Physics education research, electronic materials, and the musings of Christopher Moore, Ph.D.
Oct 24th, 2004
A while back I briefly discussed some of the problems I had teaching in the public school system here. I’d like to broaden the focus today and talk about how the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) not only hurt me, but is hurting science. Here’s what the blogsphere has to say about NCLB: The [...]
Oct 19th, 2004
I just finished watching an episode of the West Wing. The ending reminded me of why I love science and why I love spreading that love via teaching. It reminded me of how much courage it takes to try, even when you will probably fail. In the beginning of the episode, the President is practicing [...]
Oct 15th, 2004
The successful flight of Burt Rutan’s SpaceShipOne not only won the Ansari X-prize, but it also set off a flurry of activity in the fledgling space tourism industy. As I reported here, Richard Branson already has paying customers lined up to be the first space tourists hitching a ride on a non-governmental rocket. That’s exciting [...]
Oct 12th, 2004
I used to teach high school physics in a public school. I was pretty good at it too. During my tenure I sent more students into college physics programs than any teacher before me. My students chalked up higher scores on standardized physics tests (such as Advanced Placement) than any previous. I began an online [...]
Oct 10th, 2004
The rover Opportunity discovered more evidence of a watery past for the Marsian surface. For more see this article. Data sent back by Opportunity suggests an area known as the Meridiani Planum, was drenched with water a second time, after an impact excavated a huge crater. The rover project’s main mission has been to discover [...]
Oct 7th, 2004
Check this out: I’ll have this ready to go on the forums in no time! UPDATE: The forums on ilovephysics.com now support LaTeX. Just slip whatever LaTeX code you want between [tex] … [/tex] tags.
Oct 6th, 2004
If you’ve been watching, then you have noticed how ilovephysics.com is changing. Here is an update on what I am doing and what has been done. Forums: The forums are completely operational, so begin posting. I have chosen a simple PHP forum that uses a MySQL database. I decided against phpBB do to its bloat [...]
Oct 5th, 2004
The recipients of the 2004 Nobel prize in physics have been announced. Read the AP report here. Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczeck won the 2004 Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their exploration of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus. So what did these guys do? [...]