Fandom + Philanthropy + Running

 

What does one do if one needs motivation to get into shape, is a fan of Doctor Who, is socially isolated because of a world-wide pandemic, and is ready to give to charity?

Why, Fantropy's Whovian Running Club of course! Perfect for a giving nerd during a pandemic.  You run on your own, in your own time, on the honor system.  Most of your race 'fee' goes to a charity and you get one of these cool medals in the mail (that's my collection thus far above).

Many thanks to my colleague KC for keeping me going!

Rebranding

As last year's seniors enter their colleges this fall, it provides the classic opportunity to rebrand themselves. Not that people need to, but it is a rare opportunity in life to attempt some kind of wholesale change.  Most change is incremental.

Here you can see examples of both:

AP Physics 1 & 2 splitting into AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2.  Next, a new edition with substantial updates for both (you can see remnants of this with all the sticky notes still on my old copies).  

Under those books is the recently published Physics the Easy Way.  Barrons has rebranded this entire line of books to "360 Study Guides".  I joked that I wanted to email my editor that I would have preferred "2 Pi Study Guides" but not everyone appreciates nerd humor.

Something old, something new; something not fluorescing, something digital emitting

 In the back room (aka the 'scary room'), there is an array of these very old, institutional feeling fluorescent fixtures: 

As the bulbs fail, I can't bear to replace them with more fluorescent bulbs (not to mention I don't like the fixtures in the first place).  Then, walking through Costco, I noticed some LED panels on sale.  On a whim, I bought one which then force me to do the following:

-take down the old fluorescent fixture

-wire in the new LED panel

-attach the new panel to some cross-beams of my own design (home depot excursion required)

-break off the old fixture's side panels and glue them to the new one

The problem is that, now, I dislike the old fixtures even more in contrast:  When I turn on the light switch, the new light comes on instantly and rains down lovely photons concerted from electricity just about as efficiently as possible.  Meanwhile, the old ones sputter on (or not) and wheeze down some inefficient yellow dominated photons...

As much wood as a wood chuck could chuck

Years ago, we had some trees cut down. These were 100 year old oaks that were easily over 60 feet tall.  I toyed with the idea of them leaving the wood for me to cut up into firewood for our wood stove.  The guy talked me out of it by mentioning how much wood it would be.  "About 6 or 7 cords of wood all at once!" he said.  Ever since, I've wondered if I made the right decision.  Especially around this time of year when I often order seasoned firewood ahead of the winter season.

Late last spring, a medium sized tree fell into my father-in-law's backyard:

We chain sawed it into bite sized chunks and I brought them back to my place over the course of several visits:

Over the summer, I've axed my way though the pieces and it wound up being about 1/2 a cord:

   

I guess maybe I do feel better about that decision years ago even if I don't think I'll order any additional firewood for this winter...

Newton's Third Law Tells the Whole Story

 When I was a student and I encountered Newton's Third Law, I did like most of my students do today: "Interesting, okay - but not too useful in problem solving so..."

In case you forgot, it's the one that goes "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".  Probably one of the more misleading statements in basic physics since it engenders many incorrect schemas in the reader's mind.  You can confirm this by doing a tour of the internet looking for examples of Newton's Third Law and I have found it to be commonly misrepresented ("A rocket first pushes down on the ground so it can then go upwards." Ugh, there is so much wrong with that statement, don't get me started.)

In class, I will usually draw something like this:

And then I will say "See, Newton's Third Law is really a statement about what forces are:  They arise from two objects interacting in some way." And then I mumble and fade away with "It's really a deep philosophical statement about the nature of reality."

The thing is, modern physics has really just continued to reinforce this idea that properties of objects and the nature of reality itself is all about the interactions between objects rather than the objects themselves.  Your chemistry teacher couldn't teach you how to visualize an electron because there really is nothing to visualize other than its interactions - which is exactly what you learn in chemistry!

Turns out Newton's first law assumes a certain point of view and Newton's second law assumed constant mass and that same, special point of view.  So even though they get the limelight, it's really the humble Third Law that is indicating something fundamental.

So get on out of here, you flashy first and second laws... time to give proper respect to the noble Third Law.  

Units and Art

 I love me some intersectionality.  Especially that of Art & Science !

Photographer Greg White has composed seven photos for the seven base units of the metric system (distance, mass, time, brightness, temperature, current, amount of microscopic items to scale up to macroscopic).  To make an aesthetic and informative single shot about science is an amazing accomplishment.  Hats off! (I want to order a set of seven pictures with accompanying explainers to put up in my classroom, but no one has created that yet. Hmm...)

Check out the complete collect at Mr. White's website, but here is one exemplar:

Speed of Light Determines distance

This art comes at timely point in the evolution of metrology as these seven base units (upon which all other units and therefore, measurement, are based) are no longer defined by arbitrary templates created by humans.  They are, instead, now completely determined by the fundamental constants that we find in nature (e.g. Speed of light, Planck's Constant, Avogadro's number). Seven constant of nature for seven base units of measurement:  

https://www.nist.gov/si-redefinition/meet-constants

(compare to 

Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Athletes 'Choking', Stereotype Threat, and Laurie Anderson

I have found modern psychology's model of our two modes of thinking profoundly informative (one automatic, reflexive and fast; the other slow, reflective, and thorough) in many ways.

Years ago, I did a presentation to the faculty on stereotype threat (simply knowing that others might pre-judging you because of race or gender can handicap your performance).

Recently, I heard part of a piece on the radio about athletes choking under pressure and it all came together for me:  these are all manifestation of the same thing!  When you should be doing something reflexively ('fast' thinking) but some extra awareness throws you into a meta state (thinking 'slow'), you get all messed up.  These two mental modes are at their best in an "OR" state rather than an "AND" state.

I was trying to put all these ideas together and I could hear Laurie Anderson singing "Baby Doll" to me from 1989 (From her awesome Strange Angels album):

"I don't know about your brain-

But mine is really bossy

...

And then I hear this voice

Comin from the back of my head

Yep! It's my brain again

And when my brain talks to me, he says:

..."

Often I love listening to my brain talk to me.  But sometimes, I wish my brain would just make up his mind!