Big Ideas

I’m drawn to ideas that are simply stated, but provide deep insights. A “big idea” takes a minute to state and a lifetime to explore. Many of the concepts from mathematics, physics, and philosophy fit this definition.

I want to know how the universe works. And while I accept that I will never truly know, I can’t think of a more worthwhile pursuit with the time I’ve been given.

I’m an academic at heart. I want to learn about about it all.

As long as I draw breath and am able, I will not stop practicing philosophy.  –Socrates

I don’t know anything, but I do know that everything is interesting if you go into it deeply enough.  –Richard Feynman

Human Imagination

The “theater of the mind” was my first and still is my favorite pastime.  I love storytelling in all of its numerous forms: books, film, games, comics, etc.

Before I discovered science and computers, my first passion was drawing.  I love the visual arts as an embodiment of the human imagination.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.  -–Albert Einstein

A library is infinity under a roof.  -–Gail Carson Levine

Human Spirit

I want to know what propels us to cross the finish line.

I’m particularly interested in challenges that test your mettle — mixed martial arts, wilderness survival, Ironman triathlons, ultramarathons, Navy SEAL Hell Week — what possesses a person to persevere?

Inside your own head, you are all alone; and the only person that can help you — is you.

Never quit.  –Marcus Luttrell, Navy SEAL, lone survivor of Operation Red Wings

I’m a physics teacher and researcher in Austin, TX.

I have degrees in computer science (B.S., Duke University), computational and applied mathematics (M.S., The University of Texas at Austin), and physics (Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin).

In my research, I use computational methods to pursue problems that lie at the intersection of spacetime physics and astrophysics. (See my Science page for more info on my research.)

From 2011 to 2015, I was a full-time Lecturer in the UTeach program at the University of Texas at Austin. I believe strongly in the mission of UTeach, which is to address public science education by training the next generation of science teachers. I follow the motto that: if you want to impact a few students, you teach, but if you want to impact many students, you teach teachers.

In addition to working with future teachers, I’ve worked with current grade school teachers and their students. From 2008 to 2009, while in graduate school, I was a fellow of the NSF-funded GK12 program, which placed me in 5th grade and 7th grade classrooms in local area schools where I taught lessons and worked as an adviser to teachers on science and science instruction. Through the UTeach program I’ve also taught numerous continuing education seminars for science teachers in schools all around Central Texas.

In 2018 I joined St. Edward’s University, a private liberal arts university in south Austin, where I am an Adjunct Professor of physics and astronomy.

Also starting in 2018, I’ve been an Instructor for Texas Global (formerly the International Office) at the University of Texas at Austin, where I’ve had the privilege to teach scientific computing to some of the world’s brightest incoming international students.

Today, I have appointments at both St. Edward’s University (adjunct professor) and the University of Texas at Austin (instructor and research fellow).

Tell me, and I forget; show me, and I remember; involve me, and I understand.

— Ancient Chinese proverb

As I teach it, science is not a spectator sport.  I compare learning science to learning to play a sport or a musical instrument.   Just as listening to a pianist play a sonata won’t teach you to play the piano, and watching a professional baseball player swing a bat won’t teach you to hit a fastball, watching me do science is not the best way for you to learn to do science.  To learn it, you must do it yourself.  And, like a piano teacher or a baseball coach, I’m not going to play the piano for you at your recital or step up to the plate for you during the game.  My goal is to give you all the tools you need in order to hit that home run yourself.  I’m more like a coach than a teacher.

For that reason, my preferred method of teaching science is “guided inquiry”. Like a Socratic dialogue, my lessons consist of a series of questions that will help students draw their own conclusions.  As a teacher, I mostly ask questions.

Science is also a collaborative effort.  Ideally I want my students to experience science in the way a scientist experiences it: by discovery and teamwork.  The first step in science is to convince yourself of a result. The second step is to convince each other. And the third step is to explain it to the rest of the world.  In class, we do the first two steps every day.

Outside of class, I really enjoy mentoring undergraduate students in research projects.  This provides them with an opportunity to truly experience the scientific process and that practical experience is, in my opinion, one of the most important learning experiences they can have.

I believe the primary difference between a student and a teacher is that the teacher has simply been learning for longer.  Students and teachers are all fellow learners.

My astronomy lessons that use guided inquiry are available for download on my Teaching page.

Thanks to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, anyone with a STEM-field Ph.D. can trace their academic adviser lineage all the way back to historical figures like Gauss and Euler. Here is a piece of my recent genealogy:

My adviser was Richard Matzner, director of the Center for Relativity at UT Austin.

Matzner’s adviser (my “academic grandfather“) was Charles Misner, co-author, with Thorne and Wheeler (both of whom are also present in the family tree), of Gravitation, the original comprehensive text on general relativity and gravitation.

Misner’s adviser (my “academic great-grandfather“) was John Archibald Wheeler, the Manhattan Project physicist and gravitational physicist that coined the term black hole.

One of Wheeler’s students was the inimitable, Nobel Prize-winning Richard Feynman, and another of his students was Nobel Prize-winning gravitational physicist Kip Thorne (both are my “academic great uncles“).

I am fortunate and humbled to be following the trails blazed by these great minds.

Science and Math Channels on YouTube

minutephysics

Veritasium

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell

Numberphile

Interactive Fiction

Emily Short’s Blog

Aaron A. Reed’s Blog

Martial Arts

Radical MMA

Stephan Kesting’s Grapplearts and Strenuous Life Podcast

Chewjitsu

History

Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History podcast