Great Quote on Intelligence from Mindset

I think intelligence is something you have to work for ... it isn't just given to you. Most kids, if they're not sure of an answer, will not raise their hand to answer the question. But what I usually do is raise my hand, because if I'm wrong, then my mistake will be corrected. Or I will raise my hand and say, 'How would this be solved?' or 'I don't get this, can you help me?' Just by doing that I'm increasing my intelligence." -- 7th grade girl.

Brian Cox on Stephen Colbert

This is great. Stephen Colbert takes on the LHC, and then he interviews Brian Cox, rockstar physcist.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Big Bang Theory
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Religion

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Brian Cox
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Religion

Wednesday Summary

Today in class we finished up on the quote and began on a class lab. To start, we measured out the force of a spring stretched out to .5m. This turned out to be 1 Newton. Using logic, and then proving it with a force measurer, we determined that 2 springs had a force of 2 Newtons. Then we measured the acceleration of the cart when the cart had the two different forces acting on it. (Three times averaged for accuracy) The average acceleration of the cart with one spring pulling was .23 m/s^2 with two springs .52 m/s^2. Then Mr. Burk set the two springs (1 N each) to pull on the cart at opposing, 22.5 degree angles. He asked us what the net force would be. Almost unanimously, the class the decided 2 N. 1+1=2 right? (The dissenters couldn't say why not) Since the 2 N force would be the same as the acceleration in the 2 spring measurement. However, when we measured the acceleration, we found it to be about .33 m/s^2, not the .52 we expected. The reason was because the net force in the direction we were measuring wasn't 2 N. We used a ratio to prove this. F(1)/F(2)=A(1)/A(2). When we set the ratio up with all our known data (F(1), A(1), and A(2)) and solved for F(2) we found that the force was equal to 1.4 N. That's right 1+1=1.4. Afterwards we learned that forces acting at angles can be added by vectors. Study hard for the Assessment tomorrow!

This may have something to do with what we did today, but I'm not sure. Regardless, it's pretty cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2EMXle8raw&feature=related

Tuesday Summary

Today in Class, we discussed the quote and its fallacies and Newton's second law. (F=MA and A=F/M) For the remainder of the class, we used the voting system to review for the test, ahem, assessment. If you still need some help with the second law, check these videos out. This guy, Julius Sumner Miller, is pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EazLCATeYoY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amNWC0Af8OQ&feature=related

This is amazing

This guy is drawing the NYC skyline from memory starting two days ago, and is filling an 18 foot with his artwork, and is expected to finish Friday.

earth and the sun compared to big stars

This is really cool! I had no idea we had found stars this big until I saw this.

http://www.dump.com/2009/05/16/we-are-small/

October 22, 2009

Today in class we started by talking about why it was easier to draw a acceleration vs. time graph, when starting with a velocity vs. time graph, than drawing a position vs. time graph. We concluded that it was easier because when you are drawing an x vs. t graph you have to think backwards. After that we watched a short video on working in space. The astronauts were having trouble working outside of the space shuttle because of Newton's second law. It states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When the astronauts were in space there is not any gravity to anchor them to any surface. On earth we are always touching the ground creating a base for us. When the astronauts would try to spin a wheel, they would spin in the opposite direction, making work almost impossible. Since then they have found ways for the astronauts to anchor themselves on the space shuttle. The next blogger will be Melissa.

Want to see scribes at other schools?

We aren't the only class in the world with a blog and scribes who post summaries of the day's class. Take a look at these, and you might find some good ideas:

Scribes at other classes

10/21/09

Today in class, we started by taking a reassessment, which tested changing a velocity vs. time graph into a position vs time graph. Afterwards, we picked new groups and did the Tug Of War lab. During this lab we discovered that stronger isn't really relative to the game of tug of war. It doesn't matter if you are a baby or the world strongest person, the force both people exert on the rope will be equal. This is true because of Newton's 1st law which says that when you exert a force on an object, the object will exert the same force back on you. We drew free-body diagrams and found that the only forces that aren't equal are the frictional forces of the ground on the separate people. The only way you win tug of war is by exerting a great force on the ground, because then the ground will exert that same force on you. After we concluded this information, we went outside and experienced this lab by actually playing tug of war. We proved our hypotheses by testing multiple ways of tug of war, for example, boys vs girls, concrete vs grass, etc. The next blogger is Virginia Catherine.

Getting it wrong: surprising tips on how to learn

There's a GREAT article in scientific america talking about some of the latest research on how to learn.

When you have 15 free minutes you should ready this. (You probably have 15 minutes when driving to school, so why not download instapaper to your iphone, and read it on your phone).

Some highlights:

People remember things better, longer, if they are given very challenging tests on the material, tests at which they are bound to fail. In a series of experiments, they showed that if students make an unsuccessful attempt to retrieve information before receiving an answer, they remember the information better than in a control condition in which they simply study the information. Trying and failing to retrieve the answer is actually helpful to learning. It’s an idea that has obvious applications for education, but could be useful for anyone who is trying to learn new material of any kind.

By challenging ourselves to retrieve or generate answers we can improve our recall. Keep that in mind next time you turn to Google for an answer, and give yourself a little more time to come up with the answer on your own.

The article seems like it practically lifted my FARMIPS idea from today's class, but it talks about how you can adapt this method to any course—imagine making a super study guide for history, or English. How much could you rock those classes?

10/20/09

Today in class we took a reassessment. It reassessed us on making a p vs. t graph from a v. vs t graph and finding the displacement. After we took this we went over how to do it. when we finished going over that we were going to work on our lab but instead we talked about Newtons 2nd law and things that we need to know for our labs. At the end of class Mr. Burk gave us our comments and "grades".

