a really great story/letter to me that got me thinking about this stuff.)  Clearly these people are delusional, but I take it all at face value and, puffing out my chest, turn back into the (classroom) fray to push back the tides of darkness.

Funny how life is full of twists and turns.  I never even considered teaching as a career until I was in my 30's.  Turns out to be the job I've enjoyed the most and, just maybe, the most important one I could have aspired to...

Someday when I grow up, maybe I'll send a shout out back to my former teachers, I bet they'd like that!

Hugs, Kisses, and the Melting Pot

Valentine's Day and we started arguing about the "XOXO" signature.  Which one is for the hug and which one is for the kiss?  Sebastien and I voted for the "X" meaning hug while Irene and Isabelle were pretty confident the "O" was for hugs...

Turns out we're all right!  The X's come from a combination of illiterate people signing by "making their mark" and, if you were an early Christian, kissing the "X" as a symbol for Christ as a sign of sincerity.  However, the "O" came about as a substitute for the "X" when Jewish people arriving in America needed to make their mark and the cross just didn't seem to be appropriate...

So, feel extra proud to be an American next time you decode or write an "XOXO" at the end of a note or text!  It takes a melting pot to bring together such a strange thing...

Statues and Dinosaurs

While at the Museum of Fine Art co-chaperoning the trip with my buddy E.D., I found myself thinking about dinosaurs.  You see, our docent was making a big deal about the recent discovery that all these plain, classic white statues from antiquity were actually painted back in the day.  The statues were colorful and had a different look and feel than the austere, pristine feeling we associate with the statues as they have weathered through time. 

Growing up, not only did we think all statues were an unadulterated white, but we also thought dinosaurs had thick, scaly, leather-like skin.  However, just as modern science has discovered the microscopic remnants of paint on the surface of statues, so has DNA analysis shown that dinosaurs are more related to birds than lizards.  So, their surfaces and look must be re-imagined as well in the 21st century.


Way to go, Science - always making me rethink my understanding of the universe!