Time management is difficult in the age of the internet.
Choose one hour of one day sometime in the next week to turn off all devices - phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, gaming system, radio, mp3 player, etc.. everything.
On paper write out what you want to do with your schedule. If you know your college course load then that's great! Plan 1 hr of study time for every time you are in a class or lab each day. (e.g. if you have 3 classes on Monday, plan for 3 hours of study time, minimum. If you have 4 classes Tuesday, plan for 4 hours of study time, minimum, etc... proceed like that for your entire week.) When planning, make sure to eat and wake/sleep consistently, at least during the week. Try to plan in one hour of physical activity (even if it's walking at a brisk pace) each day. Make sure to give your mind and body time to relax as well -- a few hours each week to just do nothing or to relax and unwind doing a sport or activity you find enjoyable (music, athletics, etc.). Block out how all of that time will fit into your schedule on paper. You'll find that your schedule will rather quickly be filled in.
Now that you have a schedule sticking to it is the hardest part.
It requires turning off all those devices while studying and in class.
Your brain works best when you are 100% focused on the task at hand. You're naturally smart enough to be above most students even when your brain is at, say 80% or 70% focused, but there is a "wall" that you will reach at some point which will require you to be able to put forth close to 100% focus to succeed (undergrad or graduate studies or advancing beyond a certain point in your career, etc.). It is easier to develop that habit of 100% focus now than 4 or 5 or 10 years from now. :)
If you can make and keep a schedule you will basically be super(wo)man compared to your peers.
They'll be panicking and cramming before exams, and you'll have it all under control. They'll be rushing to finish a lab report or HW set, and you'll have it already done or need only one or two hours where they will need the entirety of that beautiful Sunday afternoon to finish it.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Monday, June 23, 2014
Books about the history of physics
Books about the history of physics.
Watching Cosmos (2014) has rekindled my interest in physics and the history of physics.
Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov
The Evolution of Physics by Einstein & Infeld
Six Easy Pieces and Six Not So Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman, also the complete Feynman Lectures on Physics are available online, as are his messenger lectures.
Watching Cosmos (2014) has rekindled my interest in physics and the history of physics.
Understanding Physics by Isaac Asimov
The Evolution of Physics by Einstein & Infeld
Six Easy Pieces and Six Not So Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman, also the complete Feynman Lectures on Physics are available online, as are his messenger lectures.
Visual Proofs
Sometimes, a visual proof is more helpful than pages of computations. Here are two interesting math concepts which you might find interesting.
1. "Dual" of polyhedra -- basically take a solid like a cube, find the midpoint of each edge, and rotate each edge about the midpoint until it connects with the other sides. Those two shapes are "dual". http://hyrodium.tumblr.com/post/76098308148/dual-polyhedrons
2. The "Sum of squares" 1 + 2 + 4 + 9 + 16 + ... has an elegant representation. Just think about stacking blocks and count up how many blocks are in the solid rectangle when you're done:
Proof 1 - fantastic animation! (source) Here is a Non animated 2d proof.
Sometimes, a visual proof is more helpful than pages of computations. Here are two interesting math concepts which you might find interesting.
1. "Dual" of polyhedra -- basically take a solid like a cube, find the midpoint of each edge, and rotate each edge about the midpoint until it connects with the other sides. Those two shapes are "dual". http://hyrodium.tumblr.com/post/76098308148/dual-polyhedrons
2. The "Sum of squares" 1 + 2 + 4 + 9 + 16 + ... has an elegant representation. Just think about stacking blocks and count up how many blocks are in the solid rectangle when you're done:
Proof 1 - fantastic animation! (source) Here is a Non animated 2d proof.