Success requires hard work (but not all in one day)

This is a nice blog post that elaborates on many of the themes we've talked about before.

Success Requires Hard Work (But Not All in One Day)


Why not start writing a book?

While success may require a lot of hard work, that doesn’t necessarily mean that work is hard to do. A book may contain 80,000 words of carefully edited content, that’s a lot of hard work. But writing 800 words almost every day for four months isn’t hard to do.

Rockstar physicist explains the LHC

Brian Cox, a real rock star (he was in the rock band D:Ream, which had the hit song Things Can Only Get Better--this song became the theme song for British Prime Minister Tony Blair's campaign), is a physicst at the Large Hadron Collider. He explains his the LHC and how it will help us to understand the secrets of the universe in this fantastic 15 minute talk.

LHC rap

One of the coolest rap songs ever, the LHC rap, also does a great job of explaining the Large Hadron Collider. Check it, yo.

what is this?

Propsicle to the first person to figure it out...

What's it like to win the nobel prize?

Carol Greider, winner of the 2009 Nobel prize for discovering discovering telomeres bits of seemingly useless DNA on the end of each of your chromosomes that progressively get shorter as you age and your cells reproduce. As it turns out, these bits of DNA are deeply linked to the aging process.

Anay, Dr. Greider has a fantastic interview with the NYT in today's paper, and one quote is absolutely worth reading and pondering.

Q. DID YOU ALWAYS WANT TO BE A BIOLOGIST?

A. My parents were scientists. But I wasn’t the sort of child who did science fairs. One of the things I was thinking about today is that as a kid I had dyslexia. I had a lot of trouble in school and was put into remedial classes. I thought that I was stupid.

I hope you'll take away the knowledge that if you struggle in science, or any subject, it is no measure of your ability to succeed in that field or your intelligence. Truly, hard work and persistence are the key to success at any level—even winning a Nobel prize.

blog spot from sept. 8.(I thought i has posted it but i guess it never worked. sorry)

Today in class we reviewed the engineering a "photo finish" lab. Some of the major points that we hit were the slope is defined as rise/run which equals a change in v over a change in t which also equals acceleration. Another point is that the final velocity of the cart should be 2x as large as the velocity of the buggy. The second half of class we worked on the photo finish follow up. On this worksheet it has three different graphs and we compared the buggy to the cart on the ramp on position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs.

10/7/09

Today, for the first half of class, we talked about how if you work on something for 10,000 hours, you will greatly improve. for the second half, we split up into groups and did a lab on Newton's Laws.

The nobel prize in physics

The Nobel prize in physics was just awarded today for the fundamental breakthroughs that led to two things you use just about every day. Fiber optics, the technology that allows light to carry gigabytes of information through optical fibers, allowing you to stream entire movies on your computer, or make a phone call to the other side of the world for pennies.

The other breakthrough was the development of the CCD, the charge coupled device, which you'll find in any camera phone, or digital camera. This discovery allowed us to convert tiny packets of light into electrical signals, which heralded digital photography. Once we started putting CCDs into telescopes like the Hubble, we could see incredibly feint objects billions of light years away, allowing us to peer at the universe as it existed billions of years ago.

NYT story on the physics nobel prizes


A great description of the discoveries from the Nobel Prize Committee

How do you make dry ice?

A number of you have asked questions about how to make dry ice. Ask the internet, and it delivers:

How to Make Dry Ice

I know we were wondering during class how dry ice was made. Go to this link and scroll down to the video to see how dry ice is made and manufactured. I am not really sure how to make it inito a link so you might need to just copy it into your browser.
http://www.continentalcarbonic.com/dryice/

A video worth 5 minutes--and homework

Part of your homework tonight is to watch the following video. This video is a nightline story on The Talent Code, a book written and read the article linked below

Enroll yourself in the Genius Factory

The other part of your homework is to read the article "Why Talent is Overrated."

This article summarizes the excellent book, Talent is Overrated, which goes into great detail about how top level performers like Tiger Woods use deliberate practice to improve their performance.

You should also definitely check out the website of the Talent Code, it offers tons of tips on how to unlock your talent, improve your abilities to learn, and more.

Homework: Evaluate your group

Part of your homework tonight (for Wednesday) is to complete this evaluation of your gruoup.

A Driving Texting

Today I passed a jeep on peachtree and the driver was texting so I took a picture of him.

Want to know more about dark energy and dark matter? Check out this video.

Patricia Burchart, a particle physicist and professor at Stanford explains all we know about Dark Matter and Dark Energy. This is a great talk, in 16 minutes, it will explain our latest understandings about what our universe is made of.

A great quote you might have missed

If you didn't have a chance to read the great article in the NYT on Carolyn Porco, who heads the Casssini space probe studying saturn, I thought I'd highlight one quote from the article, which ties in nicely to what we talked about today:

To my mind, most people go through live recoiling from its best parts," Porco told The New York Times. "They miss the enrichment that just a basic knowledge of the physical world can bring to the most ordinary experiences. It's like there's a pulsating, hidden world, governed by ancient laws and principles, underlying everything around us -- from the movements of electrical charges to the motions of planets -- and most people are completely unaware of it. To me that's a shame." A shame, indeed.

Also, you might be interested in knowing a bit more about this amazing photo I linked to. Here's a description from BadAstronomy.com. Saturn-shine is a amazing concept...


That, duh, is Saturn, taken by the ever-amazing Cassini spacecraft. It’s actually 75 different exposures stitched together, and was taken on August 12, just a little over a day after Saturnian equinox, when the Sun shines straight along the rings. The illumination from the Sun is about the same everywhere, but on the left the rings are illuminated by Saturn-shine glowing down on them, making them a bit brighter.