The Difference Between Knowing the Name of Something and Understanding it

Richard Feynman is definitely one role models when it comes to being a scientist. Feynman was legendary for being able to intuitively understand even the most complex topics, but what made him the most famous was just how brilliant of a teacher he was. Throughout Feynman's entire career, he was constantly given praise for his ability to clearly and simply explain things to his peers. Even today, a series of physics textbooks titled The Feynman Lectures, originally written by Feynman himself, is widely popular for being a wonderful introduction to undergraduate physics that gives great, intuitive explanations without sacrificing depth.

In the above video, Feynman describes what I think separates a true scientist from someone who just thinks they're smart because they know a few fancy words. To give a short summary: Feynman recalls a time from his childhood when his friend made fun of him for failing to identify a bird as a Brown-Throated Thrush. Feynman's response was that he in fact knew the names of the bird in several different languages, but his point is that even after learning all these different names for the bird, he and his friend knew nothing about the bird itself! Science is not simply a process of categorizing everything and giving them extremely long-winded names so that scientists can sound smart when they talk to each other. It's the process by which we come to understand the mechanisms that govern the world around us. When a particular object or idea seems to be especially important or interesting, it's only fitting that we give it a special name.

As a part-time job, I sometimes work as a science teacher for 5th graders. On a handful of days every week, I'll visit their classroom for an hour or so to give a science lesson. The lesson material is prepared and sometimes even scripted beforehand, the only preparation I need to do is to familiarize myself with the material and how to set up whatever lab we happen to be doing. One of my more recent labs involved cell biology where the kids made little models of cells out of candy. Now, I think this lab would be perfectly fine if the kids had learned about cells beforehand, but when we got to naming the different parts of the cell, almost none of the kids raised their hand and most had never even heard of things like the cell nucleus, let alone structures with more complicated names like the Golgi apparatus or the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. My first thought when looking over the lab was that if these kids weren't already familiar with these things, they're going to forget everything I'll have said the minute I leave the classroom! On top of that, most of the lesson time was intended to be devoted to building the cell models, with only a bit of time at the beginning being set a side to simply have them copy down a few key terms! Since the models were made out of candy, I could tell the kids didn't really care about the science at all.

For me, that's exactly NOT the way science should be taught. I felt like I was doing nothing but leaving my students with a large vocabulary (assuming they remember it at all) full of words that they don't understand. Their knowledge can barely even be called superficial. The candy was nothing but a way to draw the kids' attention. The problem is that their attention wasn't being directed at the science, just the candy! Of course, I'm not just ranting about this particular lesson plan, since I've definitely felt the same way about some my own science classes in grade school. There are a lot of science classes that present science like it's some kind of grab-bag full of facts that we should just know because, you know, it's science! I think we should be teaching science the way we teach literature or history, by telling a story. That's how you get people to remember what you said. That's how show people how everything you're talking about fits together. In other words, it's how you get people to understand.

Preposterous Universe (Voice Post)

Preposterous Universe is a scientific blog written by cosmologist Dr. Sean Carroll. The purpose of Preposterous Universe, like Professor Johnson's blog, Asymptotia, is to take scientific topics and present them to the lay. Unlike Asymptotia, Preposterous Universe is dedicated exclusively to scientific topics. Dr. Carroll's work focuses on general relativity and dark energy, two topics at the forefront of our understanding of the fundamental structure of the universe.

Dr. Carroll's approach to making physics accessible to the lay is to tell the story with an aspect of magical realism that makes the laws of physics seem almost magical while keeping in mind the fact that these laws are in fact the laws which govern the universe we live in. Take, for example, Dr. Carroll's post about the discovery of gravitational waves in February. The post opens like a fairy tale:

"ONCE upon a time, there lived a man who was fascinated by the phenomenon of gravity. In his mind he imagined experiments in rocket ships and elevators, eventually concluding that gravity isn’t a conventional “force” at all — it’s a manifestation of the curvature of spacetime."

