Accelerated Physics
12 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 3 years ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingThis is a podcast about learning and teaching physics, from someone who's been in the trenches for almost two decades. We'll also discuss how to relate the classroom to big ideas in contemporary research: like what circuits have to do with quantum mechanics, how special relativity impacts us - literally every day - and how the Doppler effect can teach us about the earliest moments - and the farthest reaches - of our universe.
Whether you’re a student or an instructor, you’ll find a wealth of ideas both practical and inspirational. Here at the Pasayten Institute, we’re convinced that like photons, perspectives should be exchanged, and often!
Join the discussion! Drop us a line: [email protected]. We can't wait to talk shop with you.
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Episodes
Physics Friday: g-2, STEAM and Ingenuity on Mars
April 16, 2021 20:01 - 8 minutes - 11.2 MBPhysics Friday Muon g-2 The experiment webpage, and some extra videos and links to the Seminar can be found here. STEAM > STEM Brandi's @sciartbro instagram account Arts at Cern, and their instagram account. The College of William and Mary's Virtual Mural Conservation Challenge. Toni Feder's piece in Physics Today The Martian Helicopter Check out Nasa's website for All things Ingenuity. Thanks for checking us out! The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten ...
Teaching Strategies : Good and Bad ways to Grade Exams
April 13, 2021 23:13 - 11 minutes - 16.2 MBLessons Learned in Grading 1. Grading in groups builds community. 2. Get it done. ASAP. For your own sanity and for closing the feedback loop faster. 3. Go birds eye first: student errors typically fall into equivalence classes. Thanks for checking us out! The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mission is to build and share physics knowledge, without barriers. This podcast aims to serve both students and teachers of physics by injecting ide...
Learning Strategies : Think like a Physicist with... Benzene?
April 12, 2021 22:46 - 9 minutes - 13 MBThink like a Physicist? Physicists have their own culture, and part of that culture is a kind of collective, self reflection. One of the most common targets? Creative problem solving. If you want to see a physicist student panic, as them to model the electron configuration of a benzene ring. As undergraduates spend weeks studying the electron configuration of the hydrogen atom in a quantum mechanics course. Weeks. And that’s just ONE atom. How are you going to model an entire, supe...
Physics Friday 2: Some physics new from the week that was!
April 09, 2021 13:00 - 10 minutes - 14.7 MBPhysics Friday Majorana Particles : The neutrino may well be a Majorana fermion, experiments are currently underway. In condensed matter, many folks are hot on the trail of a quasi Majorana fermion. A recent claimed observation has been retracted. Science is messy. Check out Thomas Lewton's article on the subject. Xenobots : Check out Doug Blackiston’s research website on xenobots, and Philip Ball’s recent piece in Quanta. The Coma Cluster : Bruce McClure has a write up in EarthS...
Big Ideas : Spin in Classical and Quantum Mechanics
April 07, 2021 12:22 - 13 minutes - 19.1 MBAngular Momentum, Magnetic Dipoles and Quantized Spin We take ideas in first year physics: angular momentum and current loops, and describe to what extent they can model the magnetic dipole moment of elementary particles, and more generally, the idea of quantized spin. Also. Read Nobel laureate Dudley Hershbach's fun account of replicating the Stern-Gerlach experiment. Thanks for checking us out! The Accelerated Physics Podcast is a production of the Pasayten Institute, whose mis...
Teaching Strategies : The open-homework quiz
April 06, 2021 13:00 - 6 minutes - 8.36 MBIncentive homework without having to grade it Last week we discussed using quizzes as a poll for student’s comprehension of the material. This week, we’re turning that idea on its head. Let’s discuss the use of quizzes to motivate students to LEARN the material. Compulsory homework motivates students to only do problems once. And some problems are probably worth doing multiple times.It’s self-defeating all around. So how do you get the notoriously short-time-horizon motivated high s...
Learning Strategies : Samir's rule of three : 3 times without looking
April 05, 2021 19:52 - 8 minutes - 11.5 MBTesting your Deliberate Practice The most impactful advice for learning math and science I ever receive came - unsurprisingly - in a physics class. It was an electrodynamics class. It’s heavy subject full of complicated equations, solutions and derivations. Even for an advanced class, the material was so thick and so dense that even the professor felt it necessary to share some studying tips. "Do the derivation three times without looking at your notes. When you can accomplish that...
Physics Friday : Some physics new from the week that was!
April 02, 2021 12:00 - 11 minutes - 15.9 MBPhysics Friday The LHCb experiment reports on new tension with the Standard Model of Particle Physics. Check out our write up on this issue. Also check out our rant about why this absolutely is NOT a discovery or sighting of any new particle. The Glashow Resonance is observed by the IceCube Neutrino experiment. We wrote about this last week on our blog, check the links to the relevant info there. Superconducting skyrmions are observed in two-layers of graphene. We also wrote a sum...
Big Ideas : Special Relativity and Proxima Centauri C
March 31, 2021 12:00 - 8 minutes - 11.1 MBApplied Special Relativity Today we explore the classic "Astronaut's Twin" paradox from the time dilation effects of Special Relativity, and comment on how it really makes the prospect of an interstellar civilization impractical. In more practical terms, we apply the same ideas to the effects of cosmogenic muons - those particles raining down upon us from the upper atmosphere. For more on Proxima Centauri C, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri_c Check out our video on ...
Teaching Strategies : Polling with Quizzes
March 30, 2021 12:00 - 8 minutes - 12.2 MBPolling with Quizzes The usual grading cycle of weekly homework and exams can delay feedback to the instructor by well over two weeks. Assessing student understanding with low stakes quizzes can both catalyze learning and serve as a classroom poll of understanding. When work is to be shown, usually student mistakes fall into definite patterns. You can quickly sort the quizzes and grade on those equivalence classes. Since they're low stakes anyway, detailed grading rubrics like you...
Learning Strategies: Training the Square Root of 25
March 29, 2021 12:00 - 8 minutes - 11.8 MBLearning as Training Today I'll relate one of my first "ah ha!" moments of teaching mathematics, where the prescriptive instincts of a traditional education in math fails students. There’s a strong parallel between athletic training and studying mathematics- or really any kind of technical skill: be it professional cooking or coding. Grinding repetition. Constant drilling. You have to be able to perform the same action, with precision, at a moments notice, which means doing it ov...
Trailer : Introducing Accelerated Physics
March 19, 2021 15:52 - 3 minutes - 4.21 MBSean here from the Pasayten Institute. If you haven’t heard us, we’re an organization devoted to development of physics knowledge, for everyone, without barriers. In our new Accelerated Physics podcast, we are aiming specifically to discuss matters of learning and teaching physics. I’ve taught math and physics and facilitated that learning professionally at almost every level: from third grade arithmetic to graduate mathematical methods. The bulk of it, though, has been directed at...