Physics: the view from the bath

If anyone is reading this and is also a subscriber to Physics World from the Institute of Physics, then you may have seen my latest effort at writing on topics in physics at the back of the January 2008 issue. It's in the "Lateral Thoughts" section, entitled "Post-modern Physics - bathtub style". The original title was "Post-modern Physics: the view from the bath", but that was too long for the magazine.

The view from the bath is a reflection on the fact that most of my best ideas come from meditating in the bath. To that end, we have just had a nice new soaker tub installed!

I will be adding a few more articles of this type to this blog as time permits. I will mostly be commenting on things that crop up in Physics Education, as opposed to Physics Research. Topics such as "What should we be teaching?" and "How should we be teaching?" are the order of the day. As I am teaching two courses of first year physics this term, my time might be a bit limited. As both of these courses are quite large (165 and 90 students respectively), teaching them requires extra attention and some different techniques to small classes. I'll try and mention my ideas.

Andrew Robinson, Physics and Engineering Physics