Academic Philosophy

Motivated largely by the discoveries I made during my doctoral research in theoretical electrostatics, the results of which represent a generalized formulation of the electrostatic energy stored in dielectric systems containing "free" point charges, my personal appreciation of educational development has been enhanced. In particular, I ambitiously pursue approaches to educational practices in science that place greater emphasis on the underlying physics of the problems with which students are tasked rather than their respective mathematical developments. I firmly believe that such an approach instills a greater intuition in students regarding the physical universe—from which a greater intuition may then be developed for the mathematics.

Example I am presently preparing a manuscript detailing the pedagogical description of Coulomb repulsion between two point charges. The primary goal is to fully comprehend the physical reason why there is a factor of 1/2 in the total summation of interaction terms for a given collection of n point-charges, q_i,

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The majority of textbooks that I surveyed simply note that the factor of 1/2 is included to avoid double counting either the number of mathematical terms or the number of interactions. Though one may understand that the mathematical terms represent interactions (thus, in a sense, the two arguments are synonymous) the arguments are only given in support of the mathematics and do not give a reason for the 1/2-factor based on the underlying physics. From this seemingly simple framework (the interaction between two point charges) I develop the physical concepts needed to comprehend every interaction in the discrete charge dielectric model.

I recently described quantum mechanics as analogous to a parent confronted by a child who persistently asks the innocent question "Why?". Unfortunately, when pressed enough the parent is often left with the stock response "Because I said so." presuming that the parent knows better. In quantum mechanics there is no greater meaning behind the mathematics that litter its theory as Einstein has been quoted as saying,

The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.

In my opinion, the true complication comes from the use of wavefunctions which have no further meaning or existence than purely being pieces of math. In this regard, the sophisticated mathematical framework of quantum theory has placed wavefunctions as obstacles in our path toward further comprehending the physical nature of the universe. I believe we must carefully devise educational approaches to science that place greater emphasis on the underlying physics than the mathematics. Indeed, I believe this is our duty to the next generation of scientists who would otherwise largely assume that many of the theoretical descriptions are correct and unalterable. In short, a physics-first approach instills the necessary quality of healthy suspicion.

To illustrate my position with regard to education, consider that there are many people in the world that understand the mathematical foundations of quantum theory. However, as Richard Feynman is often quoted as saying,

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics.

Hence, it is not enough to simply know the math unless the math explains the underlying physics. Unfortunately, today we often find that the explanation as to why something happens in nature is "because of quantum mechanics". This puts the cart before the horse, so to speak, as quantum mechanics is nothing but a description of what is observed. That which is observed is not the result of one's description of it. This is similar to saying that the Mona Lisa was beautifully painted because art critics today say it was. In a sense, art critics have their opinions about the fact that it was painted beautifully. In this regard, quantum theory can only have an opinion as to how the physical world behaves. The physical world does not behave as it does because of quantum theory. Our educational practices should always be careful to avoid this kind of confusion.