Open Letter to the President: Physics Education

And twitter - @minutephysics

Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Thanks to Nima Doroud, Brady Haran, Destinws2, Derek Muller, CGPGrey, Justin Son, Dan Owens, Dan Welty, Fran Poodry, Ryan Mitchell, Robert Emrich, Chris Conley, Liz Henriquez, Matt Smith, Shane MacLeod, James Goodwin, and Matt Hewes for contributions and to Perimeter Institute for support.

[beadgcf]

in seventh grade i told my teacher that gravity bent light and she said it didnt.. slow sarcastic claps for the education system

[BioniclesaurKingt]

He's right about the electron shell atomic structure not being taught in high school physics. I learned that in high school chemistry.

[AlexE]

"A collection of atoms known as Henry" that is how I sign my name now

[TinRapper]

I've learnt more Physics from a year of YouTube than 7 years of middle school and high school. And this is Asian schools I'm talking about

[PinkGrapefruit]

I hated my high school physics class because all we did was memorize formulas and then practice problems using them. The teacher never bothered giving any of the information context or explaining why we should find it useful or interesting. I thought I hated the entire subject of physics until I got older and started learning about it on my own. I wish my teacher had talked about all the exciting stuff that had come out of the physics field over the past century or explained how it provided the foundation for so many different areas of knowledge. I would have paid closer attention to all of those "boring" formulas we were learning if I had actually understood what they meant.

[vzwGrey]

I remember in primary when I already knew about negative numbers, but my math teacher kept saying they don't exist...

[srpenguinbr]

all I know about modern physics came from Youtube

[DaniPaunov]

"The fact, that the Universe is expanding..."
[A few minutes ago (when I was watching another video _made by Henry_)]
"The Universe isn't expanding. Space is..."

[securi-t]

What! We can't have science in school! There won't be room for sports and standardized testing!

[ThePikmania]

I find classic mechanics interesting because they are useful and applicable in everyday life. Why would you call them boring?

[baconbitz]

I’m so glad I was born in this generation and I have access to almost all knowledge known to man.

(I’m 15 btw)

[BennettAustin]

Very accurate, I have had to learn much of relativity and particle physics on my own because our schools avoid those topics

[sanjithtamballa]

I would love to learn the modern physics

[SatanasDM]

*This is a little long.*

I am 14, and I would really would love to learn all of this stuff. What sucks about school is that they don't teach you all of this amazing stuff like Quantum Mechanics, but thank god that they show you how to write essays, not only in 6th grade, but also in 7th, 8th, and 9th. Literally all of my past English courses have taught me the same thing. I already know how to use proper grammar, but I guess I need to learn it again next year. Rather than take all of this English that I already know, teach me something I don't know, like *cough* Quantum Physics, String Theory *cough*.

Today in school, we are learning how to research the internet and books for an essay. Although I already learned how to cite, find important information, find reliable sources, etc, TWO years ago. So thank you school, for wasting one hour and thirty minutes on English skills myself, as well as most of my friends and pupils already know. Granted, there are some things I did learn this year like, how to write in MLA Format, which is nice to know, but I probably won't be needing that skill in the future.

Now I don't know what career I want. But the career I will want, will have absolutely nothing to do with sports or English, In my case, Gym and English Class. I do understand that Gym is to help students learn to live a well lifestyle, but making students that are uncomfortable with their physical activities and such. Making students learn proper grammar is necessary and should be learned. it should not however be repeated, year after year, even this year our English teacher taught us what a sentence is. Really? We've learned about clauses and such, years before this. Overall, the career I want to have might relate to Science or Music or something computer related. I am not saying English is not important, just that they are not teaching the parts of English that ARE important. Instead of grammar and essays, maybe it would be nice to know if the student even will want to use these English skills in the future. After college, I most likely will never have to write an essay persuading a person why to find the character in the story guilty. No job that I have in mind will require that I do that, so why do it now? Just in case I change my mind? Sorry, but I doubt that I will, rather than go on to something much more interesting like this.

