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Comment by jeffwass

10 years ago

Ha, I am surprised to see that page on HN.

I remember finding this way back in 2002, after making my own "Quick and Dirty Preview of Solid State Physics". I had to make this site for a seminar class. Basically each student had to present on some general physics topic and then make a webpage for it. http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~jeffwass/2ndYrSem/slide1.html

Made me realise after coming across the Britney Spears page, the brilliance of basing a potentially dry academic presentation around a pop culture celebrity.

Eg, another pop cultural site/meme around that time was MC Hawking (E=MC). Some guy made gangsta rap tunes using a voice synthesiser similar to Stephen Hawking's, with loose physics references.

Btw - in my seminar class, the best presentation (maybe the only one I remember) was by one dude (now a professional astronomer) who interspersed graphs of cosmic inflation with pictures of an inflatable sheep sex doll. The prof wasn't too pleased. Not sure where that webpage is nowadays...

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jeffwass

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roymurdock  10 years ago

The most recent instance I've seen of this pop culture/dry theory combo was in the movie The Big Short.

They have Margot Robbie (Australian supermodel) sip champagne in a bubble bath while explaining the dynamics of the derivatives market and how it created a bubble in 2008. There's also a scene where Anthony Bourdain (celebrity chef) is prepping food in a kitchen and talking about fish stew as a metaphor for securitization and CDO's.

I find that the best teachers have such a complete mastery of a subject that they can almost perfectly translate it into a common language (pop culture) to make it more relatable and entertaining. They let inquisitive students probe deeper, past the metaphor. The worst teachers usually keep things as academic and dry as possible as a shield against understanding, which leads to questioning, which might call the teacher's knowledge into question or derail the class.

  • VLM  10 years ago

    The entire "Good Eats" series on the food network with Alton Brown? Light food biochemistry combined with entertaining pop culture references?

    The network is pretty boring now, focusing mostly on extremely shiny and polished aspirational personalities and the usual "reality" game shows, but in the old days the network used to be about food...

    • roymurdock  10 years ago

      I don't own a TV, much less a cable subscription. Projector + streaming + big old speakers is where it's at ;)

alsetmusic  10 years ago

The style of music you're referring to is called Nerd Core. I had a friend who was really into it and he took me to a show about ten years ago. Lyrics ranged from video games to math and physics with clever word play and a lot of "in" jokes targeted at the intended audience. I had fun and could see why my buddy enjoyed it so much.