Travis,

That is a very interesting and informative essay. Though I don't know that it might have better been focused on the contest question of 2012, 'Questioning the Foundations: Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?'

Personally I'm not a professional scientist, but have much natural experience with the laws of basic physics. To that end, I keep pointing out in the...

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Travis,

That is a very interesting and informative essay. Though I don't know that it might have better been focused on the contest question of 2012, 'Questioning the Foundations: Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?'

Personally I'm not a professional scientist, but have much natural experience with the laws of basic physics. To that end, I keep pointing out in the FQXI forums that we are looking at time backwards. It isn't the point of the present moving from past to future, which physics distills to measures of duration, to use in its 'calculations,' but the process by which future becomes past. For example, the earth doesn't travel either Newton's absolute flow, or Einstein's fourth dimension, from yesterday to tomorrow, but rather tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth rotates. Suffice to say, this runs up against that brick wall of academic inertia you are describing, because it seriously undermines some cardinal assumptions, such as spacetime and therefore all the projections arising from it. In fact, it makes time similar to temperature. Time is to temperature what frequency is to amplitude. The rate of change and the level of activity. We think of temperature as a cumulative effect, but it is based on lots of particular actions of specific velocity or amplitude. On the other hand, we think of time as a universal process, but we cannot deduce the absolute measure, only the cumulative effect of lots of particular changes. So we are looking at them from conceptually opposite directions. Like watching the sun move across the sky, the sequencing of events is a function of our singular point of view, when in fact we are just a human molecule, bouncing around the medium.

It was the topic of my entry in that 2012 contest. As for this contest, I also feel there are a lot of conceptual fallacies we have to clear up, before any hope of controlling our worldwide context, so Good Luck!

Regards,

John M

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Dear Mr. Norsen,

Your excellently written essay was one of the most compelling essays of the ones I have read so far, and I do hope that it does well in the competition. May I humbly make a suggestion? Only perfect abstraction is taught in all of academia. Please do not take this as a personal attack upon you because you only teach abstraction perfection. This is how the real Universe is...

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Dear Mr. Norsen,

Your excellently written essay was one of the most compelling essays of the ones I have read so far, and I do hope that it does well in the competition. May I humbly make a suggestion? Only perfect abstraction is taught in all of academia. Please do not take this as a personal attack upon you because you only teach abstraction perfection. This is how the real Universe is occurring, once.

Based only on my observation, I have concluded that all of the stars, all of the planets, all of the asteroids, all of the comets, all of the meteors, all of the specks of astral dust and all real things have one and only one thing in common. Each real thing has a material surface and an attached material sub-surface. A material surface can be internal or external. All material surfaces must travel at the constant “speed” of light. All material sub-surfaces must travel at an inconsistent “speed” that is less than the “speed” of light. It would be physically impossible for light to move as it does not have a surface or a sub-surface. Abstract theory cannot ever have unification. Only reality is unified because there is only one reality.

I use the term “speed” of light merely to make it easier for the reader to understand my theory. Actually light cannot move because it does not have a surface. Light is the only stationary substance in the real Universe. The proof of this is easy to establish. When one looks at an active electrical light, one must notice that all of the light remains inside of the bulb. What does move from the bulb is some form of radiant. The radiant must move at a rate of speed that is less than the “speed” of light, however, when the radiant strikes a surface it achieves the “speed” of light because all surfaces can only travel at the “speed” of light. When it strikes a surface, the radiant resumes being a light, albeit of a lesser magnitude. While it is true that searchlights, spotlights and car headlights seem to cast a beam of light, this might be because the beams strike naturally formed sub-atomic particles prevalent in the atmosphere that actually form a surface.

In the Thomas Young Double Slit Experiment, it was not direct sunlight that passed through the slits. Light from the sun is stationary and it cannot move because light does not have a surface. Radiants emitted from the sun went through the slits and behaved like wave radiants.

Einstein was completely wrong. His abstract theory about how abstract observers “see” abstract events differently is wrong. This is what every real observer sees when they look at a real light. They see that all of the light remains near the source. The reason for that is because light does not have a surface, therefore it cannot move. This happens to real observers whether they are looking at real fabricated lights such as neon, incandescent or LED. This also happens when real observers observe real natural light such as from the real sun or reflected from the real moon, or from a real lightning bolt, or from a real firelight, real candle light, or light from out of a real lightning bug’s bottom.

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Dear Travis,

Wonderful deep essay on the very important issue for the future of Humanity! I totally agree with you:

«Science education thus inadvertantly tends to make science appear authoritarian and dogmatic.»

«Why not bring" real science "into the classroom, from the beginning, so that everyone can learn it, benefit from it, and apply it to the puzzles whose resolutions...

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Dear Travis,

Wonderful deep essay on the very important issue for the future of Humanity! I totally agree with you:

«Science education thus inadvertantly tends to make science appear authoritarian and dogmatic.»

«Why not bring" real science "into the classroom, from the beginning, so that everyone can learn it, benefit from it, and apply it to the puzzles whose resolutions (or lack thereof) will shape humanity's future? One possible way of doing this is to radically revise not just how we teach, but what we teach - in particular to fuse scientific content with scientific method by explicitly teaching the historical discovery process of major scientific conclusions. Such an approach to science education is not a new idea.»

