The Time and Space of Uncle Albert

• p1: Is it possible to do research in school? How can we foster a "Scientific attitude"?
• p1: How do we evaluate project work? What qualities do we reward? (The book returns to this point in the end, where the author clearly disagrees with the teacher!)
• p1: She hoped one day to be a scientist like her uncle. (Just note the "gender perspective" on relativity!)
• p2: "Turnip says I could to energy in the Home"- double glazing, electric toothbrushes and the like. But I'm not sure. I'd like to do something really interesting"
  How about school physics? What is interesting?

Below follow a few of my own thoughts as I read on.

• p2 Going up a ladder at night to try to reach the stars - is that something from an Einstein biography?
• p3 [The light goes] five times around the earth while you say "rice puding". Think about some other ways to illustrate the enormous speed of light!
• p9-10 "This is the largest spacecraft that has never been built and never will be..." (I just like this phrase!)
• p12 "Why aren't we slowing down? Because the engine's off.."
  Can you think of a children's book or cartoon where this actually happens? Noddys car stops immediately because the balloon stops pulling Grover's space shuttle. Maybe we could make a collection of examples like this?
• p17 Light is compared to a dance - if it stops it would be no dance. Is this a good description? Can we think of other descriptions?
• p18. What is described here is of course NOT an experiment proving the "speed limit" or that we cannot catch up with light. What experiment found this?
• p18, The discussion about bringing the notepad versus bringing the writing desk is a good example of Newton's third law. One might also recall the astronaut working with a robot - heavy but not massive. Again, the book describes one of the consequences (increased mass) of the relativity theory, but still does not give arguments why this is so. (Later he moves on to real "gedanken experiments" which actually do follow "proofs" quite carefully. Try to distinguish the different roles of the descriptions)
• p22. Well, you always thought that relativity theory was about (1-v² /c²)^1/2, didn't you? (You just have to keep track of who is fast and who is slow, who is short and who is heavy!) And still you cannot find a formula in the book, only several examples.
  How about working out the weight of Gedanken travelling at 90% of the speed of light, just to make sure it is right on p22

Chapter 2

• p24 Note first Uncle Albert peeling potatoes! Does it agree with your image of scientists?
• The first part is a bit of a "geography lesson" in space. Description of what has been observed with "Apollo", "Galileo"and "Voyager". You, too, are invited to a virtual space tour of the planets.
• p32. Again a description of what happens, but note the scientific approach in the investigation of what happens!
  • Checking the clock.
  • Making sure that they now run at the same speed.
  • Interchanging the clocks for another tour.
  • Bringing two clock of different construction.
  • Noting the speed and the time - even before knowing what formula to use.
• Again you may want to check up some of the numbers given. How far would she get in 20 minutes at 0.9c (Albert time? Gedanken time?) How far out in the solar system could that take her?
• If we don't allow her more than 5g acceleration, how long time would it take to reach 0.9c?
• p40: Another Gedanken problem: The train driver between London and Glasgow, travelling for 40 years. Is the effect really only a microsecond? How about flying Gbg-Sthlm back and forth every day for a years? Just once? Could this be measured?

More to come ...