Interesting about pushing students through Phlogiston. Without it being required of physics majors, I took “philosophy of science” as an undergrad philosophy minor and read, among others, Popper. It has stuck with me like one of those viruses, let me know if I have much to gain by finally dropping some of what I think I learned from him. I personally loved looking at all science afterwards and listening in all discussions and thinking: “is this a difference that makes a difference?” Is there testable difference here or can I just skip it?
In a graduate course on superconducting electronics I once taught a wildly simple theory of electron pairing treating the electron wave functions as 1-d sine waves in the metal. I told the students: “the theory I am teaching you is wrong, but it illustrates many of the true features of the superconducting wave function. If you don’t understand why it is wrong, you will be better off thinking this than not thinking this, while if you get to the point where you see why it is wrong, you will really understand superconductivity pretty well.”
It never occurred to me to try to insert Popper into any of the classes I was teaching. I was not a very imaginitive professor.
By the way, on your name orthonormal, on what basis did you choose it? :)
Interesting about pushing students through Phlogiston. Without it being required of physics majors, I took “philosophy of science” as an undergrad philosophy minor and read, among others, Popper. It has stuck with me like one of those viruses, let me know if I have much to gain by finally dropping some of what I think I learned from him. I personally loved looking at all science afterwards and listening in all discussions and thinking: “is this a difference that makes a difference?” Is there testable difference here or can I just skip it?
In a graduate course on superconducting electronics I once taught a wildly simple theory of electron pairing treating the electron wave functions as 1-d sine waves in the metal. I told the students: “the theory I am teaching you is wrong, but it illustrates many of the true features of the superconducting wave function. If you don’t understand why it is wrong, you will be better off thinking this than not thinking this, while if you get to the point where you see why it is wrong, you will really understand superconductivity pretty well.”
It never occurred to me to try to insert Popper into any of the classes I was teaching. I was not a very imaginitive professor.
By the way, on your name orthonormal, on what basis did you choose it? :)