When I say I take physics A level, people's reactions tend to range from 'why?' to 'you poor thing!'. They probably assume physics = hard maths. Maths is often involved (and sometimes makes me want to disembowel myself with a spoon), but the physics department also get away with the most ridiculously fun stuff by claiming it's educational.
Exhibit A: Visits to theme parks. It was just the once, but still. We had a day out of school so that we could ride on roller-coasters and 'experience' the gravitational energy changing to kinetic energy for our coursework. The chemistry equivalent is dripping things into test tubes under exam conditions. No contest.
Exhibit B: The Particle Zoo.
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| Aww |
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| Ninja! |
Our physics department owns most of a full set of these plushies. They do have explanatory tags and are used as a teaching tool - but mainly they're incredibly awesome and cute. And the strange quarks have three eyes and the charm quarks have roses!
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| So much! |
In all seriousness, the actual physics is pretty awesome too, especially particle physics and astrophysics: the mindbogglingly small and the mindbogglingly big. I defy anyone to look at images of nebulae and tell me they're not beautiful. The sad thing is that although I have seen the Enterprise mentioned in an old textbook, that was to say that using antimatter-matter annihilations to power the ship probably wouldn't work...
Hilarious story of the week: was reading the election manifesto of some deeply marginal candidate for the French presidency, and thought he seemed quite sensible until he suggested developing France's scientific facilities to the point of being able to carry out nuclear fusion, and, I kid you not, matter-antimatter reactions. Maybe lay off the Star Trek before writing your proposals next time, monsieur?
ReplyDeleteAlso, +10 points for mention of Particle Zoo.
I read 'electron manifesto' XD Politicians should definitely have to state their views on particle physics.
ReplyDeleteWell, if we could manage to make nuclear fusion work then it would be quite a good energy source, and the main issue with matter-antimatter reactions seems to be controlling them to get the energy when/where you want it, but he does seem to be basing his ideas on science fiction - which I think actually makes him a more appealing candidate :)
Yay Particle Zoo!
Oh I didn't enjoy physics at all, but I did do alright in it. And you're right that there are some super interesting topics. Those plushies are adorable by the way. And that squirrel!
ReplyDeleteI think they deliberately put the most interesting stuff at the end of the two year course just to stop people dropping it!
DeleteThanks for popping over :)