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Things a museum can do:
Homeschool hub.
Tutoring center.
Casual science talks where the audience can enter and exit freely. You need all-around scientists that can handle any question in science.
Maintain an online forum for the public, where museum scientists participate.
Host academic contests and train people for contests. The Science Olympiad for K-12 is the most prominent contest.
Support student science projects. For example, using public data archives.
Glamorous public talks.
Glamorous public debates, such as the Asimov Debate at the American Museum of Natural History.
Give talks at nearby venues.
Base for a mobile museum.
Scale models. jaymaron.com/exhibit.html
Fluorescent rocks, phosphorescent rocks, and bioluminescence. Make sure the room is dark. AMNH once had a bioluminescence exhibit and they failed to make the room dark.
Big rocks. AMNH could have many more big rocks. Have some outside.
Make videos of animal tracking data from movebank.org.
Get data for river quality.
Get data for biomasses and eating rates for various species, especially ocean species. Biomass charts.
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Have lots of text channels. Have a main channel that has frequent posting. You need a crowd large enough for an active main channel. An active main channel draws people in.
Have lots of specialty channels that can support coherent long-term conversations.
Have channel where the best posts are reposted.
Teachers should have a private channel.
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Teachers should post frequently, to encourage students to post frequently.
Post fast, to encourage students to post fast. You want real-time dialogue in the text forum.
Have alerts for posts that warrant fast attention.
Enable editing of posts after they've been written. It encourages people to post fast, since they can polish the post later. It reduces clutter.
The audio channel should have people in it at all times, so that students know that they can always reach out to the channel.
A voice channel should have a dedicated text channel associated with it.
Have a large number of chatrooms with specific topics, and be ready to create new rooms as needed.
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The forum platform should be able to operate on threads. Threads can be transplanted, merged, or pruned.
Write summary posts that summarize a thread.
Threads should never expire.
Discord is a good platform. You can create your own universe where you are king and moderator. It has text, voice, and video. You can customize your universe.
Discord has good automods.
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Have a web page of resources, with things like:
Pop-science articles
Daily news
Frequently asked questions
Plots
Extra credit problems
Technical material
Teacher biographies
It helps your image to have an arsenal of textbooks that you wrote. Use both public material and your own textbooks.
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Have problems at all difficulty levels.
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Encourage students to have the patience to tackle hard problems.
Have multiple ways to score points. For example, the Tour de France has multiple categories, such as best climber, best sprinter, best overall time, most combative, best team, etc.
Establish a network of homeschools, churches, and elderly homes.
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Celebrity teachers attract students, and students respect celebrity teachers. A school should help its teachers look like celebrities. This helps get respect from students.
You want students to retain an interest in the teachers after the class concludes, and you want to network the students.
Have an online forum for alumni.
You want students to endorse your classes to other students.
Have a set of sample material online that endorsers can point to.
There are lots of cheap ways to advertise, especially in online forums. Establish a presence on online forums and use the opportunity to advertise.
Build a team of panelists and practice the art of witty banter. Have team chemistry.
There should be abundant silence. Silence gives a speaker the luxury of delivering a point leisurely, and it makes it easier for people to jump in.
A panel should be able to focus on a topic.
Pass the conversational ball often.
If you interject a speaker, give the conversational ball back to the speaker after you interject. Interjections should be synergistic with the speaker.
Establish a presence on science forums, and establish scientific respect on the forums. Show that your science teaching is advanced and of value to the forum.
A museum can have an auditorium where a scientist is on stage all the time, fielding questions from the audience and giving pop science talks.
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Use numbers to make things objective. Ask numerical questions. Have abundant plots.
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Teach material that is practical and powerful.
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Find ways to motivate students to work hard.
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Offer students both the red and blue pill. If they take the blue pill, make sure they know it's a blue pill.
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On science forums, establish a reputation for being a skilled scientist. Engage in science duels and win. This helps get respect from students.
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Be specific about what is good work.
Students should connect to student forums that are outside the school. Your school is an exclusive club, like a fraternity, and this helps with networking outside the school. You have a pack backing you up. Teachers should do the same.
Allow any topic to be raised.
Have teachers cross over between classes. For example, the ecology class has a full time ecologist, and scientists from other classes occasionally post.
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Game shows are fun. Hold game shows and score students by their speed and accuracy.
You want students to do the reading before the lecture. A game show based on the reading encourages students to do the reading.
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A good post inspires others to reply. Encourage students to make such posts.
A "heavy post" includes:
A plot
Teachers can team up to produce a heavy post.
Numbers
A calculation
A link to a web article that expands on the topicl
A link to a youtube video.
Sound bites.
A few paragraphs of text.
Questions for the audience.
The museum should have an online pop-science magazine, with teachers contributing.
Use a musical instrument to spice up your audio and video channels.
Homework can be assigned that has value to teachers. For example, have students assemble data and analyze it. Choose projects where the output can contribute to teacher's webpages.
Have diverse teachers. Have teachers with teaching degrees and teachers that don't. Have teachers that have a science PhD and no teaching degree. People with teaching degrees should respect them. To disrespect a scientist without a teaching degree is anti-science. Teachers with teaching degrees should befriend scientists and learn from them.
A great way to learn how to teach is to teach. If you don't have a teaching degree, you'll figure it out by gettingn teaching experience. People with a PhD and no teachingn degree are fast learners and they're intellectually curious. they'll put in the time and learn how to teach.
