I took PSSC physics in
my junior year of high
school, 1966-67 and it
was a transforming
experience. PSSC was
experimental then; of
the three or four
physics sections at my
school only one got to
use this new curriculum.
We were told we were in
a new kind of physics
class where students
would learn about
interesting topics and
do new kinds of
experiments. While my
friends in the other
sections were measuring
boiling points and
specific heats (and
complaining about how
boring their physics
class was), we were
using carbon paper and a
ticker to measure the
progress of a falling
ball, playing with the
ripple tank and making
slits for Young’s
experiment with razor
blades. That captured
our interest!
Learning about
mechanics and Newton’s
Laws through the
problems in the text and
our experiments was so
much fun, even the
“non-science-oriented”
students were into it.
But the ripple tank was
by far the most fun and
most memorable component
of that whole year. It
was such a novel device
to us; we loved using it
and got really good at
predicting and analyzing
the interference
patterns. Learning about
light through these
experiments was the most
fascinating thing I had
ever been exposed to. I
had wondered about the
explanation of oil-slick
rainbows for years, and
had even asked my
teacher about it at the
beginning of the term –
he promised we would get
to it, and when we did,
I felt a visceral sense
of satisfaction to
finally understand. I
fell in love with
physics during that
class, and it may be
that this early
introduction to
measuring and
understanding light is
what spurred me to
become an astronomer
(one who does
spectroscopy!).
The excitement of
that class 40 years ago
was no doubt due in part
to our charismatic
teacher and to the
general high academic
level of the students,
but it is clear that a
great deal of the
success of that class
was due to the PSSC
curriculum and the way
it introduced us at the
same time to the mystery
and the
comprehensibility of the
physical world. For that
I will always be
grateful.
