Question: why do you want to bring more physics to school

Oliver Gordon answered on 4 Mar 2019:

I think it’s a real shame that the way science is taught in school is “hey, here’s some facts,” rather than “here’s some background information – now look at how much we don’t know, and just how doable it is to get involved with that”. Science is kind of made out to be something it isn’t, and when it’s being taught it’s made to seem less important than it should be.

One of the things we see more and more of nowadays is the general public having this big distrust with science. Part of dealing with this is education – making people aware from a young age that it’s important, that it’s not just facts and that even if it’s not immediately important, there’s long term benefits to science that make it worth funding (people don’t like paying tax!!!!). The other part is to take a look at ourselves – I know a lot of scientists who are a bit snooty and make an effort to not talk about what they do. So bringing science to the masses is important!

We also have some fun experiments I like doing – we have a light bulb that plays music, science we can explain with potatoes and string, and blowing up marshmallows that I totally don’t eat afterwards…)