After spending the morning reflecting and re-watching the portions of yesterday’s episode that I flagged, I’m realizing that this EPSRI experience is going to be as much a personal as a professional journey. Coming from a research experience that is very directed, focused on content, and quantitatively-driven, I feel somewhat overwhelmed and uncertain but also happily challenged and free. In any case, I suspect that this will be an evolutionary experience, and I invite comments on my perspective and ways that I could be more (or less) open-minded.
I reviewed a number of ‘flagged’ snippets from yesterday, and two particularly stuck to me. (I’ll have to clip and transcribe the video later, since the ‘clippable’ versions are not yet available.) Edited: This will be post one of two, per Rachel's request.
We get to define stuff because we’re physicists.
The first clip shows a statement that I’m trying to make meaning out of: Stamatis is sitting at the table, and the teachers are discussing their ‘pre-negotiation’ of Energy Theater for a ball that is released from rest underneath the surface of water (a swimming pool, I think). They have depicted the scenario in time on their whiteboard: they showed what the ‘energy of the system’ would look like at three different points in time – just before the ball is released, as the ball is moving through the water toward the surface, and after the ball has reached the surface and come to rest. Stamatis asks, “So, nothing’s moving here?” Nina replies, “Correct…we get to define that because we’re physicists.” I can’t see her face, but she sort of shakes her hand at Stamatis when she says it, and the tone of her voice changes.
This statement totally struck me for several reasons: because it seems to me to say something about what Nina thinks physicists do, because she identifies herself and her peers as physicists, and because I can’t tell if she is joking (and for a whole host of other reasons). But no one responded to her! It was almost as if no one heard her at all.
The idea of drawing a bridge between this intuitive idea of thermal energy being a "dead end" and the idea of increasing entropy could be really interesting. Is entropy something that comes up in this course (intentionally or unintentionally)?
ReplyDeleteAmy, this is great stuff. When you add to your post later, would you consider breaking it into two posts (one for the first episode, and one for the other two)? That way any comments will be responding to one issue, and the title of the post can reflect the content of the post which will make it easier to find later. Thanks!
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