A teaching degree is expensive. In many cases, it's better to not spend that money.
Many people are born as great teachers and don't need to spend time getting a teaching degree.
From Carnegie's book on winning friends,
Give honest, sincere appreciation.
Arouse in the other person an eager want.
Become genuinely interested in other people.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Make the other person feel important - and do so sincerely.
Talk in terms of the other person's interest.
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Get the other person saying, "Yes, yes" immediately.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Dramatize your ideas.
Throw down a challenge.
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest and every improvement. Be "lavish in your praise."
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
Speak slowly and leave pauses for others to interject.
If you interject, don't steal the topic. Give the topic back to the original speaker.
Laughter is good. It enables you to contribute to a conversation without talking over the speaker. Also use Wookie sounds.
Avoid taking in air while speaking.
Minimize syllables and words.
Leave pauses so that the audience can think.
Be pithy.
Speak with rhythm.
Be able to speak at low pitch. Use pitch dynamically.
Students should be selective about what to memorize. Memorize only things that you'll remember long-term. Many classes overdo memorization.
Things to memorize:
The timeline of American presidents. Read the Wiki page for each president and each election. Whenever you encounter an event in history, note who was president, so that you can approximate the year that the event took place.
The timeline of the history of western civilzation. Organize the timeline around wars and revolutions, and read the Wiki pages on major wars and revolutions.
The timeline of monarchs of England and the UK, from Charles I (1625) to the present.
The timeline of the history of science. Read the Wiki pages on major discoveries.
The world map and the American state map. Know the locations of major cities. Don't worry about state capitols.
For each scientific unit, read the Wiki page and memorize the table of numbers.
Have an awareness of magnitude for each unit. Whenever you encounter a new number,
note where it fits in the table.
Units and scientific fundamentals
The periodic table. Read the Wiki page for each element, and read the pages for molecules that come up. You don't have to memorize the actinides (rare earths) or the short-lived elements (polonium through francium).
The important isotopes of uranium and plutonium, and read the Wiki page for each isotope. Know how nuclear bombs and nuclear reactors work.
Molecules. Read lots of Wiki pages on molecules, especially organic molecules.
Latin. Romance languages are easier if you speak Latin.
Literary canon
All wars involving America. Also memorize the most important European wars.
The history of Japan, China, India, Tibet, and Mongolia.
Classical literature.
Sports:
College athletic conferences.
National Football League teams
Major League Baseball teams
Sports dynasty teams
Sports individual legends
Things you don't need to memorize:
European monarchs. For any given country, the monarchs tend to be similar. However, do memorize the monarchs of England and the UK, from 1625 to the present. Read about the most important European monarchs.
Complex biochemical processes.
Most philosophers can be ignored.
Spend time tackling math contest problems.
Spend time trying the problems. Spend all day. Don't give up. After spending a full day, look at the solutions.
Also spend time looking at solutions without trying to do the problem. Look at lots of solutions.
Math contest problems and solutions:
AIME. Art of Problem Solving
Putnam. Dr. John Scholes
Putnam. Dr. Kiran Kedlaya
A moderator should use power minimalistically.
A moderator is a leader with the duty of advancing the team. A moderator should place the team above himself.
It should be okay to challenge a moderator's decisions.
Don't make assumptions.
Don't have negative bias.
Positive bias can be a virtue. This is an element of Carnegie's book.
Establish rapport in advance. Be amiable and make connections with amiable students.
A reset sometimes solves strife.
If there's strife on a public forum, pause the public forum and establish a private forum to look for ambassadorship.
Soccer penalties are gradiated. For example:
Free kick
Yellow card
Red card
Forum penalties should be gradiated. For example:
1-minute mute
5-minute mute
1-hour mute
1-day mute
1-week mute
ban
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Dr. Maron's Science Olympiad coaching page.
Schools fight for prestige, and SO is a factor. It's analogous to college football. SO is domininated by dynasty schools. There is hunger for SO coaching. SO connects you to the world of high school science teachers.
New York's heavyweight schools are Fayetteville-Manlius, Melville, Maine-Endwell, Cicero North, Stuyvesant, Syosset, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Technical, Staten Island Technical, Great Neck South, New Albany, Columbia High, Mount Academy, and Kellenberg Memorial.
SO has many tournaments. The most prestigious are MIT, Mason Ohio, Los Angeles, San Francisco, U Penn, U Wisconsin, U Chicago, Northwestern, U Michigan, Las Vegas, Rickards Florida, Duke, Princeton, Yale, U Texas, and Carnegie Mellon. New York has no prestigious SO tournaments. There is opportunity for museums to host tournaments.
Dr. Maron has an SO coaching page at https://jaymaron.com/scioly.html. When Dr. Maron was in high school he was captain of the Madison West team that placed 2nd at nationals, and he has gold medals in the electronics and Fermi events.
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Make a map of galaxies within 400 million light years.
Build a data file of all exoplanet systems with at least 3 planets, or with a planet of 2 Earth masses or less.
Use board game engines to study fairy chess and other games.
Calculate particle showers with the code "Geant".
Build sports data files for:
English FA Cup
European Champion's League
English soccer leagues
College football rankings
College basketball rankings
Classes often have prerequisites. Science and engineering have physics
prerequisites.
prerequites
You must accept challenges from worthy competition and win. You must face the Devil's advocate.