By writing in a style which is typical of fairy tales and mythology, Dr. Carroll reminds us that physics is simply playing the same role as any mythological story about gods and demons: it is an attempt to explain and make sense of the universe. If people are fascinated by stories of Prometheus bringing the gift of fire to man or how Zeus is capable of manipulating lightning, they should certainly be fascinated by our modern-day "stories" about how the structure of space and time itself can become distorted according to certain rules--provided the story is told in a way that makes them want to listen. This is what Dr. Carroll achieves in his blog.

As he describes the details of the experiment, Dr. Carroll explains,

"Some guy scribbles down some symbols in an esoteric mixture of Latin, Greek, and mathematical notation. [...] Other people (notably Rainer Weiss, Ronald Drever, and Kip Thorne), on the basis of taking those scribbles extremely seriously, launch a plan to spend hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of decades. They concoct an audacious scheme to shoot laser beams at mirrors to look for modulated displacements of less than a millionth of a billionth of a centimeter"

This time, he takes the mysticism out of physics by making it seem almost ridiculous. The man who "was fascinated by the phenomenon of gravity" and who then went on to "[scribble] down some symbols" is in fact Albert Einstein. Dr. Carroll presents Einstein as just another nutjob who thinks he's got the universe figured out. Unbelievably, everyone seems to think this guy is the real deal, and thousands wind up investing their precious time, money, and effort into proving to the rest of the world that he's right! Spoiler alert: it works.

Dr. Carroll's passion extends beyond simply telling the story of science. He's a firm believer that science is something that anyone can be involved in and that it can be meaningful endeavor for anyone who's even remotely interested. Because of this, he speaks with a loud voice when he sees people being prevented from doing science for reasons outside their own control.

For example, in another post, Dr. Carroll speaks out against gender discrimination in physics. He recalls a time when a professor asked him why it was that the women in his physics class were scoring higher on the problem sets, to which he responds "'Maybe they are ... also smart?'" The sarcasm in his voice conveys just how ridiculous such a question is. For what reason would anyone to do better on a problem set than their classmates? What else could it be other than that they have a better grasp of the material? Somehow, the professor fails to reach this incredibly obvious conclusion.

In the same post, Dr. Carroll makes it clear that he abhors the current status quo of academic science where a student who reaches out for help and support is regarded as incompetant. He characterises this attitude by giving an example of a response to a plea for help: "'You think your advisor is asking inappropriate things of you? I guess you're not cut out for this after all.'" Dr. Carroll's voice as he presents this statement shows how shallow and thoughtless he considers a statement like this to be. It is a mindset which is harsh, egotistical, and judgmental.

On his "About This Blog" page, Dr. Carroll mentions that he writes this blog for the sole purpose of talking about those things which interest him. Like anyone who simply wants to share a story that he/she finds interesting, Dr. Carroll presents his stories in a way that makes them enjoyable for readers. He fills them with emotion, draws humorous analogies, and most importantly of all, reminds us that science is a human endeavor.

Profile Post: Asymptotia!

For my profile post, I decided to talk about Asymptotia, a blog written by Dr. Clifford Johnson who is currently my physics professor!

Just from looking at the name, and also the fact that Dr. Johnson is a physics professor, you might be able to guess that this is somewhat of a science-centered blog. Roughly once a week, Dr. Johnson posts on his blog about a variety of topics. If you look at his About section, you'll see that he blogs--or wants to blog--about many, many different things. Aside from talking about general physics-related topics, for example raving about the recent discovery of gravitational waves (fun fact: the class I'm currently taking with him is actually on General Relativity!).  Aside from scientific topics, he also blogs about his personal life. He's an avid gardener, is currently in the process of writing a book, and does home improvement, among other things. Dr. Johnson also frequently blogs about how science is portrayed in popular culture. 

In one of his more recent posts, he talks about doing some consulting work with Marvel on the TV show Agent Carter where he helped them make the science fiction elements of the show more realistic. In this particular post, he talks about the "science" behind something called Zero Matter. In the show, Zero Matter is a substance that comes from a different dimension which, after touching it, will make a person intangible. Since it is a science-fiction based universe, this obviously requires a bit of an explanation, and who better to ask about extra dimensions than your friendly neighborhood string theorist? The post not only clarifies some aspects of the show but also teaches readers a little bit about what real-world physicists mean when they talk about the possibility of extra dimensions.

