What I always find interesting is how useful the projects
are for discussion. We centered in on the idea of part Vs whole. In order to
get the students in this mindset I had them do exquisite corpse so we could
start the discussion there. My point with all this is the Newtonian sense of
the world is about breaking things down into the smallest parts. Chaos suggests
that the dynamic interaction of parts is the more important aspect. As I have
done with this class in the past I feel like we are sort of creeping up on
chaos. These questions also let us discuss cause and effect.
Since we hadn’t quite finished the conversation we moved
back into talking about Flatland. This book offers a wonderful metaphor for
discussing a changing vision of the world. Higher dimensions reveal more detail
in the same way that looking at things that appear random and finding order
does.
I wrestled with how to frame the next project. I knew I
wanted it to be focused on the notion of sensitive dependence on initial
conditions, but I didn’t want to limit where the projects went from there. So –
we generated a list of five items
- “wet face,” “ distortion,” “tomato sauce,” the image of a triangle and “graphite”
with the instruction to create something that exists in space. We then talked
about space as object oriented – as opposed to temporal – but with the end
product not being limited to a static or silent object.
The next class period we picked up on the part/whole
conversation by addressing the idea of possibilities and probabilities. So I
started by asking questions about Schrödinger's poor alive/dead cat. Possibilities
ended up being discussed as things that could happen and probabilities as
things that might happen. I passed around a sealed tin and asked for what could
possibly be inside – 25 very interesting answers.
The point of today’s class was to really deal directly with
the idea of Chaos drawing on the Nova video as well as the Crutchfield etc
article. Not sure why I hadn’t done this before, but what we did was compare
the trajectory or a baseball (well – crumpled up piece of paper) and a balloon
as it lets air out. One very predictable, the other not at all. In talking
about the balloon the number of variables – amount of air in the balloon, elasticity
of the balloon, release point, air currents in the room, dust on the balloon,
etc – was somewhat staggering. Clearly a dynamic system at work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUsePzlOmxw
We broached the subject of phase space and attractors a bit.
Here we discussed synchronic and diachronic. I am fairly certain that this was
very confusing. But – we have plenty more to talk about when we get to that section
of the term. So I showed the students the bit about water and turbulence in the
Nova video and then we looked at the double pendulum app. Some of the point of
all of this is to just start to get some of these chaos ideas into their heads.
The next step is to compare them with stories, films, music dealing with the
ideas analytically. Finally to talk about them as tools for structuring
creative work.
I find it interesting that as I approach this class this term I feel somewhat burned out on the project class mode. Not that I don’t see this as a really useful process, but that it is a form of teaching that requires a great deal more energy than a more traditional model. Mainly I think this is because it is a matter of constantly developing exercises and projects designed to illuminate the main ideas of the course. At one point I thought I might be able to develop a general list of these, but it seems that each subject demands its own list. The hard part is developing these projects open ended enough and yet controlled enough to get the point across but give students flexibility to engage in the questions on their own terms. I was pleased with the results of the first project – now we await project 2.
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