Daily Archives: October 11, 2008

My Loyalty is For Sale

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I notice that Donors Choose is being championed by some physics-y blogs, and others are supporting those blogs rather than compete and dilute the pool.

My endorsement is up for grabs. Convince me whom I should choose. Bribe me.

Here are the ones I’ve seen with Donors Choose posts

Uncertain Principles
The Quantum Pontiff
Cosmic Variance

(CV starts off with a handicap after Sean got me into a bit of trouble with Allyson)

What am I bid, what persuasion can be offered, for turning an entry in the above list into a hyperlink?

A Deceptively Difficult Question

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From one of my adopters:

[W]hat is the easies part of Physics

My reply:

That’s actually a tough one to answer, since the classes you take are usually adjusted to be challenging — you get “easy” physics at the start, but things aren’t easy when you don’t understand them. And even though classes you take later on are harder, it’s not really as hard as having to learn it “cold,” because you have had the earlier classes. Similar to almost anything you do — it gets easier with practice, and that lets you try more difficult challenges.

So beginning physics, like kinematics, is probably the easiest, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t demanding.

——

Something to add to this, pointed out in the link in my previous post:
The beginning physics is made more difficult because students tend to have misconceptions that have to be corrected. While the later physics is more conceptually difficult, the odds are better that you start with a clean(er) slate.