Back from a Surprise Three-Day Weekend

Friday morning, I checked the website for the local school closings, and discovered that the Ypsilanti Schools were closed due to snow. So, today when I went in, I hadn't seen the kids since last Monday, and they'd just had a three-day weekend.

In physics, they started off with a quiz on momentum. Some of the students said they'd forgotten too much over the weekend, but Mr. Ambrose lets them use their notes, books, and worksheets - everything but their neighbors - so if they've kept up with the work, then they've got plenty of material to draw on. Most of them seemed to finish up without problems, though two need to come in to finish later. (Makes me wish I could do that with tests - it would make them a lot easier!) After the quiz, they went over elastic and inelastic collisions. They should be finishing up momentum soon, and then they'll be moving on to other topics like electricity.

In Ms. Colwell's advanced algebra class, they're working with complex numbers. One girl couldn't quite understand how a number that "isn't there" could mean anything - she asked, how could you have "i" apples? Her math skills are good, but she seems to need to tie everything to physical objects. Another girl mentioned that her older brother is studying electrical engineering - I'm sure he uses plenty of complex numbers. Since I use them a lot - they're ubiquitous in controls work - I offered to put together a brief presentation for the class. Ms. Colwell and I agreed that next Monday would be a good time for it, since they have a test scheduled for Friday. I can also make up a brief worksheet to go with it that can be used as a warm-up - the assignment that gets them to settle down and work, and which keeps them busy while she takes attendance. Maybe, if they see areas where complex numbers are used, they'll seem a little more "real" to them. I can't blame them for having some conceptual difficulty - after all, for a long time mathematicians had trouble figuring out complex numbers. Descartes, who certainly was a talented mathematician, dismissed them as being meaningless. I've told some of them about things like that, and that it's OK to have trouble visualizing these things. They're easy enough to work with but they can be hard to understand. The fact that we don't even blink at them doesn't mean they're easy - it means they're familiar.