You must win on neutral turf, in a fair game.
You should treat the opposing team respectfully. You should respect the devil's advocate.
Don't hate the devil's advocate if he kicks your ass. He's doing his job.
Be sportsmanlike.
Don't straw-man the opposition.
If you win, you must defend the title against challengers. New data roll
in. Science advances and paradigms change.
If you refuse challenges, then some other jerk will declare himself the champion and
refuse challenges from you.
You need multiple formats of debate, for example:
(*) Neutral debate, with no moderator. Each side gets to invite half the audience.
(*) Seminar. A speaker delivers an argument in detail. The opposition may ask questions, but
the speaker is dictator and moderator. The speaker may silence anyone.
(*) Sermon. A speaker delivers an argument in detail, with no interruptions. The presentation is a
polished work of art, like a movie.
This totals 7 debates. A neutral debate, a seminar for each side, and a sermon for each side.
A seminar has 2 stages. In stage 1, questions are allowed but they should be
synergistic with the speaker's case. It's inappropriate to attack the speaker's
case during stage 1. Stage 2 is for attacks on the speaker's case.
The sermons should happen first, then the seminars, and then the neutral
debate. By the time of the debate, both teams should be aware of the other
team's case, and of the other team's rebuttals to your case. If you don't do
this, you're wasting the time of the audience.
Moderators are rarely neutral. Do away with them and use chess clocks to limit the total time
that each speaker may speak.
The Lincoln-Douglas debates didn't have a moderator and there was ample time
for rebuttal. Each side got 1.5 hours to speak and there were 9 debates. If you
fib, the other candidate had plenty of chances to zap you for it.
The newspapers printed what each candidate said. Partisan newspapers tended to
polish the grammar of their candidate and leave the other candidate's words
raw, but they would still print the other candidate's words. Today, censorship
abounds.
Embrace complexity and raise the level of the game.
You can't solve complex problems with simple tools.
If a problem is simple, you have to prove it's simple, and this usually requires complex analysis.
You can't escape complexity.
"Complexity deniers" refuse to accept the existence of complexity. They assume that everything that
matters is easily understood. They refuse to study and are therefore negligent.
Cherry picking is considering only a subset of the data. Know all the data. Be a forest, not
a tree.
You want to win convincingly. If you have no choice but to assume, lean to the
positive. Lean toward complexity, not simplicity. Use the "steel man" strategy.
To straw-man is to assume guilty until proven innocent.
You must respectfully allow the opposition to rebut your statements.
Chances are that the foe has already published rebuttals to your arguments before the debate.
If you don't study them, you are negligent. You're wasting the audience's time.
Mario Andretti: If things seem under control, you're just not going fast enough.
If things seem well understood, you're just not discovering fast enough. If things are going
well, things feel chaotic and there is little consensus.
A field should have frequent paradigm revolutions, otherwise it's stagnant.
It's okay to challenge the consensus. Science requires it.
Science values discoveries that are ahead of their time. Be far ahead of the pack.
Don't fret about what's right or wrong today. What matters is knowing the right direction to
go. You want your hard work to pay off.
Thomas Payne: He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
It's more important to be honest than inoffensive.
Don't be a wuss. Don't be a crybully. Science doesn't care if you're offended.
Conversation is a team sport. Be a team player and make the people around you more interesting.
Pass the conversational ball. Give other people a chance to lead the topic. Support other people's topics.
Be a human therapy animal.
Science needs both theory and experiment, and there needs to be synergy between them.
Experiments alone are not enough. Facts alone are not enough. If someone is bullying you with
facts, chances are that his theory is weak.
Theory tells you where to look for better facts. Theory doesn't just interpret experiments.
It guides them as well.
Fact checkers usually cherry pick.
Fact checkers are widely mocked. If fact checkers are your best card, you should fold. Find better cards.
Wizards check facts themselves.
It's not about right or wrong. It's about specific or vague.
If you are vague, you are not even wrong.
You are "more than right" if your theory proves to be worth study.
What counts is knowing the direction of the next discovery. You want your hard work to
pay off. If you don't have good guidence from theory, your hard work will become obsolete.
You should study the opposition's case before the debate, otherwise you're wasting the
audience's time and you're being negligent.
The goal is to be entertaining. Be jovial and be polite to the foes. Have good conversational
chemstry and be synergistic to the conversation.
After the debate, we're going drinking, and that's why only fun people are invited to debate.
The following are disallowed:
Personal attacks
Badass classes that impress colleges:
Courses should be emphasized over majors.
You have to be selective in in what to memorize.
Students should be encouraged to advance as fast as possible. The following table
shows the grade that subjects should be introduced.
Professors should be at liberty to have style, and students should have a diversity
of professor styles to choose from.
Feldenkrais Technique. Training is 40 days per year for 3.5 years, at a cost of
4200 $/year. 26th Street. http://feldenkraisinstitute.org
Craniosacral Therapy
Do not get a degree. Degrees costs unnecessary money, course time, and administrative
hoop-jumping. Focus on professors and courses instead.
Search out the most badass professors and courses among all the CUNY schools.
For each course, work hard and obtain a letter of recommendation. On your
CV least each course, the professor, and the content of each course.
Don't take an excessive course load so that you can work a job while taking courses.
