This list is so Garrulous

[Bill Campbell]

On Wed, Mar 03, 2010, David A. Bandel wrote:
>On Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 09:17, Yu Meng Chong <chongym at cymulacrum.net> wrote:
>>
>> ----- "David A. Bandel" <david.bandel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Anyway ... no, between preparing to teach classes (at least not
>>> physics classes this year),
>>
>> Wow! You teach Physics? That's a tough subject to teach.
>
>Sometimes.  What I enjoy teaching is not the physics that usually
>freaks folks out so they never want to hear about it again.  Physics
>is a _lot_ of fun.  And I usually teach an optional preliminary course
>that runs through the basics of energy to gravity to electromagnetics
>to space/time and winding up with Einstein's General and Special
>Theories of Relativity (which explains rest mass, why light bends
>around gravity wells, time dilation, the ultimate speed limit -- light
>-- etc.).

Unfortunately the vast majority of people who graduate from
government schools in the U.S. are basically ignorant of basic 
math and science, which is not entirely accidental as it keeps
them from understanding the lies promulgated by the politicians
and banksters.

If they understood the basics like the law of conservation of
enegy, and simple thermodynamics, they could see the fallacies
behind ``clean'' electric cars (the pollution's at the other end
of the wire and there are significant losses every time energy is
converted from one form to another).  As Heinlein said, TANSTAAFL.

They might look at Al Gore's graph of temperature and CO2 levels,
and see that the CO2 level follows temperate, increasing after
temperature rises, and falling after it falls.  Simple chemistry
explains that rising temperatures causes water to release CO2
into the atmosphere, and vice-versa, CO2 is plant food, not a
pollutant.

...
>What I don't like to teach is the Ministry of Education mandated
>drivel designed to discourage anyone from wanting to enter one of
>todays most exciting and rapidly advancing fields.  Heck, we only just
>learned that dark energy and dark mass comprise 94% of the universe,
>and haven't yet figured out what they are.  That's a lot of "stuff" to
>be researching.  Wouldn't mind seeing a periodic table of dark matter
>elements.  That would be weird.

Physics has changed quite a bit since I was an undergraduate
Math and Physics major at Johns Hopkins 45 years ago, at least
when it gets down into the subatomic particles and the associate
mathematical models.  I thought I was doing well to understand
the Schroedinger equations and similar stuff, but I don't have a
clue about string theory and such.

Bill
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