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"Who are those guys*?"
The guy on the Lesson Outline page is Galileo Galilei: The first scientist to apply mathematics to the science of accelerating objects. Broke the rules by saying there were moons orbiting Jupiter. Got locked up for a year and threatened with torture for that one.
The guy on the Course Information page is Isaac Newton: Inventor of calculus and the Laws of Motion. Broke the rules by saying God doesn't act on objects individually but follows his own rules know as the Laws of Motion. Nearly blinded himself by looking directly at the sun when any fool knows you shouldn't.
The guy on the Physics Links page you probably guessed as Albert Einstein: You know, E = mc^2... Created both Special Relativity and General Relativity by breaking the rules and saying time is not a universal constant but depends on the relative motion of the object and the observer. Didn't like to wear socks.
The guy on the Other Links page is Richard Feynman: Won a Nobel prize for turning the world's understanding of quantum mechanics upside down by breaking the rules and saying an object could simultaneously follow two or more paths from one point to another. Did much of his work in a go-go bar to avoid being disrupted by students and colleagues.
The guy on the Contact Mr. Muth page is a well known charlatan and scoundrel. I would avoid being seen in the same room as him. Breaks lots of rules for "educational purposes." Parents! Don't let your children spend any time with this guy. They may start thinking for themselves and breaking rules.
The guy who said "Who are those guys?" is Paul Newman playing Butch Cassidy in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Broke lots of rules by robbing banks and trains. At least he got rich by breaking the rules, which is more than can be said for the last guy. Of course, Butch and Sundance do wind-up dead at the end of the movie. So, maybe it isn't good to break the rules of law with violence, and just stick to breaking rules of science with your imagination.
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* Why are all these guys men? Well, the sad truth is that for centuries men created formal and informal systems for excluding women from the sciences, especially the physical sciences. Fortunately, things started to change in the last century and women are becoming more common in physical sciences. Click here to go to a cool page at UCLA documenting the contributions of women in the field of physics.
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This page last modified:
02-Sep-2008 17:49