The reward is in the Finding Out

While grading this evening, I had Tweetdeck open and saw that one of my PLN posted to his blog. The post was about how science can inspire awe in people, specifically students. It discussed some differences between religion and science (which is a discussion that is near and dear to my heart). Within the post, there was a video of an interview with Richard Feynman from probably almost 30 years ago. If I remember right, he died in '86, so it would have been from the early '80's at least. He talks a lot about the nature of science, along with some fairly complex physics thrown in for good measure.

The "take-away" (at least for me) of what he had to say can be stated with these two quotes: "I don't need a Nobel Prize, the honor is in finding the thing out" and "there's a difference between knowing the NAME of something and knowing something".

I am thinking deeply about how to express these two ideas to my students. By the time they get to my class they are somewhere between 15-18 years old. Is it too late by this point to instill this kind of curiosity in them? Have they already moved past the point of enjoying solving a puzzle just for the pure joy of seeing something complex come to fruition? If so, how do I undo that?

The second quote is probably more complex for me. I can talk all day about inertia (Newton's First Law of Motion) and some students will get the concept. But do they really know Inertia? I mean, do I really even know Inertia? I guess what I am saying is, how can I teach beyond the concept and get to the root of the why if I'm not sure I understand it myself? Additionally, at my level of my teaching, is the mechanism (why) even important?

I tend to lean towards the idea that if I can get my students interested in science at a deeper level and teach some critical thinking/problem solving skills along the way, I have been successful. Am I wrong in thinking this? Maybe I am taking the easy way out by not learning physics at a deeper level. I don't know. These are the questions that keep me up at night and make me have nightmares of being naked in front of my class when I am able to sleep. I'm sure I'll have that dream at least once this week.

I'm going to go with Feynman and say that I'm okay with the not knowing. I'm okay when there are things that I don't understand because it forces me to think at a deeper level. Hopefully, I can instill the same level of comfort in my students, but also instill a desire to want to find out the mechanism of something and not just the how. In the words of one of my tweeps, "I don't know all the parts of drill, but I know how to use one!" You have to consider what the purpose of your teaching is. Do students need to know the name of something? Or do they need to really know something? Those two may not be mutually exclusive, but I think its a question worth asking when considering students.

As a result of this video, I had the best conversation on twitter to date. I even found two new tweeps as a result! People may think twitter is a big old waste of time but I'd have to disagree. It can be an enriching experience for your on-going education. On the other hand, it can be a big old waste of time!

The LHC

It seems those crazy scientists are ready to play with their toys again; I guess they are still interested in finding out just exactly how the Universe works. Of course you know I'm talking about the Large Hadron Collider. I'm following the success (hopefully) of this venture as they go, step by step, using twitter. If you tweet and would like to follow CERN, go here. I am getting live information as it happens; where the beam is located, what systems are running, etc. And its all LIVE! I love social media!

I'll just be here, in my classroom, with students who are retaking tests, listening to music, and getting updates on the most expensive, most complicated machine known to man, learning how what causes the Universe to exist in the state in which it does. That is all.

For the Love of Science!

Caution: this may be the most random, crazy post so far. Continue at your own risk. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Do you know anything about quantum mechanics? Well, that's good, because I don't really either. I once heard a quote by Richard Feynman: "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics" (insert dramatic pause for effect, followed by laughter).  Actually, I know some of the basics of quantum mechanics, but being able to recite something, is a far cry from actually understanding it.

In quantum mechanics, there is an interpretation of the mathematical formulas, which seems to indicate that the observer of anything, affects the object. You can do a little research on Schrödinger's cat to get a little better understanding. Basically, the way his thought experiment worked, the only way to observe whether the cat is alive or dead, would kill the cat. Now I've been thinking about this for a couple of years now and I am just beginning to be able to wrap my brain around it (albeit not very tightly). So if you don't get it on the first go around, don't sweat it. Keep thinking about it. If you don't accept this basic tenet of quantum mechanics, stop reading now, because what follows is based on your acceptance of a theory which has some experimental evidence. To understand that evidence, you'll need to have a basic understanding of Young's double-slit experiment.

I know! What's the point? Right? Actually, I do have one and it goes something like this: if observing the Universe changes the condition of the Universe, how in the world do we know the condition of anything? Most of this thought applies to quantum mechanics, but we could also apply it to, say, a classroom. How many teachers have asked a principal to come observe a particularly rowdy class, only to find when the principal enters the classroom, the students act in a completely different manner? Okay, I know its a stretch, but that's why they are called analogies.

