In this episode, Scott and Michael discuss:-current events and recent public letters to some private high schools-some ideas about racism and attempts to deal with it today: the good and the bad-racism (all bad, no good to it)-the philosophic and historical roots of some of these bad attempts-the social vs. the metaphysical-the practicality of some […]
Read MoreAmong the substantial beings constituted by nature, some are ungenerated and imperishable throughout all eternity [stuff in the heavens, the stars and planets, the celestial], while others partake of generation and perishing [stuff on earth, the terrestrial]. Yet it has turned out that our studies of the former, though they are valuable and divine, are […]
Read MoreBeautiful: Mr. Lincoln was a peculiar man, having a peculiar mind; he was gifted with a peculiarity, namely, a new look-out on nature. Everything had to be newly created for him – – facts newly gathered, newly arranged, and newly classed. He had no faith, as already expressed. In order to believe he must see […]
Read MoreIn “Archimedes: Greek Mathematician,” Gerald J. Toomer (Professor Emeritus of the History of Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island) writes: Method Concerning Mechanical Theorems describes a process of discovery in mathematics. It is the sole surviving work from antiquity, and one of the few from any period, that deals with this topic. In it Archimedes recounts […]
Read MoreIn “Archimedes,” some folks at famousscientists.org write: Archimedes was, arguably, the world’s greatest scientist – certainly the greatest scientist of the classical age. He was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, engineer, inventor, and weapons-designer. As we’ll see, he was a man who was both of his time and far ahead of his time. Archimedes was born […]
Read MoreLogic should be part of our education. As Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his “The Purpose of Education,” published in the Morehouse College newspaper The Maroon Tiger. As I engage in the so-called “bull sessions” around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose […]
Read MoreWow! Richard Feynman had a younger sister who also earned a PhD in Physics! Impressive! Cool! But, wow!, when she was young, her mom said to her “women’s brains can’t do science.” Good for Joan in being independent and dong science anyway! She also had to deal with sexist women teachers.
Read MoreTeach historically. Students need to learn the logic, concept-formation, fallacy identification, induction (i.e., generalization), conceptual integration (i.e., making connections, or “theory building”), and thinking skills that only teaching historically (or in a related way) affords. In “Teaching Heat: the Rise and Fall of the Caloric Theory,” Dr. Michael Fowler (UVa), writes: In my experience, there […]
Read More“The job of a scientist is to listen carefully to nature, not to tell nature how to behave.” Dr. Richard Feynam, Nobel Prize winner in physics
Read More“My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object […]
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