Re: [Phys-l] Bye

[brian whatcott <betwys1@sbcglobal.net>]

Welcome Jeff,

you may notice that the average age on this (and quite a few other) 
lists - is quite high.
So I expect to see the occasional -emeritus/a- tagged on.

About the recent spate of unaccustomed impatient posts - it is certainly 
a fact of life
that the most taciturn and benign of teachers can become surly if only 
temperatures
go high enough.       Office workers in particular  whose air goes out 
in tropical climates
expect this and hope to make allowances.

There is another factor too: people with scientific credentials may well 
associate
unusual events with random extrema of normal distributions, so it would 
be exceptionally unwise
 of global warming advocates to point to current weather extremes as 
having undue significance,
and in general, they do not, rabid liberal, radical conservatives or 
whatever.

/Freudian interlude begins/
But our homunculi who speak silently from our unconscious are certainly 
willing to
prick our complacency  about the trend of weather events because 
physical discomfort
 is apparent to the subconscious too. That's a conceptual conflict, I 
imagine!  :-)
/end of Freudian interlude/

Brian Whatcott

On 8/26/2011 9:21 AM, Jeff Bigler wrote:
> By way of introduction, I'm a high school teacher who has taught
> primarily chemistry and a little physics.  This year, I'll be teaching
> all (high school) physics, which is why I'm now on this list.
>
> I do, however, have a lot of experience (more than 25 years) with
> internet email discussion lists.  People on this list have strong
> feelings about physics and science in general--otherwise we wouldn't be
> here.  From time to time, people on any list like this will post
> messages that make us angry.  However, the point of the list is physics
> and education, so every post should in some way advance list members'
> knowledge and understanding of physics and/or education.  Posts that
> just say some version of "Me too!" or "Bovine skatology!" (B.S. for
> short) are not advancing either and don't really belong on the list.
>
> That said, here's some physics content.  The round of flamage about the
> cooling thread suggested the following Fermi problem to me:  how much
> energy is required to deliver one content-free post to the 700 members
> of this list?
>
> --
> Jeff Bigler
> "Magic" is what we call Science before we understand it.
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