The beach near my daughter's house overlooks Puget Sound and Mt. Ranier. It is an impressive chunk of vocanic rock, all right. White with snow even in the heart of summer.
The Science Thread
- Thread starter Louanne Learning
- Start date
Close to where my niece is, in Seattle. She really likes it out there.
They live on an island and are very happy there. My niece lives a couple of hours away further up the Sound.
[UNTITLED ODE TO THE WONDER OF LIFE]
by Richard Feynman
I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves… mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business… trillions apart… yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages… before any eyes could see… year after year… thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what?… on a dead planet, with no life to entertain.
Never at rest… tortured by energy… wasted prodigiously by the sun… poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves… and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity… living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein… dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle onto the dry land… here it is standing… atoms with consciousness… matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea… wonders at wondering… I… a universe of atoms… an atom in the universe.
by Richard Feynman
I stand at the seashore, alone, and start to think. There are the rushing waves… mountains of molecules, each stupidly minding its own business… trillions apart… yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages… before any eyes could see… year after year… thunderously pounding the shore as now. For whom, for what?… on a dead planet, with no life to entertain.
Never at rest… tortured by energy… wasted prodigiously by the sun… poured into space. A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea, all molecules repeat the patterns of one another till complex new ones are formed. They make others like themselves… and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity… living things, masses of atoms, DNA, protein… dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle onto the dry land… here it is standing… atoms with consciousness… matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea… wonders at wondering… I… a universe of atoms… an atom in the universe.
Reading more about Richard Feynman …
At the Galileo Symposium in Italy in 1964, he delivered a lecture titled “What Is and What Should Be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society?”
He commented on the lack of mainstream understanding of and enthusiasm for science (a condition I believe persists):
How do we explain that, in Feynman’s words, “we live in (an environment that) is so actively, intensely unscientific.”
Do people want knowledge? Why, or why not? Doesn’t more knowledge increase the wonder of it all?
One of the main goals of my teaching career was to instill a sense of awe around what we were uncovering in class. (I taught senior biology, so it was easy.)
But, I knew teachers who just went through the motions and I am sure turned students off of science.
If the teacher doesn’t have the sense of awe, it can’t be passed on to the students.
I'd love to hear about your experiences in high school science.
At the Galileo Symposium in Italy in 1964, he delivered a lecture titled “What Is and What Should Be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society?”
He commented on the lack of mainstream understanding of and enthusiasm for science (a condition I believe persists):
How do we explain that, in Feynman’s words, “we live in (an environment that) is so actively, intensely unscientific.”
Do people want knowledge? Why, or why not? Doesn’t more knowledge increase the wonder of it all?
One of the main goals of my teaching career was to instill a sense of awe around what we were uncovering in class. (I taught senior biology, so it was easy.)
But, I knew teachers who just went through the motions and I am sure turned students off of science.
If the teacher doesn’t have the sense of awe, it can’t be passed on to the students.
I'd love to hear about your experiences in high school science.
