Thursday, November 21, 2024
– Live Presentation with Raymond Hall –
Session at 12 Noon Atlanta time
(check your time here)
Please join us starting 10 minutes before this session using the following button.
For published CoM presentations please visit the G4G YouTube channel
After this virtual CoM presentation on Zoom, we will meet for an informal social session in a different Zoom space where we can all see each other (see the blue button below). That Zoom meeting will start around 1pm ET.
Please join the social using the following button:
Physics is the Real Magic: The use of Social Media as a Museum of Science and Math in the Spirit of GardnerPhysics education has traditionally incorporated demonstrations as a best practice in teaching, partly because physical phenomena are dynamic in nature- static images are rarely able to convey the underlying principles, or illustrate the surprisingly counter intuitive aspects of the real world. The social media platform Instagram allows the wide distribution of short high resolution video clips, which turns out to be an ideal format for sharing interesting physics phenomena to engage the public in the excitement of science. The Instagram stream @physicsfun features a daily short video post that showcases physics toys, kinetic art, mathematical objects, and scientific curiosities from my personal collection. In this talk I will highlight the history and science of some famous physics toys, discuss the motivation and methods of capturing them on video, and describe the reaction so far: 2 million Instagram users subscribing to a social media museum of science and math.
Dr. Raymond Edward Hall is a Professor in the Department of Physics at California State University, Fresno where he teaches courses in engineering physics, quantum mechanics, particle physics, critical thinking, and the philosophy of science. Earning a PhD in Experimental High Energy Particle Physics from the University of California, Riverside, in 1994, Dr. Hall spent 16 years as a researcher with the D-Zero Collaboration. During his participation on the construction and operation of the D-Zero Detector at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, he was part of the research team that discovered the fundamental particle known as the top quark in February of 1995. Dr. Hall was named a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI 2022) and in this capacity he conducts workshops and gives lectures to promote critical thinking, and is a conference organizer for annual meetings of rational skeptics including CSICon (2019-2024) and the Amazing Meeting (2005-2015) in Las Vegas.
Dr. Hall is also involved in the use of social media to promote public interest in physics and science. His Instagram page @physicsfun (2 million followers in October 2019) features video clips and short explanations of scientific toys and curiosities. @physicsfun also has significant followings on YouTube and Facebook.