Today, I was going to my Physics 2A class, Statistical and Thermal Physics, when I was stopped by a family who was visiting Caltech with their daughter. They asked where to find 201 Bridge which just happened to be my physics course so I told them to follow me.
Along the way, I briefed them as we were walking: “So this course is thermal and statistical physics with quantum mechanics…”
“What level course is this?” The father asked.
“A sophomore level course,” I answered.
“She’s a junior in high school,” the father said, trying to make conversation.
I nodded, not really knowing how to respond to that. But I hesitated a bit when I remembered that this is statistical physics we’re talking about here so I tried to warn them beforehand: “So there’s a lot of math in the lecture, and it may be….[I paused trying to find the right word that wasn't insulting] a lot of handle. Just don’t worry about it…”
They smiled, and the Dad said: “Well, she’s in AP Calculus right now.”
As we walked up to the lecture hall, I pointed out a few things to them.
When the lecture started, it was about the derivation of Fermi gases and using them to approximate conduction in a crystal lattice (a metal) and also in a gravitational field (a star/white dwarf/neutrino/black hole). It was pretty math heavy and the professor was on a roll today throwing out all sorts of jargon: Ferimons, bosons, Maxwell-Boltzman gases, n-space, quantum concentration, Sandrasekhar mass, etc. He was also using a lot of mathematical shortcuts without much explanation. Of course, we students in the class were able to understand him since we had the previous lectures and readings. But for a junior in high school learning Calculus, I would imagine that the lecture would be pretty cryptic! Hell, if I was a junior in high school, I would be like: “WTF are Fermi gases? What’s with this math?! I need to get out of here!”
So throughout the lecture, I was kind of cringing every time something really complex came up since I felt sorry for girl. But at the end of lecture though, I looked over at the family, and they had these big smiles on their faces like: “I don’t understand a thing, but that was friggin’ awesome!” That kind of made me smile too :).
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