Worthy courses:
Wikipedia: The Common Core standards are copyrighted by NGA Center for Best
Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO),
which controls use of and licenses the standards. The NGA Center and CCSSO do
this by offering a public license which is used by State Departments of
Education. The license states that use of the standards must be "in support"
of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. It also requires attribution and
a copyright notice, except when a state or territory has adopted the standards
"in whole".
In other words, if you teach in a Common Core state, you do not have the
discretion to modify the standards or to improve them. The standards should be
public domain to empower teachers.
Wikipedia: U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a
motivator for education reform. Though states could adopt other college and
career-ready standards and still be eligible, they were awarded extra points in
their Race to the Top applications if they adopted the Common Core standards by
August 2, 2010.
In other words, Federal money was used to compel states to conform to the Common
Core.
I you want to be badass, these are the kinds of courses you should take.
Courses should be emphasized over majors.
A student center
Itemized pricing
To summarize, an ideal university should have the following properties. Each
property is expanded on in the sections below.
Professors are independent and student tuition goes directly to the professors that are
teaching their classes.
There should be a comfortable student center with lounges, classrooms, gyms,
kitchens, etc.
A student's record should reflect the skills he learned. De-emphasize majors and degrees.
Replace grades with pass-fail, with a high standard for passing.
Classrooms should be comfortable and well-equiped with technology.
Professors should be the type of people who can contribute to the student's education
outside the classroom.
Wikipedia: The textbook market does not operate in the same manner as
most consumer markets. First, the end consumers (students) do not select the
product, and the product is not purchased by faculty or professors. Therefore,
price is removed from the purchasing decision, giving the producer (publishers)
disproportionate market power to set prices high.
This situation is exacerbated by the lack of competition in the textbook
market. Consolidation in the past few decades has reduced the number of major
textbook companies from around 30 to just a handful. Consequently, there is
less competition than there used to be, and the high cost of starting up keeps
new companies from entering.
Another publishing industry practice that has been highly criticized is
"bundling", or shrink-wrapping supplemental items into a textbook.
Supplemental items range from CD-ROMs and workbooks to online passcodes and
bonus material. Students do not always have the option to purchase these items
separately, and often the one-time-use supplements destroy the resale value of
the textbook.
A 2005 Government Accountability Office (GAO) Report found that the production
of these supplemental items was the primary cause of rapidly increasing prices.
The most important building is the student center, which should have:
Classrooms, rehearsal space
Most universities segment their classrooms by department building, which is
a poor use of space. The laboratories should be sepqrate from the classroom building.
Professors should be independent of departments, and classes should be
organized directly through the professor. This enables professors with unique
style to exist, as long as they can attract students.
Focus spending on the skilled teachers, and match spending with the amount
of time spent teaching.
Don't try to build a costly research powerhouse. If researchers are
included, encourage researchers that bring in grant money or have projects that
can be tackled by undergrads.
Minimize administrators.
Hire students for administrative jobs such as librarians, registrars, and security.
Don't try to build an endowment. Spend the money now.
Professors decide the content, not administrators.
The emphasis should be on courses rather than the degree.
Small classes to enable discussion.
Don't assign expensive textbooks. Content should be available online for free.
Suppose students paid tuition directly to professors.
Carpet
Under the current system, a bad grade cannot be undone.
As an alternative to grades,
The only grade is "pass" and there is a high standard for passing. If you don't
pass then no record is kept that would disrupt your transcript.
You can take as long as needed to achieve a pass.
Have professors write letters of recommendation that are posted on a website
that a student can link to. This enables a student's unique achievements to be
recorded. The emphasis should be on the professors and the student's
achievements, rather than the university and the
degree. Chuck Norris's letter of
recommendation
Institute flexibility so that credit can be earned by tests, howework, projects,
labs, or any combination of the above.
Professors should be at liberty to have style, and students should have a diversity
of professor styles to choose from.
Feldenkrais Technique. Training is 40 days per year for 3.5 years, at a cost of
4200 $/year. 26th Street. http://feldenkraisinstitute.org
Craniosacral Therapy
Do not get a degree. Degrees costs unnecessary money, course time, and administrative
hoop-jumping. Focus on professors and courses instead.
Search out the most badass professors and courses among all the CUNY schools.
For each course, work hard and obtain a letter of recommendation. On your
CV least each course, the professor, and the content of each course.
Don't take an excessive course load so that you can work a job while taking courses.
Worthy courses:
Wikipedia: The Common Core standards are copyrighted by NGA Center for Best
Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO),
which controls use of and licenses the standards. The NGA Center and CCSSO do
this by offering a public license which is used by State Departments of
Education. The license states that use of the standards must be "in support"
of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. It also requires attribution and
a copyright notice, except when a state or territory has adopted the standards
"in whole".
In other words, if you teach in a Common Core state, you do not have the
discretion to modify the standards or to improve them. The standards should be
public domain to empower teachers.
Wikipedia: U.S. President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a
motivator for education reform. Though states could adopt other college and
career-ready standards and still be eligible, they were awarded extra points in
their Race to the Top applications if they adopted the Common Core standards by
August 2, 2010.
In other words, Federal money was used to compel states to conform to the Common
Core.
Continue to the rest of the "scales of the universe exhibit"
Green dots are open strings.
The left plot shows the protein and calorie content of food. Foods with high
protein and low fat are in the lower right. Nuts are heavy in protein,
especially peanuts.
The right plot shows how much calories and protein you get per dollar.
The cheapest meats are pork, chicken, and turkey.