I'm asking these questions, not because I want you to do some thinking, although that is part of my purpose. I'm asking these questions because I really want to know some answers.  I'm not sure what the answer to the question is. The problem with even asking the questions is that humanity is intrinsically connected to the very thing which they are trying to understand. Its kind of like walking by a mirror and thinking, "That's not really what I look like! Is it?" Based on Snell's, you are seeing an exact representation of yourself being reflected back from the mirror. For many of us, we have picture in our heads of what we look like. This is our reality, but once we actually observe our reality, we change it. (I can almost hear the crickets from my vantage point.)

As usual, I always understand things better after I process them through writing. Even though I didn't talk specifically about quantum entanglement, I think I understand it better than I used to.

Any thoughts? As always, thanks for reading.

i know, this is only interesting to me...

But since I am getting so much information during my research, I am going to just throw some of what I am learning out there. Its not groundbreaking, in fact, this really is "just" a confirmation of what is already

known about particles according to the Standard Model.  I think its really interesting; even more so when I am actually able to understand some (most) of it. What I hope to accomplish is just to put down my thoughts on the very informal lecture I got today.  So, here goes:

I am studying a particle called the Z boson. It was designated "Z" back in the 60's because it was thought at the time that this was the last particle that would need to be named. Boy, were they wrong! See the Particle Adventure for a glimpse at the enormous number of particles that have been discovered and/or predicted since then.

The Z boson was predicted in the late 60's (1968 I believe) when the electroweak theory was described by three guys who shared the 1979 Nobel prize for it. Zed (as I have taken to calling him) was actually discovered at CERN in 1983, but the theory was given a significant boost in 1973 when Fermilab (using the Gargamelle Bubble Chamber) found evidence for what are called "neutral current reactions". These had been predicted by the electroweak theory.  By the way, Zed is a neutral particle (no electric charge), hence, neutral current reaction.

What does it do, you ask? Zed is one of two particles, yes, I said PARTICLE that is responsible for the weak nuclear force. This is how scientists are best able to interpret the data; force are "carried" by an exchange of particles, i.e. gluons(responsible for the strong nuclear force) and the as-yet-undiscovered graviton(which, it is thought, is responsible for gravity.)

Zed and his brothers (cousins?) the W+ and W- are very, very, very massive particles, relatively speaking (no pun intended).  These three particles are also very short lived. You just THOUGHT a mayfly had a short life (about 24 hours); the particles only "live" on the order of 10^-25 seconds! After that, their most likely decay channels are either a pair of muons (μ) or an electron-anti electron pair(e- or e+). The data with which I am working are primarily μ pair decays (tomorrow I should see some elecctron-anti electron data).  The cool thing about this is that these types of decays have a VERY specific energy range which shows up in a particle detector. My energy range is about 91 GeV (that's giga-electron volts or billion electron volts). While that may sound like a lot (it is for a particle), its not that much on the scale of everyday life.

My data is such that all of the "events" are those that have a specific energy above 15 GeV (now you know what that means) AND have two (or even three) muons showing up in the muon detector. Without going into a lecture on Quantum Mechanics (thanks Mr. Bohr, Mr. Heisenberg, and Mr. Schrödinger), I get a peak, or maximum number of events that are in the 80-110 GeV range, with a peak right around 90 or 91 GeV.  This means that the rest mass, or invariant mass, of the Z boson 91 GeV. In plain english, that means that the amount of energy a Z boson has, at rest, is 91 billion electron volts. Our purpose is not to verify that, because our in the case of a muon detector, it isn't set up to measure with the highest degree of accuracy (although there are detectors with that purpose, such as the electromagnetic calorimeter part of the detector).

So, what you ask, is the purpose? Well, I haven't yet figured that out and frankly, I'm a little afraid to ask! I'm sure I WILL ask, but it hasn't come up in conversation or lecture just yet.  According to Mr. Einstein, "if we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research". I like that. I am going to keep that in the forefront of my mind when I'm not sure what I am doing and when I am not sure what I am supposed to be doing. I will just call it research. I can't wait for some of this information to digest in my brain so I can figure out how to make this relevant for students. Indirect observation anyone?

thanks for reading,

jb