Maddenation
“OK” Signs Interlocked and Moved Back and Forth
I am a Jedi Knight, like my father before me.
I always wanted to say that! And that’s how I wanted to start this reflection, but perhaps I should exchange ‘Jedi Knight’ with ‘scientist’, or ‘lover of science’, or any number of things. Like Dad, I think about science quite a lot. It is, afterall, my job. The category of this entry is my main motivation - connections. Maybe it’s what drives all of us - Pat to make connections with his readers, Dan to make connections with his viewers or patrons? (or whomever’s looking at his stuffs). The connection is with other’s lives and experiences.
Today I was doing some thinking about science and teaching and the like. The connections I’m looking for are mostly connections from our text/syllabus/curriculum (the material I’m supposed to teach) to students’ minds, their hearts, their curiosities, their world, our world. Sounds daunting and it is. When I can do it I’ve succeeded, and I know it. Typically I’ll even use body language to show it. Can’t you picture it? - the universal connections sign -I interlace my fingers in and out, side to side in front of my chest - much like if you were to mimic a big alligator chomping down on its prey (fingers as teeth, arms forming body), only this gator is turned sideways. Maybe it’s also like a Venus Fly Trap closing on an unfortunate insect. I’m betting the ASL sign is the same thing. Got to be, right?
Tonight while investigating connections in science (specifically I was looking up info on penicillin and its chemical formula) I stumbled across an Albert Einstein quote. This happened in the wonderfully-tangentified-ADDified way in which I surf the web from window to window ending up somewhere far from where I started and yet still connected through a part maze part spider web, at least it is in my mind (side note: is it just my brain, or all of our family’s, that works in this way? My friends often wonder. PS - I also write this way).
So this Einstein quote was, “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the mysteries of eternity… Never lose a holy curiosity.” A.E. So that got me thinking into a new category for my teaching exploration. Lately I’ve been highly focused on Scientific Literacy - having the kids read lots of articles and journals of related enrichment material. The new category I’m thinking will be ‘Scientific Appreciation’ or something more exciting hopefully.
The point would be to investigate and learn the wisdom of the greatest thinkers and dreamers and doers and scientists. Learn from history while learning about today. Right now it’s surely bigger and dreamier and more abstract that I can handle. (Does the word ‘handle’ come directly from being able to hold in your hand? I hope so, because that’s how I intended to use it two sentences back.) Anywho, I found an article for us to read and ponder by Albert Einstein, the wisest of all scientists. Has there every been a scientist who transcended science in the way he has? Check out this site for some interesting thoughts from Albert.
Postface: (not to be confused with the ‘pre’ version)
After some investigation on the web searching ASL (American Sign Language) sites, I found out how to sign “connections”. Turns out, it’s not like described above. This leads to two obvious questions - 1. How many of the other sign languages use the sign I described for connection? (bonus points for finding out). 2. Were the people who made ASL blind too?
Connection in ASL is made when the F handshapes join together and are moved back and forth. See this site for an animated picture of it. The “F” handshape happens to be the “OK” sign. Crazy stuffs. I bet there’s lots of crossover in ASL. That could be a fine essay topic, speaking of independant redundancy and stuffs.
Check here to see a neato bellringer I did on balancing equations. You may find it funny. Note that it’s a Word document, so if your browser gets confused, right-click on it, download it, and open it in Word. Word.
David • Connections • 03/15/03 • 1 comments
Comments
Dad • 03/17/03 • 1:07 PM:David, I am your father.
Maybe curiosity rather then need is the true mother of invention. Certainly, curiosity is the progenitor of discovery, which may be the flip side of invention. Could anyone have been more curious than Einstein? Think about this curious man who warped time and space and set limits on the infinite, and still could not explain everything. Yet he explained so much.
After Michelson and Morley showed that the velocity of light is unaffected by the velocity of the earth in space, everyone else was confused. Einstein, however, imagined a world in which this result was simply true in every frame of reference. He started out transforming the equations of physics to preserve this strange property of light and ended up with the special theory of relativity and the simple and elegant equation that transformed the world: e=mc2.
He was also intrigued that inertial mass appears to be the same as gravitational mass; that acceleration creates “weight” and “falling” creates weightlessness. This was the starting point for his general theory of relativity, by which he explained the cosmos.
I have yet to develop any “deep” understanding of Einstein’s theories, or those of his less famous contemporaries who gave us the quantum theory. I have his book, The Meaning of Relativity and have tried to read it on severaly ocassions (most recently a few minutes ago), but I always reach a point where I can no longer follow his mathematics, or the logic of his words escapes me. Yet, I can appreciate the wonder of his finding that, if the maximum speed in the universe is that of light, and this is true in every frame of reference, then it follows that the energy derivable from a unit of mass is equal to that mass multiplied by the square of that maximum speed. This follows from the very nature of time and space! Now THAT’S a connection!
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