The plot shows the potassium, phosphorus, and calcium content of food.
Calcium is abundant in cheese and milk and rare in other foods. Sesame is rich in calcium.
The plot shows the phosphorus and potassium content of food. Most nuts are rich in these elements.
For bird seed, what matters is calories and calcium, and the best seeds are sesame and nyger.
Color is as your eye would see.
LIGO gravitational wave events.
Twin paradox. Suppose a ship travels from Earth to Mars and back.
Sizes are to scale and colors are as your eye perceives. Brightness is scaled
logarithmically. The image is 40 light years across.
Proxima Centauri is the small red dot on top of Alpha Centauri. Beta Centauri
is at the same place as Alpha Centauri, and is not shown.
Faint red dots are red dwarfs.
The sun is a G star.
Sizes and colors are to scale. Brightness is not to scale. Blue giants are
vastly brighter than red dwarfs.
Mass increases rightward.
Color is as your eye perceives, and dot size scales with the logarithm of
luminosity. The image is 500 light years across, and it's aligned with the
galactic plane. If you are far away from the galaxy, such that all the stars
are the same distance from you, then this is what you would see. The galaxy is
a mix of red, orange, white, and blue stars, and they average to white.
For stars, color is as your eye perceives, and dot size scales with the
logrithm of luminosity. The image is 5000 light years across, and it's aligned
with the galactic plane.
The big green dot is the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, and
the sun is to the left. The image is 80000 light years across.
Globular clusters are centered around the galaxy center.
The sun is in a spiral arm, which is mapped out by stars and star-forming clouds.
Most of the far side of the galaxy is obscured by dust, which is why most of the
objects are on the near side of the galaxy. Globular clusters and blue giant
stars are bright enough to be seen on the far side of the galaxy.
The largest galaxies in the local group are the Milky Way and Andromeda.
Sizes and distances are to scale. The image is 6 million light years across. Color
indicates the Z coordinate. Blue points have positive Z, red points have
negative Z, and green points have Z=0.
Most galaxies lie in a plane, the "supergalactic plane". This is why most of them are green. The plane Z=0 is
aligned with the supergalactic plane.
Dots are "Abell clusters", which are clusters of galaxies. Abell clusters are often grouped into
superclusters.
The image is 2000 million light years across. Blue points have positive Z, red
points have negative Z, and green points have Z=0.
Most superclusters lie in a plane, the "supergalactic plane". This is why most
of them are green. The plane Z=0 is aligned with the supergalactic plane.
This shows the galaxies of the local group and their radial velocities. Most galaxies are heading in the
direction of the Milky Way. Andromeda is headed for a collision with the Milky Way. The LMC and SMC are headed away from us but they
will turn around and crash into the Milky Way.
This shows the Hubble law. Nearby galaxies tend to be moving toward us and distant galaxes are always moving
away from us. The farther the galaxy, the faster it tends to move away from us.
The universe expands according to the Hubble law. If there were no gravity, all galaxies would fall on the Hubble line.
Departures rom the Hubble law are due to gravity between galaxies.
For each cluster, we identified the largest galaxies and used these for the plot. Each point represents a galaxy, and the
label denotes what cluster the galaxy belongs go.
A nation's GDP and power consumption correlated.
The Gini coefficient characterizes a nation's wealth distribution. The larger the Gini coefficient, the
more concentrated the wealth.
The plot shows the elastic strength of materials
Alloys are much stronger than pure metals. Kevlar is substantially stronger than metals.
Dot size corresponds to atom size.
For gases, the density at boiling point is used.
Hydrogen forms molecules with all elements except the noble gases, osmium,
iridium, promethium, francium, and radium. This makes it a benchmark for
determining the number of bonds that each element forms, as well as the
strength of each element's attraction for electrons.
A molecule is organic if it contains carbon. Molecules are often depicted with
the hydrogens excluded.
An "Alkane" is a carbon chain with hydrocarbons attached. At standard
temperature (300 K), alkanes are solid if they have more than 20 carbons. This
is why lipids (long alkanes) are the optimal form of energy storage. Short
alkanes are liquids or gases at STP and are hard to store.
Cyclohexane comes in different conformations with different energies.
Benzine is a resonance molecule.
Organic molecules are classified by their functional group. "R" stands for
an arbitrary molecule.
Enzymes use ATP as an energy source to power chemical reactions. ATP and ATP
synthase are common to all Earth life.
* Video of the ATP synthase enzyme in action
Amino acids have the above form, where R stands for an arbitrary molecule.
DNA codes a sequence of amino acids. The 64-element codon system is universal to
Earth life.
The codon ATG both codes for methionine and serves as an initiation site: the
first ATG in an mRNA's coding region is where translation into protein begins.
21 amino acids are used by eucaryote. More than 500 amino acids are known.
A sugar generally has the formula CN H2N ON, where
N = 2, 3, etc. The common sugars are hexoses with N=6.
Each sugar molecule has two mirror-symmetric forms, the "D" and "L" form. Only the D forms
are found in nature.
The following figures show all sugars up to 6 carbons. All can be metabolized by humans.
2 carbons:
3 carbons:
4 carbons:
5 carbons:
6 carbons:
Fatty acids and sugars are metabolized in the following stages, with each stage
yielding energy.
Blood delivers fatty acids to cells.
The citric acid cycle (Krebs cycle) converts acetyl or pyrovate into H2O and CO2.
