Oersted Medal
The Oersted Medal recognizes notable contributions to the teaching of physics. Established in 1936, it is awarded by the American Association of Physics Teachers. The award is named for Hans Christian Ørsted. It is the Association's most prestigious award. Hans Christian Ørsted Well-known recipients include Nobel laureates Robert Andrews Millikan, Edward M. Purcell, Richard Feynman, Isidor I. Rabi, Norman F. Ramsey, Hans Bethe, and Carl Wieman; as well as Arnold Sommerfeld, George Uhlenbeck, Jerrold Zacharias, Philip Morrison, Melba Phillips, Victor Weisskopf, Gerald Holton, John A. Wheeler, Frank Oppenheimer, Robert Resnick, Carl Sagan, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Kleppner, and Lawrence Krauss, and Anthony French, David Hestenes, Robert Karplus, Robert Pohl, and Francis Sears. The 2008 medalist, Mildred S. Dresselhaus, is the third woman to win the award in its 70-plus-year history. Medalists Source: * William Suddards Franklin – 1936 * Edwin Herbert ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Teaching
Teaching is the practice implemented by a ''teacher'' aimed at transmitting skills (knowledge, know-how, and interpersonal skills) to a learner, a student, or any other audience in the of an educational institution. Teaching is closely related to ''learning'', the student's activity of appropriating this knowledge. Teaching is part of the broader concept of ''education''. Profession Training Teaching in non-human animals Teaching has been considered uniquely human because of mentalistic definitions. Indeed, in psychology, teaching is defined by the intention of the teacher, which is to transmit information and/or behavior and/or skill. This implies the need for the teacher to assess the knowledge state of the potential learner, thus to demonstrate theory of mind abilities. As theory of mind and intentions are difficult (if not impossible) to assess in non-humans, teaching was considered uniquely human. However, if teaching is defined by its function, it is then possible ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Melba Phillips
Melba Newell Phillips (February 1, 1907 – November 8, 2004) was an American physicist and a pioneer science educator. One of the first doctoral students of J. Robert Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley, Phillips completed her PhD in 1933, a time when few women could pursue careers in science. In 1935, Oppenheimer and Phillips published their description of the Oppenheimer–Phillips process, an early contribution to nuclear physics that explained the behavior of accelerated nuclei of radioactive hydrogen atoms. Phillips was also known for her refusal to cooperate with a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee's investigation on internal security during the McCarthy era which led to her dismissal from her professorship at Brooklyn College, where she was a professor of science from 1938 until 1952. (The college publicly and personally apologized to Phillips for the dismissal in 1987.) Phillips also taught at the University of Minnesota (1941–44) and served as as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Robert Pohl
Robert Wichard Pohl (10 August 1884 – 5 June 1976) was a German physicist and professor of the University of Göttingen. The physical institute in Göttingen led by Pohl was one of the first schools in solid state physics and Nevill Francis Mott described Pohl as the "father of solid state physics.". See also: "Components of the solid state", Nevill Mott, New Scientist, Vol. 69, No. 993, p. 663-666 (1976) He is known for relating color in alkali metal halides with the presence of vacancies and F-centers (also called color centers), a type of crystallographic defect. He also demonstrated the first transistor based on color centers. The Gudden–Pohl effect and the Pohl torsion pendulum () are named after him. Early years and education Robert Wichard Pohl was born in Hamburg as the son of the naval engineer Eugen Robert Pohl and his wife Martha. She was the daughter of , founder of the private 'Dr. Wichard Lange School', and granddaughter of , who founded the first German kind ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Robert Karplus
Robert Karplus (*February 23, 1927 Vienna; † March 20, 1990) was a theoretical physicist and leader in the field of science education. Early life Robert Karplus was born in Vienna, where he lived until the German occupation of Austria in 1938. He emigrated with his mother and brother to escape the ''Anschluss''. After a six-month stay in Switzerland, the family moved to the United States and settled in the Boston area. He entered Harvard University in 1943 and completed his Ph.D at the age of twenty-one. His thesis under E. Bright Wilson was on microwave spectroscopy and included both experimental and theoretical work. He was recognized by those he worked with for his brilliance, originality, energy, and cheerful, positive outlook. His grandfather Johann Paul Karplus (1866–1936) was a highly acclaimed professor of psychiatry at the University of Vienna. He is nephew, by marriage, of the sociologist, philosopher and musicologist Theodor W. Adorno and grandnephew of the physici ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
David Hestenes
David Orlin Hestenes (born May 21, 1933) is a theoretical physicist and science educator. He is best known as chief architect of geometric algebra as a unified language for mathematics and physics, and as founder of Modelling Instruction, a research-based program to reform K–12 Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. For more than 30 years, he was employed in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Arizona State University (ASU), where he retired with the rank of research professor and is now emeritus. Life and career Education and doctorate degree David Orlin Hestenes (eldest son of mathematician Magnus Hestenes) was born 1933 in Chicago, Illinois. Beginning college as a pre-medical major at UCLA from 1950 to 1952, he graduated from Pacific Lutheran University in 1954 with degrees in philosophy and speech. After serving in the U.S. Army from 1954 to 1956, he entered UCLA as an unclassified graduate student, completed a physics M.A. in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Anthony French
