I discuss the basic analog telephone circuit and some of the old analog switching mechanisms at the telephone office. I also talk about the practice of ‘phone phreaking,’ the precursor to modern computer hacking, in which (mostly) high school and college kids learned how to manipulate the phone system in ways it was never intended to work.
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsThis project exists to serve a very niche problem. In my classroom, students coming from across my rather large school have trouble making it to my room before passing period ends. Therefore, I give them an extra 45 seconds after the bell rings before I count them tardy. I also don’t allow students to pack up prior to three minutes before the end of the period. So, I wanted a script that would sound an alarm bell 45 seconds after the beginning of each period and 3 minutes prior to the end of the period.
(Read more...) ProjectsI have been having students use the free online graphing calculator Desmos (www.desmos.com). It can perform linear and curve fits much more precisely than can be done by hand, but it is much friendlier to new users than Excel.
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsEnergy is Made Up: Interesting Conceptual Discussions around Energy and its Definition. I discuss how energy is nothing more than a helpful ‘bookkeeping method’ for multi-object systems. This leads to interesting discussions, especially for students who have already taken chemistry.
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsHolograms: The Boundary Between Geometric & Wave Optics. We will use the geometric definitions of conic sections to explore the properties of concave, convex, and hyperbolic mirrors and then use this to demonstrate how holography takes advantage of wave interference in order to construct what is essentially a geometric phenomenon.
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsIn this talk, I share some strategies and my experience integrating these strategies without giving up my prized physics instruction time.
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsConservation of Intellectual Momentum: Staying connected to the field of physics even if your job doesn’t make you. My four years of studying physics in undergrad had opened my mind to a way of thinking I had grown to love and didn’t want to give up. Would teaching provide the same intellectual stimulation I had enjoyed in college?
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsTalk given at the Spring Meeting of the Indiana Section of AAPT in April, 2016. Links PowerPoint Slides (.pptx)
(Read more...) Talks & PublicationsThe Quest for Uncertainty: Recovering an Appreciation for Truth. I here present a simplistic view–the idea that the world is wholly knowable and that education is what Dewey called a ‘quest for certainty’–and attempt to recover from it a more robust and subtle sense of Truth by exploring the philosophical differences between mathematics and science.
(Read more...) Talks & Publications