Experiments can be global, learners of all ages can work together with real data no one place can afford

Experiments can be global, learners of all ages can work together with real data no one place can afford

[ I commented on Facebook Reel and sharing it here https://www.facebook.com/61559768691790/videos/2536360810085744/?comment_id=3836147706642711 ]

When I was going to college, I barely had enough money to eat, so I got a job as a test subject in a centrifuge experiment for like $5 an hour. It was in Pensacola Florida, so it was space related. They had an astronaut seat in this large centrifuge with a control panel. I followed instruction to move things and flip switches and such. I do not think it was more than 3 g. But it gave me one of the worst headache I have had in my entire life.

You might look at these centrifuges at https://johnclarkeonline.com/2011/08/19/going-nowhere-fast-military-aviation-centrifuges/

Over the years I have kept track of microgravity experiments – on earth to make synthetic micro and nano gravity fields. And in space to use fields to make synthetic fields to keep bones and people healthy. I am still on a microgravity newsletter. And I work on synthetic acceleration fields using electromagnetic and acoustic fields to move and hold things. Acoustic fields are cheap, but anything that makes forces, including lasers to ionize and heat and expand volumes of air – anything is fair game. The systems now are all digitally compatible, and with sensors and cameras you can do the numbers. There are tons of 3D volumetric imaging systems now, so finding structures inside a human or object to push is simple. But it means working with lots of number “fast” and doing simple things and checking the values.

If those “kids” experiments are just “experiencing” I think they are wasting time. Measure something and let the kids run the models and then they can change the models and suggest improvement. One model that all can change and modify, keep snapshots, save the results.

There are about 2 billion kids now from 4 to 24. That is about 100 Million each year. So in the world there are many tens of million at each age — and they can talk to each other, share “good” models, and run experiments storing very good data on important experiments — globally for everyone. Schools that think they have to (or can) do it all themselves are not thinking globally and for all humans. Pretty pictures are terrible ways to learn. Being in an experiment is more a headache than a learning experience. Gut feelings are not the way to learn physics. You do it with models, software, simulations, visualizations, controls – because it is for doing things, not just entertaining things to watch.

I made a video about that a few years ago. It is about the large number of possible interactions when classes are not 30-60 kids but 30 or 300 Million learners all focusing on ONE concept or area at once, or many in parallel, but global and those passionate about something.

California Students Working Together Regardless of School and Class and Age and Gender and Ethnicity at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtuwkfj7C5g

I am 75 now and I started working on chemistry and rockets and physics 60 years ago.  I hated “astronomy” where the teacher hogged the eyepiece and controls. I hated classes with “teachers” who strutted and pontificated and we were supposed to memorize what was in the books and in experiments we never could try ourselves. I hate sites that boast of their brilliance and accomplishments, do not share lossless data, and write papers where they are talking only to themselves.

There are 5.4 Billion humans using the Internet and 2.8 Billion more not connected for a variety of reasons.  Including “some humans need to know how to survive without devices”.

When I was in the third grade the book mobile has a book on how to learn Chinese. No one to help I did memorize and learn to read and write the symbols they had in the book. But no one to show me what it sounded like, no way to afford other books. But all my life I have thought “What if all 3rd graders in the world (about 100 Million) could work together learning things that kids that age are fully capable of? And learn how to work in a global world where most of people are not from Texas.

I think those early experiences are what make me so critical of large “science” websites now who give out simulated data, toy explanations, dumbed down and ambiguous shows with no data. And hide any real data and how they do things. Their attitude is “we are way too intelligent for young people or people who have to work for a living to ever understand”.

Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation