Announcements by Porter Johnson

• My office telephone number is [312] 567-5745. [However, I will not be in the office during SMILE meetings, for obvious reasons, and that is when I seem to get many calls!]
• The Fall schedule of SMILE courses, and practically everything else of interest, is posted on our web page. Check us out at the following URL: http://www.iit.edu/~smile/

  John Bozovsky [Bowen HS]
  He showed T-shirts that could be used for a fund raiser, which depicted the author of the 3 laws of motion. Question by Porter Johnson: Sir Isaac Newton or Robert Hooke??

  Carol Zimmerman [Lane Tech HS]

  She asked if anyone covered thermodynamics in the first semester of HS Physics, since the CASE exams had questions on it. (CASE is given in Chicago Public Schools and marked by the instructor as a system-wide test that may eventually by required as part of the final grade)

  Since Lab Science is now a single 50 min period, it restricts the amount of material one can cover, and usually makes a lab take 2 days. At Lane Tech Physics is a 3rd year class, and Chemistry is considered a Senior Class.

  Now that 3 science classes are required the CPS had decided that Biology would be the 1st science, Earth Science (or Environmental Science) be the 2nd science, and then either Chemistry of Physics would be the third science.

  Comments were made with regard to the NY State Regents tests and it was noted by another participant that in NY everyone knows what material must be covered, and the tests are professionally graded (not by the teachers teaching the material). In the CPS they may be trying to do something similar, without fully implementing the procedure.

  Fred Schaal [Lane Tech HS]

  He got hold of a larger cup that held a can of soda, but with warm soda there was a difference-Stay tuned for a demo next week.

  Bill Blunk [Joliet Central HS]

             Knob Magnets available at All Electronic
             Part  # Mag 32      1-800-826-5432
             $3.00 each + $5.00 charge per order.
             Al Coins available at WTTW Store of Knowledge
  

  He demonstrated that the fall of an Aluminum "coin" was greatly slowed when dropped between 2 of these assemblies cascaded. The second assembly greatly slowed it down.

  He suggested that 2 in parallel produced a longer field region, because of addition of the fringing fields.

  Ann Brandon [Joliet West HS]

  She showed several small top spinning devices that for about 3 cents could be distributed to students. One had a solid disk, and another that had a ring supported by spokes. One would spin for over four times as long as the other. Of course the solid disk rotated longer, because of a smaller moment of inertia.
  Available from Oriental Trading Company 1-800-228-2269
  Open Disk at $1.50 per Gross and Closed Disk at $3.50 per Gross

  [To remind those fully metricized souls, a Gross is defined as a quantity of 144 -PJ].

  Bill Colson, Moderator [Morgan Park HS]

  He showed us his favorite Math Word Problem that appears to provide too little information to determine the children's ages. The person asked the question cannot solve it with the information given, but would know the answer if told that the oldest child has red hair [and thus that there is an oldest child, and not two of the same age].

  He recommended a book called The Chicken from Minsk and 99 Other Infuriatingly Challenging Brain Teasers from the Great Russian Tradition of Math and Science, by Yuri B. Chernyak and Robert M. Rose [out of print, according to http://www.amazon.com ---PJ].