Coenzyme-A carries the acetyl around.
A fat molecule is converted into a fatty acid by lipolysis, and then the fatty acid is converted
into acetyl by beta oxydation, and then the acetyl is converted into H2O and CO2
by the citric acid cycle.
Beta oxidation cleaves 2 carbons from a fatty acid, which becomes acetyl. This process is repeated
until te entire fatty acid has been converted into acetyls.
The steps of beta oxidation are:
Glycolysis converts a glucose molecule into 2 pyrovate molecules. A summary of the reaction showing only
the starting and ending points is:
The full reaction is:
An alcohol is a carbon chain with one OH attached.
Palmitic acid has 16 carbons and is the most common fatty acid found in food.
To "straw man" is to make a negative assumption. Call out the assumption and call out the bias.
You must think many moves ahead. Plan in advance for the rebuttal.
Straw man attacks
Assumptions about the personal character of the opposition
Crybullying. Crybullies will be mocked for acting like babies.
Gish gallop
Semesters
Algebra 2
Precalculus 2
Calculus I 1 Calculus should appear as early as possible
Calculus, multivar 1
Differential eq. I 1
Differential eq. II 1 You can never have too much mathematics
Science fundamentals 1 Units and fundamentals of science
Physics I 1
Physics II 1 You can never have too much physics
Chemistry I 1
Chemistry II 1
Biology I 1
Biology II 1
Earth science 1
Astronomy 1
History, American 1
History, European 1
History, Ancient 1 Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman
History of Science 1
History, Modern 1
Writing I 1
Writing II 1
Literature 4
Python programming 2
Foreign language 4
Team sports 8 Team sports build cameraderie
Orchestra 8 Being able to play in a chamber ensemble is important
Theatre 1 Being able to produce a play is important
Total 51
Sports: Wrestling, soccer, tennis.
Physics Mechanics, Electromagnetism
Mathematics Calculus, Multivariable calculus
Shemistry
Biology
Earth science
Astronomy
Anatomy
History Greco-Roman, European, American
Programming Python, Computer graphics, Audio & video editing
Orchestra
Theatre
Latin
American presidential timeline
Western civilization timeline
Map of America
Map of the world
Science magnitudes
Periodic table
Grade
K English
Sports
Music
Language
1 Biology
History
Addition of integers
2 Multiplication and division of integers
3 Long multiplication and division
Astronomy
Engineering
5 Math fundamentals
6 Algebra
Physics
Chemistry
Programming
9 Calculus
10 Vector calculus
Differential equations
Mathematics: Calculus I & II. Differential equations. Applied mathematics.
Physics: Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Quantum Mechanics, Advanced classical physics
Chemistry: Chemistry I & II. Organic chemistry.
Biology: Biology I & II. Anatomy
Astronomy
Earth science
Orchestra
History: Western Civilization. America. Science history. Modern international.
Programming: Python. Java. Computer art and animation. App making.
Foreign language
Drawing
Theatre
Audio and video production
Rank In Out of Students Endow Endow/ SAT Free
state state (k) (B$) student (k$)
(k$) (k$) (M$/prsn)
Princeton 1 - 40 8.1 22.7 2.81 1500 60
Harvard 2 - 42 21.0 36.4 1.74 1505 65
Yale 3 - 44 12.3 25.6 2.07 1505 65
Columbia 4 - 49 29.9 9.6 .32 1480 60
Stanford 4 - 44 16.8 22.2 1.32 1475 125
Chicago 4 - 48 15.2 7.5 .50 1510
MIT 7 - 43 11.3 13.5 1.19 1495
Duke 8 - 49 14.8 7.3 .49 1460
U. Penn 9 - 46 21.3 10.1 .48 1455
Caltech 10 - 42 2.21 2.2 1.00 1550
J. Hopkins 11 - 49 21.7 3.4 .16 1445
Dartmouth 12 - 47 6.3 4.7 .74 1455 100
Northwestern 12 - 49 20.3 10.2 .50 1475
Brown 14 - 49 9.2 3.1 .34 1440
Cornell 15 - 45 21.8 6.0 .28 1420
Vanderbilt 15 - 44 12.7 4.1 .33 1465
Wash. U 15 - 48 14.5 6.8 .47 1465
Rice 18 - 42 6.6 5.6 .84 1470
Notre Dame 18 - 48 8.4 .83 .68 1465
UC Berkeley 20 13 38 37.6 1.5 .041 1390
Emory 21 - 46 14.8 6.7 .45
Georgetown 22 - 49 17.9 1.53 .086 1420
UCLA 23 13 36 43.2 1.86 .043
Carnegie Mel 23 - 50 13.3 1.74 .13 1440
USC 23 - 50 42.5 4.7 .111
