4 ms·

I find historical narrative to be an effective way to learn, but just reading names, dates, and important events is boring. You have to pretend like you have a

I find historical narrative to be an effective way to learn, but just reading names, dates, and important events is boring. You have to pretend like you have a time machine. An effective historical lesson takes you back in time and puts you right at the scene of the development, almost allowing you to have a conversation with the characters and follow along with their thought process. That being said, I appreciate this straightforward approach just as much, and find that having a good understanding of the core concepts first, makes adjusting the settings on the "time machine" much smoother.

derleth 14y ago
> allowing you to have a conversation with the characters and follow along with their thought process. Which were muddled, confused, and, pretty much by definition, partially incorrect. Historical development necessarily involves recapitulating the confusions of the people who finally got confused enough to throw over their original ideas. Even if you trim the history down to only the path that actually lead to modern theory, you still have a lot of confusion to get through before you can actually introduce the main idea of the topic in all its glory. And that's in addition to the confusion students have naturally.
- pirateking 14y ago
  Very true. Though there is still some value in the journey through history, aside from learning the main idea. It can serve as inspiration for your own quest, and also challenge you to question modern theory as those who came before did. Being equipped with some fundamentals first, makes exploring the history less confusing. I think Charles Petzold's book "Code", is a great example of blending historical narrative with core concepts - I highly recommend it.
Retric 14y ago
IMO, the simple approach is dangerous. Saying here is the theory have at it is fine if you want to teach someone how to design transistors, but the point is not that QM is correct it's just the best approximation yet and in no way the 'holy word' on how the universe operates. The single most important thing to teach science students is to discard existing theory's when reality does not support them and to require any new theory to also be supported by the body of existing experimental evidence.
- loup-vaillant 14y ago
  > the simple approach is dangerous Definitely. However, it also happens to be the approach used since kindergarten up to high school, and in most universities. Whatever the field, as far as I know, students learn real science only when they start their PhD. Sometimes even later. I would love to see a real science course, where students come up with theories and discard them, again and again, until they come up with something probably correct (or not). That would teach them to accept being wrong (I hope). Today, it's hard to do for anything but open questions, which tend to be pretty difficult.
guelo 14y ago
I recently did one of my Wikipedia curiosity dives along a similar route. Starting with cathode ray tubes in the 1800s through the discovery of electrons, photons and then into the discovery of quantum effects. Trying to understand what were the questions that were raised by each experiment and how they led to the next set of experiments and theories. It was very enlightening, though Wikipedia's dry style and inconsistent depth on each subject makes it hard to follow the narrative sometimes.
- pirateking 14y ago
  Yes, someone really needs to do a fun Bill and Ted style video series (or even better - a full blown video game franchise) on a wide variety of topics. I would pay good money for entertaining, interactive, and highly educational trips such as: Life at Bell Labs with Dennis Ritchie, Finding Mario with Shigeru Miyamoto, Building and Selling Your First Computer with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. So many great stories, and so much untapped storytelling potential... Wikipedia, History Channel, and random documentaries on Netflix aren't good enough!

derleth 14y ago

> allowing you to have a conversation with the characters and follow along with their thought process. Which were muddled, confused, and, pretty much by definition, partially incorrect. Historical development necessarily involves recapitulating the confusions of the people who finally got confused enough to throw over their original ideas. Even if you trim the history down to only the path that actually lead to modern theory, you still have a lot of confusion to get through before you can actually introduce the main idea of the topic in all its glory. And that's in addition to the confusion students have naturally.

pirateking 14y ago
Very true. Though there is still some value in the journey through history, aside from learning the main idea. It can serve as inspiration for your own quest, and also challenge you to question modern theory as those who came before did. Being equipped with some fundamentals first, makes exploring the history less confusing. I think Charles Petzold's book "Code", is a great example of blending historical narrative with core concepts - I highly recommend it.

Retric 14y ago

IMO, the simple approach is dangerous. Saying here is the theory have at it is fine if you want to teach someone how to design transistors, but the point is not that QM is correct it's just the best approximation yet and in no way the 'holy word' on how the universe operates. The single most important thing to teach science students is to discard existing theory's when reality does not support them and to require any new theory to also be supported by the body of existing experimental evidence.

loup-vaillant 14y ago
> the simple approach is dangerous Definitely. However, it also happens to be the approach used since kindergarten up to high school, and in most universities. Whatever the field, as far as I know, students learn real science only when they start their PhD. Sometimes even later. I would love to see a real science course, where students come up with theories and discard them, again and again, until they come up with something probably correct (or not). That would teach them to accept being wrong (I hope). Today, it's hard to do for anything but open questions, which tend to be pretty difficult.

guelo 14y ago

I recently did one of my Wikipedia curiosity dives along a similar route. Starting with cathode ray tubes in the 1800s through the discovery of electrons, photons and then into the discovery of quantum effects. Trying to understand what were the questions that were raised by each experiment and how they led to the next set of experiments and theories. It was very enlightening, though Wikipedia's dry style and inconsistent depth on each subject makes it hard to follow the narrative sometimes.

pirateking 14y ago
Yes, someone really needs to do a fun Bill and Ted style video series (or even better - a full blown video game franchise) on a wide variety of topics. I would pay good money for entertaining, interactive, and highly educational trips such as: Life at Bell Labs with Dennis Ritchie, Finding Mario with Shigeru Miyamoto, Building and Selling Your First Computer with Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. So many great stories, and so much untapped storytelling potential... Wikipedia, History Channel, and random documentaries on Netflix aren't good enough!