Richard Feynman describes how much fun it is to think up explanations of the physical world.
Innate geometry?
Is everyone really born with a deep understanding of geometry?
Ideal gas equation
Maths and science videos
YouTube have pulled together all of their educational material in one place. Definitely worth spending some time here. Don’t forget to make your own notes!
Dot.physics
This is my favourite wired.com blog.
I really admire Rhett Allain’s enthusiasm and his willingness to try out explanations of physical phenomena -very publicly.
This gives a clear insight into how physicists (and engineers and applied mathematicians ) think. There is a great deal of working through thought experiments and iterating towards a theory which accounts well for the known observations.
Definitely worth a read-through.
Plus magazine
Here is an online magazine with some really great content -from introductory to quite advanced. A good source of ideas and explanations.
Having trouble with Limits?
Here is a lovely, simple explanation of how limits and infinitesimals work (and when they don’t).
Well worth a read, because it isn’t afraid to tell the whole story in non-technical language.
Maths teaching (video)
Here‘s maths teacher Dan Meyer talking about how to get people buying into maths problems by asking a simple question and removing all the spoon-feeding steps (including plugging numbers into formulae).
This man is super-enthusiastic, as well as a very clear thinker.
How can I plot functions easily?
I’ve used the full version of Mathematica and it’s a tour de force. It’s also massively more sophisticated than most people need (as well as hugely overpriced).
So try this cut-down online version.
Try typing in Plot sin (x^2) / e^x or something…
What else can I read?
There are very few books which explain things with the degree of clarity I seem to need. Even the very best authors sometimes use imprecise English and expect the reader to fill in the gaps using ‘context.’ I seem not to do context. 😉
I’m providing a list of publications below which are worth reading. If you want to really understand the subject matter, I suggest working through at least two on each subject. Some of this stuff is University level, so expect to come out with some new questions of your own!
Melanie Mitchell –Complexity
John Gribbin –Chaos, Complexity…
Peter Atkins –Galileo’s Finger
