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Daniel Nest's avatar

There's this really fun museum called Experimentarium in Copenhagen full of cool Interactive installations, physics experiments, and games. But one of the few things that's still there since the early days of me being in Denmark as a teenager is a rotating metal circle you can stand on and a bunch of spinning wheels you can grab to test just the effect you're describing. Still very popular!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

That's really cool! There is a science museum here in Richmond that's not spectacular, but it does have lots of tangible demonstrations of physics. I can imagine that sets a kid's mind on fire.

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Daniel Nest's avatar

Yeah having that tactile physical experience is really a big deal!

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I think back about how fascinated I was with water. If there was a garden hose around and I was 2 or 3 years old, I was going to pay attention to very little else.

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

Chem 1A - big sunken amphitheater style lecture hall. Prof took a volunteer student sat them on a stool and pulled a 15lb bowling ball hung on a rope from the ceiling right up to their nose and let it fly. They ran. That guy was a showman. Best classes aren't the best subjects but the best profs.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

Agree completely! Ever watch any of Richard Mueller's old physics lectures? He and Walter Lewin were two very early web-based physics lecturers I discovered and kinda fell in love with. Lewin used to do exactly that demo, but on himself. The effect on the students was incredible.

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Andrew Sniderman 🕷️'s avatar

corollary: best substacks are written by the best Andrew's err storytellers...

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David Perlmutter's avatar

"My baby don't have to work/she don't have to rob or steal..."

"Driving Wheel" is a classic R&B song written and introduced by Roosevelt Sykes and later covered by Little Junior Parker and Al Green. The singer insists he is the "driving wheel" for his girl, keeping her safe and protected (presumably from other men). It is hard for me to think about wheels in motion of any kind without this coming up in my mind.

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Andrew Smith's avatar

I think about the song "Under My Wheels" by Allice Cooper sometimes.

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