I would love to learn how to write LUA code, but I guess I'll have to learn that on my own time. And what is funny, is that if my career ends up around that skill, school work would have been a complete and utter waste of time. Other than helping me go to college, elementary - high school would have been nothing. If I go into video game programming or something that would require LUA, C++, or Html coding, that would help prove that school is wasting student's time. I have never learned to code in school, and it is such a shame, because I find it very fascinating.

One of the things I am grateful for school however, is for my advancement in mathematics, since I am one grade level ahead, and for teaching me my vast music skills. Without school, I would have not learned I can play five instruments, or can solve Quadratic Functions and stuff like that a year ahead of everyone else. That is the good that school has brought upon me. Unfortunately, it is very hard to learn Physics and LUA coding without someone like a teacher, to TEACH. Maybe school should focusing on basic things everyone should know, and focus more on things like student's interests for career pursing, maybe a student wants to be a professional athlete, good for them. Let them study Health as well as Anatomy, to understand the body, and give them Sports electives, to practice. I am not saying they should not receive math classes, but only basic math knowledge classes, instead of putting a student who does not like math in Pre-Calculus, let them get another class that interests them, instead of having them fail the class they do not want to do.

Have Math, Science, English and History, but only basic knowledge.
A future Author does not need to know what the crusades were, and why were they important. They need to know how to write better, and how to write well to captivate emotion. Put them in English II, Expressive Writing, and some other class they have an interest in, like Choir. Myself, for example, would love to have classes such as:
LUA Coding/Programming, Physics, Marching Band, Orchestra, and Pre-Calculus.
I would rather not waste time in the Gym, learning how to play Badminton. Granted, I will be taking Pre-Calc next year in my Sophomore year, but I will not be taking LUA Coding, because that is not a class, and I will not be taking Physics, because Sophomore classes for science, do not include Physics. Although I would need to take classes to build up to Physics, I have no problem with that, rather than just take Earth Science in 6th, only to switch it up to Life Science in 7th, only to move to Physical Science in 8th, only to move to Biology in 9th, only to move to Chemistry in 10th. Although some of these are important, such as Life Science, I fail to see how I will use the study of environments and interactions, if I do become a physicist. I do not know what prior knowledge is necessary for Physics so please cut me some slack, thanks. 

Overall, school has become less of a "Learn what you want to do, and become good at it, and help the world by using it" and more of a "Learn what we tell you to, and learn less of what you want, even though you will not use most of what we have taught you."
School is now more expensive, thus reducing the chance of more people having jobs, adding revenue to the economy, and instead, increase the number of people on welfare, having governments pay for them. Although some people, just don't like to learn, that doesn't mean that others don't want to. They just don't want to learn things that will be useless to them.

Earlier I said that we learned to write in MLA Format. This rant is not in that format, and it was still easy to read (hopefully). I would appreciate the lack of hate, because this is just a rant, a rant from a concerned 14 year old, worried and concerned about his future, the future of his friends, and worried about the future of this country.

Now how many high school kids have thoughts like this on their mind? A lot.

[terraoftime]

I'm taking high school physics 1 right now and I'm watching you and veritasium's videos so I can learn more about modern physics so thank you for the videos and keep up the good work!

[TonyShen]

I'm 16 and doing A level physics in the UK and I'm glad to hear that pretty much everything you listed is in our curriculum

[coxfuture]

at MIT, the first semester is 8.01 classical mechanics, 8.02 is electricity and magnetism. this moves at a faster pace, as it is a college course, but is basically the same curriculum as a year of high school physics. yes, you could cram a lot more in the same time, but that's down to the physics teacher. thankfully i had a fantastic one and he is where my love of physics comes from.
I guess what i'm saying is it takes a lot more time to even get to these things, and you can't gloss over classical mechanics

[danielchiverton]

This makes me glad that I live in the UK. All that is on my syllabus.

[Will-wihv]

I'm taking physics right now in high school and it's so easy! It could be because I'm a nerd but it's like we are learning the basics as slow as we possibly can, there's so much potential.

[a_shahid]

this video is true extreme.I'm in my last year of junior high.and i enjoy these videos very much.