In another, more complex post, he talks about a paper he's working on which suggests we might one day be able to us black holes as heat engines to do useful work! This one, which is almost certainly aimed at a more-scientifically literate audience, goes much more in depth into the theory behind it. Again, however, he seeks to make this post an educational one, explaining himself where he has to and even providing references in order to dispel any confusion his readers might have.

I think these two posts do a good job of capturing the essence of Asymptotia: Dr. Johnson simply wants to share the joy of science with everyone. He's passionate about physics both inside and outside the classroom. Every year he holds a scientific film festival for students to submit short documentaries explaining some scientific topic. More than anything, I think he wants to make science accessible to the lay and very much does not have the attitude that science is somehow reserved for the intellectual elite. 

Science, It's a Girl Thing!

It's no secret that today, science and engineering are male-dominated fields. In 2012, the European Commission published the above video in an effort to get more girls interested in science. TL;DR: the video was a massive flop and the original video was actually taken down, most likely due to the massive number of dislikes it received.

The biggest problem with the video is that it tackles the issue from entirely the wrong perspective: rather than empowering girls by telling them that they're just as capable of doing science as anyone else, it instead sends the message that science can be "girly" enough for them. It looks more like the girls are just there for a photo shoot than to actually do science! On top of that, what's with all the scenes that have been spliced into the video that depict makeup? Are girls only interested in science if it's related to beauty products? Ultimately, the video really just tells girls that they can still conform to societal expectations of what girls should like while being scientists.

The video also opens with a male scientist looking confused when he sees the three girls walk into his lab, which I find disturbing. Immediately, the video presents an image where men and women are somehow competing with each other, that the girls are seen as intruders in the man's territory. Not only does this reinforce the idea that science is somehow meant for men, it also goes against the heart and soul of science which revolved around collaboration.

Fixing this inequality, along with any other inequalities between women and men, is not simply about encouraging girls to do this or that but is really about dispelling the gender stereotypes that gave rise to the inequality in the first place. There's nothing wrong with liking makeup or wanting to be a model, but a video that's intended to encourage girls to be scientists has no need for things like that. How about showing them how useful and important science can be? If we want to convince girls--or anyone, for that matter--to be more interested in science, we should be showing them that science is a worthwhile career by allowing them to make meaningful contributions to society. In doing so, they will be empowering themselves.

Why do I blog?

One of my clearest memories from my childhood was a commercial that I saw for a science summer camp.

The commercial opens with two girls walking down the street of a suburban neighborhood. The girls turn their heads as a car passes by. All of a sudden, instead of seeing the car we see a blueprint schematic of the car. The schematic is animated, detailing how all of the different parts of the car are assembled as well as how they interact with each other.

Then, we're back to the two girls, who have advanced a few more paces down the road since we last saw them. This time, they turn their head in the other direction and see someone jogging down the street with a CD-player clasped to the hip. Again, we are taken out of the scene, this time to a blueprint schematic of the CD player. The animation details how exactly a CD-player uses a laser to read the disk and ultimately how that is translated into sound that comes out of the runner's headphones.

We then go back to the girls for a third time, how are now interested in a barking dog across the street. As the dog makes barking noises, we see diagrams and equations appear on the screen which appear to be analyzing the sound that the dog is making.

Finally, the commercial ends with information regarding the summer camp such as when and how to sign up for it, as well as revealing that it is for girls only.

Unfortunately, I didn't ever get to attend the camp, but the commercial was absolutely captivating to me. I realized I wanted to see the world exactly the way the two girls did in that commercial--to be able to look at something and see how it works on the inside. To me, that commercial sent the same message that I try to send with my blog posts about science--that it's all around us so long as we look for it! I hope to be able to share this perspective with as many of my readers as possible.

A Mathematician's Lament

I recently came across an essay titled "A Mathematician's Lament" by Paul Lockhart. If you'd like to read it for yourself, here's the link:

https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf

In the opening, Lockhart wonders what it would be like if music were taught the same way as math. What if, throughout all of grade school and undergraduate college, students were to take classes like like AP Music Theory, AP Musical Notation, and Introduction the Musical Transpositions. Of course, all of this happens without once having the students play music or, God forbid, compose pieces of their own--those are reserved for later in the undergraduate curriculum and graduate school.

