(a) object to cross-posting as a way to tunnel through inter- and
intra-disciplinary barriers, or
(b) have zero or less interest in "Shakespeare and Thermodynamics,"
(c) have any other reason for trashing this post.
In response to my recent post "Attacks on Education" [Hake (2005)] I
received an email from Frank Lambert.
Who is Frank Lambert? Robert Morrison (1986), author of the
incomparable "The Lecture Method of Teaching Science [Morrison
(1985)] wrote of Lambert:
". . .at a meeting in Atlantic City, I happened to run into Frank
Lambert. Frank had been a graduate student over in Jones, when I was
here, and he was then teaching at Occidental College in California.
He was giving a talk on this very subject . . .[see Lambert (1963)].
. . . He was urging what he called "the Gutenberg Method" of teaching
- because, of course, it was based on the fact that the printing
press had been invented several years ago. Frank became my guru. I
still mentally bow towards the west when this subject come up."
Frank - still a guru after these many years - wrote to me:
"You may not know how much I love C P. Snow [1959] for his arrogance
and inadequacy. He made me think -- what SHOULD he have told his
captive audience of Cantabrigian literati about the second law, so
they'd have some idea of WHY they should care a whit. (To put it
literarily.) THAT'S what resulted in my one really well-written opus:
[Shakespeare and Thermodynamics: Dam the Second Law!: The Human
Importance of Activation Energies" (Lambert 2004)]"
I give Lambert (2004) five stars *****. His abstract reads (slightly edited):
"Over 40 years ago Sir Charles Snow [1959] startled a gathering or
two of nonscientists by saying, in effect, that their lack of
knowledge of the second law of thermodynamics was equivalent to
scientists not ever reading a work of Shakespeare. Snow's aphorism
about Shakespeare and the second law of thermodynamics is
meaningless to nonscientists if they are not told simply what the
second law is and what it predicts about the behavior of common
things. Sir Charles never did so. Equally important to nonscientists
is hearing about activation energies -- the barriers or 'dams' to
second law predictions. This web page is for individuals in the
humanities and the arts or business and the legal professions so that
they can sense the remarkable importance of activation energies in
understanding the working of our second-law world."
REFERENCES
Hake, R.R. 2002. "Re: The college lecture may be fading," online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0208&L=phys-l&P=R17115>. Post
of 21 Aug 2002 15:34:25-0700 to Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Math-Learn,
Math-Teach, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and POD.
Lambert, F.L. 1963. "Editorially Speaking: Effective Teaching of
Organic Chemistry," J. Chem. Ed. 40: 173-174. Thanks to Niels Olson
of the U.S. Naval Academy, this is now online as a scanned copy at
<<http://home.comcast.net/~niels_olson/Lambert1963JCE.pdf>http://home.comcast.net/~niels_olson/Lambert1963JCE.pdf>
(5.5 MB !) but could disappear in a week or so if the publishers
throw Niels in jail. My slow dial-up connection failed to download
this large file.
Lambert, F.L. 2004. Shakespeare and Thermodynamics: Dam the Second
Law!: The Human Importance of Activation Energies"; online at
<http://www.shakespeare2ndlaw.com/>.
Morrison, R. 1986. "The Lecture System in Teaching Science," in
"Undergraduate Education in Chemistry and Physics: Proceedings of the
Chicago Conferences on Liberal Education," No. 1, edited by M.R. Rice
(Univ. of Chicago), p. 50-58. Excerpts from Morrison's wonderful
article are given in Hake (2002). Thanks again to Niels Olson of the
U.S. Naval Academy, Morrison's entire talk may now be downloaded as a
scanned copy at
<<http://home.comcast.net/~niels_olson/Morrison1985Chicago.pdf>http://home.comcast.net/~niels_olson/Morrison1985Chicago.pdf>
(1.5 MB), but could disappear in a week or so if the publishers throw
Niels in jail.
Snow, C.P. 1959. "The two cultures and the scientific revolution."
Available in a 1993 "Canto" edition tiled "The Two Cultures,"
illustrated by Stefan Collini and published by Cambridge University
Press. The publisher states: "This reissue of Snow's controversial
Rede lecture of 1959 and its successor piece 'A Second Look' has a
new introduction that charts the history and context of the famous
debate on the cultural split between the humanities and the sciences."