The next promised post on trigonometry is in the final polishing stages, but in the meantime I would like a post to mention several people who have graciously agreed to help me in this endeavor to bring the first year of a physics majors schooling in physics to a non-math, non-science types audience.
I know full well that as a grad student in physics I am a very bad judge of what is and isn't understood or common knowledge. Teaching has helped rein me in enormously, but my students are assumed to have at least basic calculus knowledge. So I anticipated myself having a problem recognizing what needed more explanation, what was over-explained or even patronizing. I don't want to be the detective novel criminal who spells all the easy words wrong and all the hard words right (in reverse, kinda). Dear Husband, my usual editor, is too well versed in math to much use in this particular arena, so I reached out to some other family members, specifically my mother, my sister, and my brother, to help make sure I do this right. I asked them to do this because each of them brings something that I felt I really needed on what I am dubbing my Editorial Consortium.
My mother is in the demographic group, you might say, that always gives me deer-in-the-headlights or horrified looks when I say I do physics and protest it was too hard for them. Though very talented, she has not directed her talents in a STEM field direction. She is, however, the only reason that I can do long multiplication or division and light years ahead of me in mental arithmetic (also cooking, social skills, language, and checkbook balancing). She is also a natural copyeditor of high standards who is not shy of letting me know when I have fallen short of the mark.
My sister, hereafter to be referred to as Sylvia, Historian Extraordinaire, just graduated college with an absurd amount of honors with a major in History and a minor in French, her thesis work (yes, thesis for undergrad) being on Dorothy L. Sayers. She has a good math background, but hasn't used it much, having no call to do calculus as a literary historian. Her one and only basic physics class was the same one in high school that inspired me to physics. She is also representing a group that I want to reach--younger adults--and she would know if a reference is too obscure. She is also incredible at calling me out for being obtuse and/or patronising.
Last, but not least, is my brother, who will start high school in the fall. I included him for three reasons. First of all, he has had all of the math that I claim is required to understand the blog, but has never taken a physics class in his life. He's interested in the sciences, but he is yet untainted by misconception and bad teaching (other than my own). Second of all, it turns out he inherited Mother's copy editing skills and is very good at noting my inconsistent use of single and double quotation marks. Thirdly, I'm curious if the explanations are clear enough for younger persons who might be interested, but don't have much of a background. The flip side of my mother, so to speak.
They have all agreed to read, edit and comment every post that I write in this series. Between them all I think there is a fair shot that I will do what I set out to do. But I won't know if I am actually succeeding unless you, the reader, let's me know. You are the other part of this Editorial Consortium. If something is not clear, if I mess something up or forget something or just plain gloss over with the hated "the reader can obviously see", let me know! There is a comments link below each post. I'd love your feedback.
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