What a nightmare! After all, the joy, fun, and beauty of music come from actually being able to experience it! Lockhart uses this example is to introduce the main point of his essay: that this is precisely the state of math education today.

In grade school, students memorize multiplication symbols. In middle school, they learn to mechanically manipulate symbols using a fixed set of rules and shortcuts that come from some magical faraway land called "Algebra." In high school, the same rules are extended and students are taught a new set of rules and shortcuts, this time from a place called "Calculus."

One might argue that math is fundamentally rooted in logic and arithmetic, so we should naturally reinforce "fundamental" concepts in order to better prepare students for more advanced topics. But take, for example, the visual arts. Before allowing students to draw, should we could teach them the benefits of using water colors versus oil pastels or the differences between classical and impressionist styles of painting? After all, if students are to become advanced painters, its only natural that they start by learning all about the techniques which so many artists have dedicated their entire lifetimes to develop. Instead, we do the unthinkable by giving them a paintbrush and letting them paint a self-portrait however they want! Yet, students seem to enjoy art much more than math. No one even has to defend the value of art education by bringing up points like how useful it is or how much more money you can make if you list still-life painting as a skill on your resume. They enjoy it because it's, well, enjoyable!

Imagine if math could be taught like that! Imagine if we could present students with a blank canvas, a very small set of rules to follow, and see where they take themselves just by mixing and matching their preexisting ideas in order to form new ones. Art and music give students something that is almost nonexistent in a math class: freedom. It is that freedom that allows students to develop their own appreciation for the things they do rather than accepting someone else's argument about why it's important or necessary.

I can't say that I have a way to reform the entire grade school math curriculum. But I do think that classes which spend more time talking about the ideas behind math can do so much more for students then classes which ask them to regurgitate a handful of definitions and theorems on a test. What happens if I add all the numbers from 1 to 10? 1 to 11? 1 to 12? Could there be some kind of pattern here? Give a student a chance to think about these questions, come up with answers on their own, and you might discover that even an elementary student is capable of inventing one of the most useful summation formulas in the history of math (spoiler: this problem was solved by Karl Friedrich Gauss in the late 1700s while he was in elementary school!).

"Just a Theory"

I don't like taking sides in debates about religion, but when it comes to whether or not we should teach both evolution and creationism in biology classrooms, there's a certain phrase that gets thrown around which I think is being used very incorrectly.

A major section of the debate revolves around those on the side of creationism mentioning that evolution is simply a theory while those on the side of evolution retort that it has been established as a fact. Both of these arguments are founded upon a misunderstanding of science and the scientific method: what it means for science to be “right” or “wrong.” A hypothesis is an initial guess which a scientist has taken in an attempt to explain some observed phenomena. Many mistake a theory to be the same as a hypothesis, when instead a theory is a hypothesis whose predictions have matched experimental observations and continue to do so. In this sense, a theory is not necessarily an established fact but it does hold the condition that it has yet to be proven false. The only way a theory can be proven absolutely true is if has withstood, does withstand, and will continue to withstand all experimental attempts to disprove it. Since this is clearly impossible as it would take an infinite amount of time to confirm, a “good” theory is simply one which has survived a great number of attempts to disprove it.

At the same time, EVERY theory carries with it a scope of accuracy, essentially stating that the theory may not be all-encompassing but that there do exist particular scenarios in which the theory remains valid. Like I talked about in an earlier post, Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity is an example of such a case. Not long after Newton published his theory of universal gravitation, it was demonstrated via extremely accurate measurements that the orbit of Mercury deviates slightly from that predicted by his law. Physicists searched for disturbances which might have led to the deviation, such as large clusters of asteroids or clouds of dust which might have been distorting Mercury’s orbit. Ultimately, nothing was ever found which was substantial enough to account for the discrepancy, and the anomalous orbit of Mercury was one of the first confirming pieces of evidence which allowed Einstein’s theory of General Relativity to replace Newton’s theory as the most accurate description of gravity because it was able to give the correct orbit. Even so, Newton’s theory is still taught to students at both the high school and university levels because its description of gravity is still sufficient in all but the most extreme cases.