outline spinup PoT HowBig spindn outline fill meta/intro presample CosmicView PoTproto intro show discuss EN pt1 PoT prep show Discuss HowBig intro EN math roomsintro intrigue - drill phase in drill | tell stories in each v FQ interlude? any Q's wrapup postsample process improvement written discussion end meta/intro proposal/objective outline phase in drill / q&a back&forth room stories cross-room stories drill q fermi q student proposed questions presample "What do folks know about size before the course" seen/read PoT before looked at the website the presample <b>No Names Please</b> rooms nm um m km Mm? [] room stories for each [] x-room stories meter tubes !:) (printed) around the room white tubes, 1m, on desks colored 2m tubes positioned as height references solid color meter tubes alternating bright along walls vertically in corners marks at 50cm or by dm or by 2dm bright string on floor tape (orange tape) strip worthwhilely visible? gaffers tape to tie it all down some clear tubes to support horiz tubes slanting class room -> ...?? constant frame (clip tubes)? slanting frame? avoid box framishness tube only desks front vert front & sizes horiz "gridding" a room "meter gridding"? yarn + stickem ceil. a yard chaulk colored (opt) string/rope preassemble dm boxes postit glue :) works? packet angle card yard tubes page :) dont forget HB intro starts w doing quant size in realworld "gridded" room do room in meters | drill on room then mm | and objects then shifting game shift zoom-out first room -> small square (everybody write) then um? or do km first? "ok everybody, hands out. how big is a foo?" "the fish that got away was this big." v in meter room do room size building height speed limit? then show room on screen X-No briefly? then do um ^ quickly then room overview/intro find name for this/real/class/hall "real room". drive/drill escalating skill - name it EN 10^x - basic math - FQ, up to full bound/likely/guess, models, and landmarks measure things in real world in rooms oom barber pole stick. with bounds/bar figure next to it. email mor ortho mit grid, small version screen version mit poster page poster page mit elevation view (mit planning?) book/page of Boston highlights show some sizeish Nature articles towards end? check ebay for pool floats. (?) "Er{q,a}ld"?? Suz? 25 Oct (tufts in the sun:)

This is a temporary page to house preparations for a two-hour "course" I am doing as part of MIT's ESP Splash on the weekend of November 23.
Comments would be most welcome - Mitchell Charity <mcharity@vendian.org>.

Brainstorming... Process content sketch slides and props scripting, practice dress rehersal EYWTKA class interaction workshop math segments with Suz performance PoT Movies - draft and full Browsable books - Kees, PoT, Ballpark, QuarksToQuasars Useful? time to browse? Components Introduction - PoT Frameworks - Mathematical Frameworks - HowBig Physical insights Other insights Handouts/Packet Props Packet Cover page Graph paper 10x gp w person? Rulers Slider/Spinner 1 page cheat sheet Models? Dm box Physical insights L L^2 L^3 density, particleness, gravity speed of sound falling at different scales, structure vs puddle, viscosity and swimming puddle earth [] walk scales and make top-10 important concepts list Frameworks - HowBig Pivot points x10 step references Props big letter(s) "a" "1 mm" "mit" ...? "?" big ruler lines [] plan for each scale wave simulation? :) [] brainstorm...

I'm thinking of something like - give a "How much do people know about size?" pre-test. - mention and show a page or two from Boeke's Cosmic View (have to ask his relative if there are any good stories) - show the short PoT film draft, to introduce the concept (and to continue to give a feel for this as an ongoing collective project, rather than merely isolated artifacts) - discuss, do 10^x, and point out things to look for - show PoT film (20min) - discuss, give teaser for How Big. - break I'm not sure yet how to lay the rest out.... - do How Big. Maybe just focus on nm through Mm, and just breeze through astronomical scales. - introduce FermiQs - order-of-mag math, bounded estimation. Try to give everyone the aha! of discovering they know vastly more than they thought they did. - tell How Big stories. Wading to Georges bank to play with whales, velocity, choosing landmarks, renolds number effects, etc, etc. - spend the rest of the time answering questions, playing in size space. - give a "How well have I explained all this?" post-test. - Make sure everyone gets the concept that Boeke was in 1950, and all of this could have been done at any time since. It was just a matter of someone getting to it. Current lousy textbooks mean "there is lots of stuff for you to contribute", even now, even in bitesized chunks. I'll be bringing scale models, etc. Drat, I should have bought a few more pool-"noodle"-float "hair"s over the summer. I wonder where one might get a gross this time of year. Hmm, I wonder what shipping costs are from Australia... :)

How big are things?
How big is a virus? A mountain? A star? This course is intended to help develop a familiarity with size. We'll watch Eames and Morrisons' film "Powers of Ten: About the Relative Size of Things in the Universe, and the Effect of Adding Another Zero", work with a variant intended to be easier to remember and use (www.vendian.org/howbig/), and do related order-of-magnitude, back of the envelope estimation and Fermi Questions/Problems.