Published at December 28, 2007
in School.
I. Introduction
In the sixth century BCE, a philosopher by the name of Thales proposed an idea that would change the world. Though his ontology was not especially revolutionary, he stated his views in a way that regarded mind (then considered to be of divine substance) as an entity separate from matter, thus encouraging the later idea that the spiritual world and the physical world are mutually exclusive. This the first ostensible conceptualization of secularism (Jayne).
From this point on, many philosophers would further the ideal of separation between the spiritual and the material. For example, the Sophists challenged truths proclaimed by existing authority, while later many Enlightenment philosophes (including Paine, Voltaire, and Rousseau) provided impetus to the development of secular and even atheistic ideals. It was during the Enlightenment (the eighteenth century) that the common connection between the church and state in contemporary governmental institutions began to be challenged. This inquiry furthered the acceptance of the ideal of government operating independent of direct religious influence.
Today, these ideas have developed enough to make secular government commonplace in western society. The United States, France, and Australia, among many others, have developed systems of government in which the sentiments and prejudices of religion are not allowed official influence in government matters. Despite the success of these nations, the legitimacy of this secularism is debated by some, as apparent in such current issues as abortion (in the United States). Is secularism really the wisest path to follow in politics? Many, including myself, believe that, based on practical and philosophical reasons, secularism should predominate in current governments.
Continue reading ‘Practical and Philosophical Approaches to Secular Government’
My most recent project in physics class was to build a water rocket, demonstrating the ideas of force, mass, and acceleration (yes, Newton’s 2nd law). Though mine was not the best by far, it performed substantially above average, reaching a little over 40 meters vertically and staying aloft for about six seconds (bottle initially pressurized at 50 psi, 23% full of water). You can see in the picture that it was going fast enough upon landing to though roughly mangle the nose cone. We obtained the height measure using a bit of trigonometry; we had people who measured the angle between the ground and the rocket at its apogee (positioned a known distance on four sides of the “launch pad”), and later averaged the results obtained by this (height=distance*tan(angle)).
I had much less time to build my rocket than I would have liked, being flooded with other homework the weekend I chose to do so. So I had to scale back some, not building the parachute apparatus that I had conceived, and going with a generic but nice design. I made the fins out of card stock coated in duct tape, with a wire spine running along the edge. The latter provided me the ability to bend the fins at will, so I could induce substantial spin upon the rocket (which I did). I weighted the nose cone with colored gravel, and left strips of the 2 liter bottle uncovered so it could be seen how much water was inside (roughly 460 ml is the optimal amount).
Through watching other rockets, I got some ideas to improve my design if I am ever to make one of these things again. First, I will make a parachute, and not connect the nose cone to the rocket, so I still get much height if the parachute deploys early (the cone will keep going). I will also use shorter, thinner, stiffer, less angled fins for less drag. I found this project quite fun, and, if I have the time (unlikely), I may construct my own launch pad so I can continue to build and test new designs.
The first project of the year in my physics class was to create a clock. This is not the kind of modern clock that we imagine at first, the kind with hands or lighted digits. No, all that was required was a consistent way to measure out a predictable interval of time (namely thirty seconds). Many people built water clocks, using the constant flow of water to measure out thirty seconds. Some people built ramps upon which a ball rolled down in a predictable amount of time. One guy even memorized a rap song that took exactly thirty seconds to recite.
I, however, used the power of gravity. No, I didn’t just drop something from 4.405 meters thirty times, though I did drop something. What I dropped was a weight, suspended by a string, which was wrapped around an axle, which spun a wheel, which was connected to a rod (off center) which was connected to a pendulum. The pendulum served to regulate the motion provided by the falling weight (escapement), as it has to completely stop twice every swing (every time it switches swinging direction), and thereby expends a consistent amount of energy, equal to that provided by gravitational acceleration at a certain critical speed. This speed I found to be roughly two “ticks” (swings of the pendulum) a second, and could thereby accurately and consistently measure out 30 seconds (+/- .4 seconds, I found) with every 55 ticks.
Perhaps a short video would illustrate this. I didn’t have it up high enough at the time I took the video, so I couldn’t get my full 30 seconds before the pendulum hit the ground. As can be seen, I used K’nex to build my clock (perhaps not the best building materials, but nice for making adjustments). Enjoy!
Published at September 11, 2007
in School and Life.
As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted anything in over a week. To those knowledgeable in the subject of public schools in my area, it may be apparent that I also started school over a week ago. Coincidence? I think not. Yes folks, the rumors are true. The life of Matt Nichols is once again almost entirely consumed by school. As I enter my Junior year, I feel a few words are merited on this most momentous subject.
So, a brief review of my classes.
