Six Ideas That Shaped Physics: Unit N : The Laws of Physics Are Universal

by Thomas A. Moore

"Six Ideas That Shaped Physics" is consistent with the three basic principles of the IUPP (Introductory University Physics Project, Pomona College, USA): The pace of the introductory course should be reduced so that a broader range of students can achieve an acceptable level of competence and satisfaction; there should be more contemporary physics in the course; and the course should use one or more "story lines" to help organize ideas and help motivate student interest. The author adds three principles of his own to help "round-out" this exceptional new The course should seek to embrace the best of what educational research has taught us about conceptual and structural problems with the standard course; the course should stake out a middle ground between the standard introductory course and exciting but radical courses that require a substantial investment in infrastructure and/or training; and the course should be useful in fairly standard environments and should be easy for teachers to understand and adopt. This organized system of learning proves effective because students gain confidence as they proceed to more difficult concepts.

Genres: Nonfiction

204 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

There is more than one Thomas A. Moore in the Goodreads catalog. This entry is for Thomas ^ A. Moore, professor of physics.

Thomas A. Moore is Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Pomona College, in Claremont, California, USA.

Moore is a theoretical astrophysicist who has done most of his published research on the generation and detection of gravitational waves. Currently, he is working to better understand what space-based gravitational wave detectors should expect to see and what they might tell us about the universe. He is also deeply interested in problems in physics education and has published several papers (as well as given a number of talks and workshops) on new approaches to teaching physics.

He served for seven years on the steering committee of the Introductory University Physics Project, and his work for that project led him to write a fairly radical introductory physics textbook titled Six Ideas That Shaped Physics (2003). He is also the author of two other textbooks, A General Relativity Workbook (2013) and A Traveler’s Guide to Spacetime (1996).

His scholarly interests are in gravitational waves, physics education, the fundamentals of quantum mechanics, solar energy, and the intersection of science and religion.

Education
B.A. Carleton College (1976)
M. Phil. Yale University (1978)
Ph. D. Yale University (1981)