10 micron diameter polystyrene spheres in water (see Holes in fluids)
There is a well-known quote from Blaise Pascal: ‘Knowledge is like a sphere, the greater its volume, the larger its contact with the unknown’. Presumably, Pascal was eloquently observing that the more we know, the more we realise how much we don’t know and the more questions that we have. Perhaps this is also a test of whether we have acquired knowledge and understanding or only information; because the acquisition of knowledge and understanding will lead to further questions, whereas information tends simply to overwhelm us. We need to process information into some form of ordered structure in order to gain understanding and render it more useful. Of course, as in any process that involves increasing order and reducing entropy, this involves an expenditure of available energy or effort. What makes it interesting and stimulating when mentoring learners on a MOOC is that very many more of them are prepared to make that effort than in a class of undergraduate students. Some of their questions, including (or perhaps especially) the tangential ones, cause me to think about concepts in a new way and this increases my own knowledge sphere. Lewis Hyde remarks in his book, The Gift, that ‘ideas might be treated as gifts in science’ and ‘a circulation of gifts nourishes [a] part of our spirit’. I would like to think this is happening in a MOOC, both between the educator and learners and between learners. In my experience, it is a culture that has been lost from the undergraduate classroom, which is to the detriment of both educator and student.
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It was brought up in the Enterprise Shed: making things happen.Newcastle uni UK
Is Education destroying actual Creativity in forcing many to have a Certificate at the end of it all with no real Creativity only for inside the square!
Cheers Allan
Eann you are dong well on your Thermodynamics course via MOOC
Yes people complain too much info , others not enough.
You stated right at the start of this course that it is for anyone to TRY TO GAIN KNOWLEDGE.
Some will gain a lot others will gain a bit,but it gets people talking about the course and Thermodynamics in the first place!
Cheers Allan
Eann, you have a much wider spectrum of age/ability/experience with MOOC ‘students’ than you do with a typical “undergraduate classroom” … the latter being somewhat blinkered because of their education/training for the graduate degree treadmill.
Allan
Do you need a “y” in polystrene under the picture. Inspired by your MOOC I started another MOOC in “Materials” last night, and learned about polystyrene, otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed. See what happens when you educate people!
Beverly, Thank you. The extra ‘y’ has been inserted! I please to see you using your education 🙂
I came across a link to a book which I haven’t read, but I think it looks at how engineers were perceived in society and written about in literature in the U.S., in a certain time frame. I skim read through most of your earlier blogs, mining for books to read and links. The public perceptions of engineers or the profession seemed to be a theme, and following some link or another led me to mention of this book, so you may already know about it.
https://books.google.com/books?id=EKb1jM_7XyUC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false
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