- AP Calculus BC - Bound to be my favorite subject, as I am a self-defined “math guy”. I have several friends in the class, which is also a plus, and the teacher appears to be skilled and nice. Bonus.
- Latin III - Tedious and useful, learning Latin is a continuing, moderately difficult project. ‘Nuf said.
- AP US History - The next AP history course on the line, which looks like it will be not as difficult as the last one (AP European History; hard to beat on the difficulty scale). The teacher is cheerful and probably competent, so if I can get over the amazing workload of the class, it should be fun. Here’s hoping.
- Physics - At last! The subject that has interested me for years, the school finally allows me to take. I have an excellent teacher, but the curriculum moves rather slowly (perhaps to do with my classmates, who are on the low end of the interested/motivated spectrum, it seems). I find that having a good understanding of calculus concepts, I can master basic physics with little to no difficulty of thought. But the curriculum is impressive, and contains stuff I don’t know, so I will wait. And wait…
- Literature & Philosophy - Taught by an absent teacher (no one knows where he is, but the sub is nice), this class has yet to go very far very quickly. But it looks like we will get into some interesting stuff, and we are reading Socrates/Plato already. It seems this class will go into more ethical philosophy than logical or metaphysical (the two fields of philosophy that interest me most), but I think I will still get something out of it. Something other than more homework, that is.
- Piano I - Despite the fact that I have been playing piano for five years, I am still taking this class. It was an accident, actually, as I really wanted a different elective. But oh well, it is self-paced, so I can do things at my level and learn scales, which I haven’t ever before, believe it or not. A nice, mellow class at the end of the day.
Finally, I will note that my potential productivity in things that do not pertain to high school academics has plummeted, and will stay this way for quite some time. My school workload appears to be immense this year, so I doubt I will get much done outside of this. Expect one post weekly here, tops. Alas, this is something I can no longer control. So that’s that.
Now I am off to adhere to my self administered curfew of 9:00, which gets me to sleep around 10:00, giving me 8.2 to 8.4 hours of sleep, exactly what I need to achieve full brain function. ‘Night.
I just recently received my scores for the two College Board Advanced Placement tests I took roughly two months ago, namely those tests for Calculus AB and European History. I got a five on each, the highest score possible! I thought I had done all right, but not this well! I am quite pleasantly surprised.
My school district recently shelled out a whole ton of money to revive my school from its previously decrepit state, and as a part of this revival they added much new technology, including a digital projector for each classroom. Sounds like an great idea with incredible educational potential, eh? Well it is, when the teachers are able to get all the technology working at the same time. And most are capable enough that they can utilize it, or at least know how to call the tech (or ask a student) when they can’t figure it out. One example to the contrary, however, lies in my biology teacher.
In the past few days, we have been receiving a message declaring that the user must “Check the Air Flow”. This message is quite large, and effectively renders the machine useless by taking up almost all the screen space. For this reason, my biology teacher greatly wished to remove the notice, so she could once again use her projector (I don’t think she cared whether or not it burned up…). So I look over yesterday to see her physically propagating air flow over her computer. Yes, you read that right, her computer. Not even the obvious source of the difficulty, even if using a magazine to waft air in its direction would help. Her technological proficiency sinks even to the level of her aptitude in teaching biology (which, I may add, is not so lofty).
Moral to the story: don’t invest hundreds of dollars per classroom in technology if you are not going to teach those using it how to do so properly! Not doing so directly defeats the purpose of adding the technological tools in the first place.
No, sorry, this post does not address math in a different coordinate system. It does, however, address the unfortunate reality that math is becoming a more and more polarizing subject: either a student is very good or is but dull normal.
I have heard (from those older than myself) that in the olden days one had to be exceptional to advance beyond high school math in high school. Now it is commonplace to find people taking Calculus (technically college math) in senior year, if not even earlier. But it also seems that there a greater number of people who are falling below the established mathematical standard. In Washington, over half of students taking last year’s standardized mathematics exam failed it. This is no difficult math folks. And Washington students are supposed to be above average as a whole.
So what do these conflicting data mean? Must be that a greater number of students are good at math, but at the same time a greater number are exceedingly lacking in mathematical skill. This leaves a much smaller middle ground, those who are just okay at math, not great, not terrible. This is bad because it turns math into a kind of elitist subject, where those who aren’t awesome think that they are utterly terrible and get demoralized, and as a result sink into the ranks of those who are utterly terrible. This means even less people who are mathematically competent, an important group for this age of developing technology and ideas. Bad news my friends.
So how do we fix this grave dilemma? Make our math education better! This way, there will be no one that really can’t do math for beans. I think some schools are taking initiative in this direction, though it may come too little too late (the case of many educational improvements in the US). I hope not. Cross your fingers, and support those attempting to better math education.
