Saturday, September 09, 2006
DO PHYSICS FIRST
Dear Samuel,
There is little question that many of the career paths with a good future are in the hard sciences. Understanding higher math, logic, sciences, and being a good writer will qualify you for jobs you can't imagine now.
There is a bit of disagreement as to what sciences should be taught first. In my opinion this is the sequence to take science classes in high school. If possible for you.
Physics - where you learn about the 4 forces that make up the rules for the physical world, and the historical approaches taken to solving these problems.
Chemistry - How 2 of the 4 forces that rule the physical world specifically affect how atoms combine and recombine to form chemicals that we are familiar with.
Biology - How the combining of chemicals works inside our body to give us energy, and make our bodies work. How chemical reactions take place in other living things as well.
Physics is the gateway science that starts you on the path to learning the other ones better. By far, Biology is the discipline we understand the least, because it is basically physics and chemistry combined into very complicated problems to be solved. Of course you'll have to go back to physics later when you have more math under your belt, but the point is, that the other subjects will be more interesting if you have the basic rules of how the world works in your head, and you learn those basic rules in physics.
Here is an article that describes why you should take physics first.
Here is an article that talks about the dual nature of light we were talking about the other day.
Here is a series of articles on electricity.
Okay, talk to you later
Jay
There is little question that many of the career paths with a good future are in the hard sciences. Understanding higher math, logic, sciences, and being a good writer will qualify you for jobs you can't imagine now.
There is a bit of disagreement as to what sciences should be taught first. In my opinion this is the sequence to take science classes in high school. If possible for you.
Physics - where you learn about the 4 forces that make up the rules for the physical world, and the historical approaches taken to solving these problems.
Chemistry - How 2 of the 4 forces that rule the physical world specifically affect how atoms combine and recombine to form chemicals that we are familiar with.
Biology - How the combining of chemicals works inside our body to give us energy, and make our bodies work. How chemical reactions take place in other living things as well.
Physics is the gateway science that starts you on the path to learning the other ones better. By far, Biology is the discipline we understand the least, because it is basically physics and chemistry combined into very complicated problems to be solved. Of course you'll have to go back to physics later when you have more math under your belt, but the point is, that the other subjects will be more interesting if you have the basic rules of how the world works in your head, and you learn those basic rules in physics.
Here is an article that describes why you should take physics first.
Here is an article that talks about the dual nature of light we were talking about the other day.
Here is a series of articles on electricity.
Okay, talk to you later
Jay
