It’s more fun when the problem involves them dying anyway.
[Introducing KE formula] “Would you rather be hit by a semi truck or a lime scooter? What if the lime scooter is going really fast and the semi truck is just slowly moving through the parking lot?”
“If I drop [student who is currently on their phone] out of an airplane, ignoring air resistance, how much kinetic energy will they have when they smack into the ground? Is that an “elastic” or “inelastic” collision?”
Or “spaghettification” when doing gravity. Or “yeah, if a gamma ray burst happened to point at earth, it would wipe out all of human civilization.” Or “if the sun went out we wouldn’t know for about 8 minutes.”
Physics is phun.
And you have to traumatize them a little bit for lab safety. I remember my upper div physics lab back in undergrad started with like a full two hours of “these are all the ways you can die in here.” I always make sure to talk about Karen Wetterhahn in my own safety lectures.
“if the sun went out we wouldn’t know for about 8 minutes.”
you might like the first chapter of Iron Sunrise. it’s a SF book that begins with someone destroying a civilized planet by causing their sun to explode. not a rare trope, but they describe it in a realistic-sounding way. (the rest of the book is mid, unfortunately)
It’s more fun when the problem involves them dying anyway.
[Introducing KE formula] “Would you rather be hit by a semi truck or a lime scooter? What if the lime scooter is going really fast and the semi truck is just slowly moving through the parking lot?”
“If I drop [student who is currently on their phone] out of an airplane, ignoring air resistance, how much kinetic energy will they have when they smack into the ground? Is that an “elastic” or “inelastic” collision?”
Or “spaghettification” when doing gravity. Or “yeah, if a gamma ray burst happened to point at earth, it would wipe out all of human civilization.” Or “if the sun went out we wouldn’t know for about 8 minutes.”
Physics is phun.
And you have to traumatize them a little bit for lab safety. I remember my upper div physics lab back in undergrad started with like a full two hours of “these are all the ways you can die in here.” I always make sure to talk about Karen Wetterhahn in my own safety lectures.
you might like the first chapter of Iron Sunrise. it’s a SF book that begins with someone destroying a civilized planet by causing their sun to explode. not a rare trope, but they describe it in a realistic-sounding way. (the rest of the book is mid, unfortunately)