Virginia 26 15 44 23.7 6.2 .26
Wake Forest 27 - 48 7.8 1.17 .15
Tufts 27 - 51 10.9 1.6 .15 1440 30
Michigan 29 14 43 43.6 10.0 .23 1380
Boston Col 30 - 49 14.1 2.22 .16 72
UNC 30 8.6 34 29.1 3.0 .103
NYU 32 - 46 57.2 3.6 .062
Rochester 33 - 48 11.1 2.0 .18
Brandeis 34 - 50 5.9
William Mary 34 17 41 8.4
Georgia Tech 36 12 32 23.1 1.9 .080
UCSB 37 14 39 23.1
Case Western 37 - 45 10.8 1.8 .16
UC Irvine 39 15 37 30.1
UCSD 39 14 38 29.9
UC Davis 41 14 39 34.5
Illinois 41 16 31 45.1
Wisconsin 41 10 30 43.2 2.47
Penn State 47 18 31 47.0
Florida 47 6 29 50.4
Ohio State 52 10 27 64.9 3.6 .056
Texas 52 10 35 51.3
Washington 52 12 34 44.8
Yeshiva 52 - 40 6.4 1.06
Syracuse 61 - 43 21.5 1.17 .054
BYU 62 - 5 30.5
Fordham 66 - 44 15.2
Iowa 82 8 28 31.4
Stony Brook 89 9 24 24.6
Hoffstra 135 - 44 11.0
New School 135 - 42 10.2
SanDiego St 149 7 18
Wyoming 161 5 15 12.8
Hawaii 168 11 29 19.5
CUNY City 6
CUNY BMCC 5
CUNY York 6 13
CooperUnion - 41 1375
Harvey Mudd - 49 1494
Pomona - 1460
Claremont - 1435
Boston U. 41 - 48 1.6
Rensselaer 41 - 49
Tulane 41 - 50 1.22
Lehigh 47 - 46 1.2
Northeastern 47 - 46 1420
Miami 51 - 46
Pepperdine 52 - 48
Amherst 2.2 1450
Swathmore 1.8 1450
Williams 2.4 1455
UCSF 4.9 1.16 .24
Bowdoin 1.4 1445
Rank Rank according to US News
In state In-state tuition
Out of state Out-of-state tuition
Endow Endowment
Endow/student Endowment per student
Free Free if your parents make less than the given amount
Semesters
Calculus I Calculus should appear as early as possible
Calculus, multivariable
Differential equations
Science fundamentals Units and fundamentals of science
Physics I
Physics II 1 You can never have too much physics
hemistry I 1
Chemistry II 1
Biology I 1
Biology II 1
Earth science 1
Astronomy 1
History, American 1
History, European 1
History, Ancient 1 Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman
History of Science 1
History, Modern 1
Writing I 1
Writing II 1
Literature 4
Python programming 2
Foreign language 4
Team sports 8 Team sports build cameraderie
Orchestra 8 Being able to play in a chamber ensemble is important
Theatre 1 Being able to produce a play is important
Total 51
Sports: Wrestling, soccer, tennis.
Mathematics:
Algebra Everything required to being the calculus
Calculus 1
Calculus 2
Calculus 3 Differential equations
Mathematics, applied (operations research)
Linear algebra (matrices)
Physics (mechanics)
Physics (electromagnetism)
Physics (quantum mechanics)
Physics (advanced classical physics) (physics of music)
Biology
Chemistry
Chemistry, organic
Astronomy
Earth science
Anatomy
Orchestra
History of Western Civilization
History of America
History of science
Python programming
Computer art and animation
Java programming
App making
Foreign language
Drawing
Theatre
Audio and video production
Intramural sports
Courses that are a waste of time:
Ethnic studies
Gender studies
Social justice indoctrination
Lounges, TV rooms, game rooms
Gym, lockers, etc.
Kitchen, dining rooms, refrigerators.
Temorary offices that professors can use as needed.
Classes taken per year by a student = 10
Students per class = 20
Classes taught per year by a professor = 8
Students taught per year by a professor = 160
Tuition per student per class = 500 $
Tuition per student per year = 5000 $
Tuition received per professor per year =80000 $
It is possible to construct a university where the annual tuition is less than
$10000 and where the professors are well paid.
Comfortable chairs
Flexible lighting with a centralized control panel next to the computer
Whiteboard
Projector that doesn't interfere with the whiteboard
Speaker system
Mathematics: Calculus I & II. Differential equations. Applied mathematics.
Physics: Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Quantum Mechanics, Advanced classical physics
Chemistry: Chemistry I & II. Organic chemistry.
Biology: Biology I & II. Anatomy
Astronomy
Earth science
Orchestra
History: Western Civilization. America. Science history. Modern international.
Programming: Python. Java. Computer art and animation. App making.