Linkdump from today's explorations
Investement simulator
http://www.cfiresim.com/input.php?id=89449
From this thread
Investement simulator
http://www.cfiresim.com/input.php?id=89449
From this thread
187 million taxi rides
2013 taxi data from NYC yields some interesting insights.
https://www.mapbox.com/blog/nyc-taxi/
The discussion on hackernews was interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7926358 and revealed some fascinating insights. The current top comment offers some insights into how this data could be manipulated to find out, say, who is attending what bars and when... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927034
Reddit also picked up some interesting bits of info from the data including what percentage of people tip, and how much: http://www.reddit.com/r/bigquery/comments/28ialf/173_million_2013_nyc_taxi_rides_shared_on_bigquery/
 |
| 89,092,521 (47.57%) left no tip, but... "Cash tips are easier for cab drivers to "forget" to report, so even though data suggests people tip more when paying by card (where the tip presets start at 20%!), drivers still prefer an under-the-table tip." |
From the reddit thread, someone linked a detailed yet approachable article about how the data may not be very anonymous: https://medium.com/@vijayp/of-taxis-and-rainbows-f6bc289679a1
> It took a while longer to de-anonymize the entire dataset, but thanks to Yelp’s MRJob, I ran a map-reduce over about 10 computers on EMR and had it done within an hour.
Interesting stuff!
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Properties of 8675309
Aside from being a catchy tune, 8675309 is an integer with some interesting properties. The fact that is is a primitive Pythagorean triple is remarkable!
A wolframalpha query yields these results:
Snopes article about how this song caused (or didn't cause) havoc for phone companies...
The song:
Monday, April 21, 2014
How to make online learning succeed
Below are some general guidelines about how to make an online course work best for reasonably responsible high school students. An important philosophical belief I have based on my experience with both in-class and online learning is that "technology is a tool" and like any other tool it takes consistent practice to master and it may not be perfectly suited for every single person. It can be made to work reasonably well for almost everyone if the following guidelines are kept:
Good practices
1. There must be regular (once-per-week minimum) communication between the student, online instructor, and in-school contact.
2. The student is expected to:
2a. spend roughly 1 hour/day, 5 days/week, every week on coursework (reading the text, regularly accessing the website to see videos, notes, try problems, email instructor, etc.)
2b. ask questions as soon as a problem (tech, math, etc.) arises!
3. The student should be provided with a quiet place to work on the course. (library, quite time at computer lab, etc.)
4. Logistically speaking, tests are 90 minutes, on paper. The student will need space, time, and a proctor for these tests. Midterm & Final = 180 minutes. Returning the tests is easy as using a smartphone or scanner to turn them into PDFs. * Note -- These times are specific to my courses. Your mileage may vary.
Here is how students often ... don't find success:
Bad practices
1. Students don't interact with the instructor regularly. Students don't have any sort of at-home or in-school person to check in on them weekly.
2. Students do the following:
2a. Spend 0 hours on the course for 2 consecutive weeks, then try to cram 10 hours into a weekend.
2b. Do not let the online instructor know when something is wrong (tech,math, etc.)
3. Students try to do their coursework in loud or distracting environments.
Myself and my team of instructors will continue to check in with the student and instructor throughout the enrollment, but the expectation is that the student is keeping to the suggestions above. Sometimes he or she may veer off course -- that's human, it happens, and it can easily be fixed if it's caught quickly.
Good practices
1. There must be regular (once-per-week minimum) communication between the student, online instructor, and in-school contact.
2. The student is expected to:
2a. spend roughly 1 hour/day, 5 days/week, every week on coursework (reading the text, regularly accessing the website to see videos, notes, try problems, email instructor, etc.)
2b. ask questions as soon as a problem (tech, math, etc.) arises!
3. The student should be provided with a quiet place to work on the course. (library, quite time at computer lab, etc.)
4. Logistically speaking, tests are 90 minutes, on paper. The student will need space, time, and a proctor for these tests. Midterm & Final = 180 minutes. Returning the tests is easy as using a smartphone or scanner to turn them into PDFs. * Note -- These times are specific to my courses. Your mileage may vary.
Here is how students often ... don't find success:
Bad practices
1. Students don't interact with the instructor regularly. Students don't have any sort of at-home or in-school person to check in on them weekly.
2. Students do the following:
2a. Spend 0 hours on the course for 2 consecutive weeks, then try to cram 10 hours into a weekend.
2b. Do not let the online instructor know when something is wrong (tech,math, etc.)
3. Students try to do their coursework in loud or distracting environments.
Myself and my team of instructors will continue to check in with the student and instructor throughout the enrollment, but the expectation is that the student is keeping to the suggestions above. Sometimes he or she may veer off course -- that's human, it happens, and it can easily be fixed if it's caught quickly.
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