For the Love of Physics
by Walter Lewin
by Walter Lewin
First Son and I have been reading this book together over the last three years along with Sabbath Mood Homeschool's high school physics course (Physics Part I, Part 2, and Part 3). Part 3 requires astronomy as a prerequisite. My son completed the Astronomy course as part of his high school earth sciences credit. I think there's enough astronomy in Mater Amabilis's Level 3 and 4 science plans that a student would be adequately prepared without the Sabbath Mood Astronomy guide.
I scheduled an integrated science curriculum for him, so he did Part 1 freshman year, Part 2 sophomore year, and Part 3 junior year. By the end of junior year, he earned a full credit of physics. He also finished a full credit of chemistry and a full credit of earth science.
We don't need to understand why a rainbow or fogbow or glassbow is formed in order to appreciate its beauty, of course, but understanding the physics of rainbows does give us a new set of eyes (I call this the beauty of knowledge). We become more alert to the little wonders we might just be able to spot on a foggy morning, or in the shower, or when walking by a fountain, or peeking out of an airplane window when everyone else is watching movies. (p. 102)
Dr. Lewin's book overflows with his infectious love of science, especially physics. He marvels at the wonders of the natural world, including parts that are only discernable with delicate instruments.
Ballooning was very romantic in its way. To be up at four o'clock in the morning, drive out to the airport, and see the sunrise and see the spectacular inflation of the balloon--this beautiful desert, under the sky, just stars at first, and then slowly seeing the Sun come up. Then, as the balloon was released and pulled itself into the sky, it shimmered silver and gold in the dawn. (p. 212)
The book covers a lot of basic physics in its pages, with a focus on the kinds of phenomena a reader is likely to notice in every day life, if he or she is paying attention. For the most part, I was able to understand the broader concepts fairly well just from the text. Sometimes the explanations were difficult to follow, but a student could always look up more detailed information online.
The experiments for the first two sections seemed about perfect to me. Some were relatively straight-forward. Others were more ambitious, probably more than I would have been on my own, and that meant they were a good challenge for First Son. We were never able to get our electromagnet working, but there is a benefit in making the attempt, even if it doesn't work. I think there might have been one other experiment that didn't work as well. We also skipped at least one that would have required a significant financial investment.
Part 3 has only a few real experiments or lab activities. Most of the time, the student was encouraging to conduct some reading research on a topic of astrophysics that had appeared in the text. It's hard to know if that truly counts as a lab (but I'm counting it for First Son), but it definitely made planning labs for that term a lot easier for me!
There are references in a couple of lessons in the Sabbath Mood Plans to creationist websites and articles, presumably to counter the long timeline of the universe's history presented in the text. We don't have any problems with the theory of the big bang or long timelines, so we just skipped those lessons.
I am fairly certain I am not going to use these plans for First Daughter. She has ambitious ideas about possibly attending an elite college and I'm not entirely sure these are rigorous enough. I'm not opposed to conceptual physics courses, but this one seems lighter than a conceptual without upper level math problems. I think it might work for my younger daughter, though, who could benefit from a lighter load.
I've also found the integrated approach using terms to be a little unwieldy for our transcript. It's not that you can't make a transcript based on three terms a year, but that science is the only course that is really in thirds. I think for the future, I'm going to figure out a way to use an integrated approach in semesters. I think you could do that with this course - just use Part 1 and about half of Part 2 for the first semester, then the rest of Part 2 and Part 3 for the second semester.
As in other Sabbath Mood Homeschool courses, the lessons are only three days a week. The student should be reading from a supplemental science book once a week and following a news source once a week for current events articles in science as well in order to ensure you have enough hours to justify a full credit by the end.
I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links. Links to Sabbath Mood Homeschool are not affiliate links. I purchased this book.