Foreign language
Drawing
Theatre
Audio and video production
Rank In Out of Students Endow Endow/ SAT Free
state state (k) (B$) student (k$)
(k$) (k$) (M$/prsn)
Princeton 1 - 40 8.1 22.7 2.81 1500 60
Harvard 2 - 42 21.0 36.4 1.74 1505 65
Yale 3 - 44 12.3 25.6 2.07 1505 65
Columbia 4 - 49 29.9 9.6 .32 1480 60
Stanford 4 - 44 16.8 22.2 1.32 1475 125
Chicago 4 - 48 15.2 7.5 .50 1510
MIT 7 - 43 11.3 13.5 1.19 1495
Duke 8 - 49 14.8 7.3 .49 1460
U. Penn 9 - 46 21.3 10.1 .48 1455
Caltech 10 - 42 2.21 2.2 1.00 1550
J. Hopkins 11 - 49 21.7 3.4 .16 1445
Dartmouth 12 - 47 6.3 4.7 .74 1455 100
Northwestern 12 - 49 20.3 10.2 .50 1475
Brown 14 - 49 9.2 3.1 .34 1440
Cornell 15 - 45 21.8 6.0 .28 1420
Vanderbilt 15 - 44 12.7 4.1 .33 1465
Wash. U 15 - 48 14.5 6.8 .47 1465
Rice 18 - 42 6.6 5.6 .84 1470
Notre Dame 18 - 48 8.4 .83 .68 1465
UC Berkeley 20 13 38 37.6 1.5 .041 1390
Emory 21 - 46 14.8 6.7 .45
Georgetown 22 - 49 17.9 1.53 .086 1420
UCLA 23 13 36 43.2 1.86 .043
Carnegie Mel 23 - 50 13.3 1.74 .13 1440
USC 23 - 50 42.5 4.7 .111
Virginia 26 15 44 23.7 6.2 .26
Wake Forest 27 - 48 7.8 1.17 .15
Tufts 27 - 51 10.9 1.6 .15 1440 30
Michigan 29 14 43 43.6 10.0 .23 1380
Boston Col 30 - 49 14.1 2.22 .16 72
UNC 30 8.6 34 29.1 3.0 .103
NYU 32 - 46 57.2 3.6 .062
Rochester 33 - 48 11.1 2.0 .18
Brandeis 34 - 50 5.9
William Mary 34 17 41 8.4
Georgia Tech 36 12 32 23.1 1.9 .080
UCSB 37 14 39 23.1
Case Western 37 - 45 10.8 1.8 .16
UC Irvine 39 15 37 30.1
UCSD 39 14 38 29.9
UC Davis 41 14 39 34.5
Illinois 41 16 31 45.1
Wisconsin 41 10 30 43.2 2.47
Penn State 47 18 31 47.0
Florida 47 6 29 50.4
Ohio State 52 10 27 64.9 3.6 .056
Texas 52 10 35 51.3
Washington 52 12 34 44.8
Yeshiva 52 - 40 6.4 1.06
Syracuse 61 - 43 21.5 1.17 .054
BYU 62 - 5 30.5
Fordham 66 - 44 15.2
Iowa 82 8 28 31.4
Stony Brook 89 9 24 24.6
Hoffstra 135 - 44 11.0
New School 135 - 42 10.2
SanDiego St 149 7 18
Wyoming 161 5 15 12.8
Hawaii 168 11 29 19.5
CUNY City 6
CUNY BMCC 5
CUNY York 6 13
CooperUnion - 41 1375
Harvey Mudd - 49 1494
Pomona - 1460
Claremont - 1435
Boston U. 41 - 48 1.6
Rensselaer 41 - 49
Tulane 41 - 50 1.22
Lehigh 47 - 46 1.2
Northeastern 47 - 46 1420
Miami 51 - 46
Pepperdine 52 - 48
Amherst 2.2 1450
Swathmore 1.8 1450
Williams 2.4 1455
UCSF 4.9 1.16 .24
Bowdoin 1.4 1445
Rank Rank according to US News
In state In-state tuition
Out of state Out-of-state tuition
Endow Endowment
Endow/student Endowment per student
Free Free if your parents make less than the given amount
Sizes to scale. Distances between planets are to scale.
Sizes to scale
Earth and moon, with size and distance to scale.
Sizes to scale. Also, the size of a moon is in scale with the distance to its host planet.
Radius scales as the cube root of particle mass.
We see only the near side of the Milky Way. The far side is obscured by dust.
The image is 70 million light years across. Galaxy mass scales with dot size. Color indicates the Z coordinate.
Blue points have positive Z, red points have negative Z, and green points have Z=0.
Appendix with more element plots
-skeletal.png)
.png)
Synthesis of two amino acids. Proteins are chains of animo acids with a backbone of
the form:
C-C-N-C-C-N-C-C-N-C-C-N-C-C-N
Number of Number of
carbons sugars
Diose 2 1
Triose 3 2
Tetrose 4 3
Pentose 5 4
Hexose 6 12 At least 6 carbons are required to form a ring
Heptose 7 many Rarely observed in nature
Octose 8 many Unstable. Not observered in nature.
"Number of sugars" refers to the number of different types of sugar molecules for each
carbon number.
Energy Sweetness
Succrose 1.00 1.00 Benchmark
Glucose .74
Maltose .32
Galactose .32
Lactose .16
Allose
Altrose
Mannose
Fructose 1.73
Psichose .70
Tagatose .38 .92
Sorbose 1.0
Honey .97
Monosaccharde: 1 sugar molecule
Disaccharide: 2 monosaccharides
Polysaccharide: More than 2 monosaccharides, such as starch and cellulose
Sucrose = Glucose + Fructose
Maltose = Glucose + Glucose
Lactose = Galactose + Glucose
Lactulose = Galactoce + Fructose
Trehalose = Glucose + Glucose
Cellobiose = Glucose + Glucose
Chitobiose = Glucosamine + Glucosamine
Starch and cellulose are long chains of glucose molecules.
Fatty acid → Acetyl → CO2 and H2O
Sugar → Pyruvate → CO2 and H2O
Carbons
Methanol 1 Toxic
Ethanol 2 Inebriating
Propanol 3 3 times more inebriating than ethanol
Isopropanol 3 Toxic
Butanol 4 6 times more inebriating than ethanol
Carbons
1
2 Vinegar
3
4 Found in butter
8 Found in coconuts
10 Found in coconuts
12 Found in coconuts
16 Most common fatty acid. Found in palm oil
18 Found in chocolate
20 Found in peanut oil
© Jason Maron, all rights reserved.
Data from Wikipedia unless otherwise specified.