«... we can and should speed and smooth our path to the future by refocusing science education around historical scientific controversies and their resolutions. This would, in effect, crowdsource innovation by putting a greater number of individuals in a much greater position to make the kinds of revolutionary discoveries that will uplift and liberate our descendants.»

«In a world where science education focused on historical controversies, the road to the future would become a freshly-paved multi-lane super-highway, headed West. But to prepare ourselves to travel down that road, we need to do a better job of looking back and learning from the part of the road already traveled. That's why I say: back ... to the future!»

Quite right, the education system should be geared to the training and education of creative individuals. In basic science now "crisis of representation and interpretation", "crisis understanding", deep methodological crisis. And not only in physics, but also mathematics - "the loss of certainty " (Morris Kline). Can also be reduced, as an example, the article Alexander Zenkin SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS.

That search for buried primordial meanings, "return to origins" (Husserl "Origin of Geometry"), can give a solid foundation of basic science. In education needs a large Revolution corresponding to the Information era, but not "reform". So, right : «back ... to the future!»

It's time. We start the path. The New Era and a New Generation demanded action.

I invite you to my essay "Protogeometer: Falling Into Future".

I wish you good luck!

All the Best,

Vladimir

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Travis,

Having a master's degree in History of Science, and having taught introductory astrophysics with a strong historical approach over the past 20 years, I found your essay particularly interesting. The two case studies that you present, Ptolemy vs Copernicus and Dalton vs Avogadro, are well chosen, and well explained.

To teach a controversy well, to go beyond just saying "there...

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Travis,

Having a master's degree in History of Science, and having taught introductory astrophysics with a strong historical approach over the past 20 years, I found your essay particularly interesting. The two case studies that you present, Ptolemy vs Copernicus and Dalton vs Avogadro, are well chosen, and well explained.

To teach a controversy well, to go beyond just saying "there was a controversy and it was resolved", you need to go into the details: for example, as you indicate, you need to appreciate the fact that, in Ptolemy's theory, the motion of each planet on its major epicycle is "locked" to the Sun, a fact that was "pointing" toward Copernicus' solution that the planets revolve around the Sun.

And that's where it gets... challenging. Even though I teach to fairly bright and motivated students that want to pursue careers in science, I have found that it is difficult to motivate them to care about the subtle nuances that are critical to fully appreciate scientific controversies. Most students want ready made answers, so they can "pass the test" and get their diploma. They believe it is already so much work to get "up to date" with current science, that they shouldn't have to be forced to ponder the meanders of history.

Of course, it doesn't mean we must give up on using history of science as a way to teach science, but it explains why this approach is not more widespread. On the bright side, there is a tendency in the teaching world to shift the focus from "rote" knowledge to "learning how to learn", and the teaching of science through scientific controversies fits well with this new way of doing things.

In my essay, I have taken a "complementary" approach to yours. I propose that we can teach science better by "projecting into the future" -- by focusing on the issues that are the most important to the future of humanity: I call this approach the Futurocentric Education Initiative. But, as I say in my essay, it does not mean that history is eliminated: if you can motivate a student to acquire skills and knowledge that is important to the future, you can then explain the importance of knowing about the past aspects of this subject -- and I think that scientific controversies offer invaluable learning opportunities in that respect.

I have looked at all the essays, and read more than half of them from start to finish. Your essay is part of the short list that I hope will make it to the finals, and I have rated it accordingly. If you have time to look at my essay, rate it and comment on it, it would be quite appreciated.

Good luck in the contest!

Marc

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Hi Travis, I enjoyed reading your essay.

I was subjected to Nuffield physics as a child. Quote: "learning for understanding in a course of practical exploration, leading to class discussion, leading in turn to more experimenting and so on, with a constant interplay between class and teacher, maintained by a sense of purpose and curiosity'. The revisers of the course identified three main...

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Hi Travis, I enjoyed reading your essay.

I was subjected to Nuffield physics as a child. Quote: "learning for understanding in a course of practical exploration, leading to class discussion, leading in turn to more experimenting and so on, with a constant interplay between class and teacher, maintained by a sense of purpose and curiosity'. The revisers of the course identified three main components of teaching for understanding: * Experiments - pupils' own experimenting to give them experience of scientific work;* Questions - essential learning aids to encourage thinking;* Models and theory - a progressive discussion to give intellectual satisfaction."National STEM centre, Nuffield physics

It sounds much better on paper than in the classroom.I couldn't really see the point of getting apparatus out or finding a bench of apparatus, spending a lesson assembling it- not knowing what we were supposed to be doing with it because we were meant to be constructing our own experiment, then packing it all away again. Followed by writing up a table of numbers, often from someone else's experiment or the teacher's if no one had got numbers from their apparatus. I would much rather have been told what it was all about.

I think your suggestion of learning about the historical discoveries sounds more exciting in an essay than having to endure it as a compulsory lesson. I think what is required is engaging teachers who can impart the passion of exploration and the excitement of discovery, which might encourage students to pursue science or retain a lifelong interest. Crowd-sourcing is a good idea but you may be overstating matters when you say "In a world where science education focused on historical controversies, the road to the future would become a freshly-paved multi-lane super-highway, headed West.

Unfortunately to head west also has another meaning, Quote "If something goes west, it is lost, damaged, or spoiled in some way:"Cambridge Dictionaries online.

Good luck, Georgina

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