Anthony Philip French (19 November 1920 – 3 February 2017) was a British physicist. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Biography French was born on 19 November 1920, in Brighton, England. French won a scholarship to study at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, receiving his B.A. in physics in 1942. In 1942, he was recruited by Egon Bretscher to the British effort to build an atomic bomb (codenamed Tube Alloys) at the Cavendish Laboratory. By 1944, Tube Alloys had been merged with the American Manhattan Project and French was sent to Los Alamos. In 1945 he married Los Alamos mathematician Naomi Livesay. When the war ended, French returned to Cambridge University and the Cavendish Laboratory where he joined the faculty at Pembroke College, becoming a fellow and director of studies in natural sciences. He was awarded a Ph.D. in 1948 based on some of his declassified work from Los Alamos. French al ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lawrence Krauss
Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is a Canadian-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who taught at Arizona State University (ASU), Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project in 2008 to investigate fundamental questions about the universe and served as the project's director. Krauss is an advocate for public understanding of science, public policy based on sound empirical data, scientific skepticism, and science education. An anti-theist, Krauss seeks to reduce the influence of what he regards as superstition and religious dogma in popular culture. Krauss is the author of several bestselling books, including '' The Physics of Star Trek'' (1995) and '' A Universe from Nothing'' (2012), and chaired the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' Board of Sponsors. Upon investigating allegations about sexual misconduct by Krauss, ASU determined that Krauss had violated university policy, and did not renew his Origins Pr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Daniel Kleppner
Daniel Kleppner (born 1932) is an American physicist who is the Lester Wolfe Professor Emeritus of Physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-founder and co-director of the MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms. His areas of science include atomic, molecular, and optical physics, and his research interests include experimental atomic physics, laser spectroscopy, and high precision measurements. Together with Robert J. Kolenkow, he authored a popular textbook '' An Introduction to Mechanics'' for advanced students. Biography Parents Kleppner's father was Otto Kleppner, founder of an advertising agency. Education and career Kleppner graduated from Williams College with a B.A. in 1953 in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He also attended Cambridge University in England with a B.A. in 1955, and Harvard University, he attended the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, with a Ph.D. in 1959. In the 1950s, Kleppner became a physics doctoral student at ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Freeman Dyson
Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was a British-American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrix, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, and nuclear engineering, engineering. He was professor emeritus in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton and a member of the board of sponsors of the ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists''. Dyson originated several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, a fundamental technique in additive number theory, which he developed as part of his proof of Mann's theorem; the Dyson tree, a hypothetical genetic engineering, genetically engineered plant capable of growing in a comet; the Dyson series, a Perturbation theory (quantum mechanics), perturbative series where each term is represented by Feynman diagrams; the Dys ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Carl Sagan
Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals by exposure to light. He assembled the first physical messages sent into space, the Pioneer plaque and the Voyager Golden Record, which were universal messages that could potentially be understood by any Extraterrestrial life, extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them. He argued in favor of the hypothesis, which has since been accepted, that the high surface temperatures of Venus are the result of the greenhouse effect.Extract of page 14 Initially an assistant professor at Harvard Universi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Robert Resnick
Robert Resnick (January 11, 1923 – January 29, 2014) was a physics educator and author of physics textbooks. He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on January 11, 1923"Robert Resnick." ''Marquis Who's Who''. Marquis Who's Who, 2008. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2008. and graduated from the Baltimore City College high school in 1939. He received his B.A. in 1943 and his Ph.D. in 1949, both in physics from Johns Hopkins University. From 1949 to 1956, he was a member of the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he first met David Halliday, with whom he wrote his most widely read textbook. He later became a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and was head of the interdisciplinary science curriculum for fifteen years. During his years at RPI, he authored or co-authored seven textbooks on relativity, quantum physics, and general physics, which have been translated into more than 47 languages. It is estimated that over 10 mi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Frank Oppenheimer
Frank Friedman Oppenheimer (14 August 1912 – 3 February 1985) was an American particle physicist, cattle rancher, professor of physics at the University of Colorado, and the founder of the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The younger brother of renowned physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, Frank Oppenheimer conducted research on aspects of nuclear physics during the time of the Manhattan Project, and made contributions to uranium enrichment. After the war, Oppenheimer's earlier involvement with the American Communist Party placed him under scrutiny, and he resigned from his physics position at the University of Minnesota. Oppenheimer was a target of McCarthyism and was blacklisted from finding any physics teaching position in the United States until 1957, when he was allowed to teach science at a high school in Colorado. This rehabilitation allowed him to gain a position at the University of Colorado teaching physics. In 1969, Oppenheimer founded the Exploratorium in San Francisco ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |