Post Interview with Will by John Wilson

JW: Test. This should be the Will, at Waffle house. Whenever they come by.. my daughter is doing the transcribing, I hope she can hear this.

Will: Alright. So…..

JW: Okay. So, I’m still wanting to know what you are thinking the about what the nature of science is.

Will: Well, I think it’s all about inquiry. It’s about finding the is unknown to you, or unknown to society as a whole, it’s I think that’s what is is, more than memorizing equations or formula’s. I mean ,those things are important, but, I think the reason how they got there is more important.

JW: So, are you talking about the nature of science classes, or the nature of science?

Will: Just, the science. Well, actually, it’s one and the same.

JW: Okay.

Will: The way these teacher’s are trying to emulate. I think we as teacher’s, when we are trying to teach science, we must also try to emulate science, which means we should have something that is as close to science as possible. Because if we are teaching science, these kids should be able to understand the science as well.

JW: So, what makes it close to being like real science?

Will: Well, hands on, definitely hands on. Can I talk about what we did?

JW: Sure

Will: Hands on, or, going to an observatory, to a laboratory, and actually putting their hands on it and investigating it for themselves. Instead of having a cookbook, you know, do this, do that, do that. They don’t really learn from that, in my experience. I’ve been teaching science for two years.

JW: What science?

Will: I taught, uh, physical science and physics. During that time, I noticed, with the cookbook, there’s this.. it doesn’t mean anything to them, it doesn’t hold any value because they can follow directions, follow directions.

JW: So, then, it’s not motivational?

Will: No. Unfortunately, the way that they have a lot of these labs set up is not.

1 JW: So, how would you do it differently, if you could do anything you wanted.

Will: If I could do anything I wanted with an unlimited amount of money, I would have more, more hands on activities, I’d give more money to science, and uh, make sure these kids are getting hands on experiences, because they are not getting them at the majority of the schools. They are not getting the experiences they need, what with old equipment, some of the labs are outdated, or too mundane. It’s too mundane, sometimes. I can understand why some of the kids get bored or not show any interest in science, because there is nothing..

JW: How would do inquiring this?

Will: Oh, I would take them to observatories, labs,..

JW: but, what would you do in lab that wouldn’t be a cookbook lapse?

Will: Oh, I’d give them maybe some materials.. Let’s say maybe it was a density lab. Or something like that. I’d say, “Okay, you are given this, and this here,” you are given a couple of objects, maybe a triple-beam balance, and a graduated cylinder. What do you need to do? What are your procedures? How do you set it up? A lot of these labs nowadays, are, like, “Take the mass of the object, now take the volume of the object, divide the two.” Well, when they kids do them, they follow them, they’re like. Well, this is what I get; “Is this what we are supposed to get? Is this what we are supposed to get?” And that’s not really tuned into the kids, It still doesn’t mean anything to them.

JW: So, I guess, then ,how are you defining an experiment?

Will: Well, an experiment.. mhh. An experiment is finding out the unknown, or testing something that is known.

JW: Testing something that is known, what do you mean?

Will: well, If you know that the density of water is 1, in general, but you wanted to make sure the density of water is 1 in stone mountain, then you have to conduct an experiment to make sure that the density of water is 1 in stone mountain.

JW: Okay. Did you consider when, you know, when we went out to the observatory, we went out the first night, and just looked through the telescope at the moon, a couple of binary stars, had some fun. Do you consider that to be a scientific experiment?

Will: An experiment? Yeah, it’s an observation, sure.

JW: Do you consider it to be scientific?

Will: I honestly, I would consider it to be scientific.

2 JW: What makes it scientific to you?

Will: Well, I say it’s scientific, just because you are looking at the object, so you are making observations, about those objects. The moon must be closer than the other stars because the moon is so much bigger than the stars. So, you start there. Then you get into, how far away are some of these other stars? Can you really tell? How bright are these stars? I think, about the order, there is a number order for the intensity of the light, it goes on from there. So, I think it was.

JW: Okay, do you think a scientist would call that scientific?

Will: Elementary science, but, still science none the less.

JW: Okay. Uhmm. Let’s see.. Okay. Well, you know, scientists get data, and looking at the same data, they sometimes come up with different interpretations. How do you think that happens?

Will: Well, there are a lot of… outside influences, that may show that maybe they have something different, could be a different temperature, for that observation, could be a different time of day, or perhaps a different instrument, different telescope. Just from what we did during the summer, we thought that we had one star here, and it really wasn’t there, or it was labeled incorrectally, and we looked back at the guide of the people who did this, and he had made some other questionable calls on stars, too. Well ,you say, maybe he had a different instrument, or maybe his instrument was having some kid of severe aberrations, something that made him see something that wasn’t there.

JW: or whatever, right?

Will: Right.

JW: So, you’ve actually feel you’ve kinda of experienced looking at the data of someone else, plus something you did in addition. And your interpretation of it came out different.

Will: Yes.

JW: The naval observatory accepted what you guys did as most likely the proper interpretation. What makes you think they were willing to listen to you. Who are you? What did you do to convince them that what you have, and what your interrpretaion is, must be more correct or viable, or what ever.

Will: Well, the first thing we did was, we had to consult the catalogue. We had to tell them what equipment we used and where we used it. We also talked to other people in the field after the presentation.. I’ve forgotten his name..

JW: Dr. Henry.

3 Will: Dr. Henry. We talked to him. I believe there was somebody else we talked to as well, who helped us out with the catalogue. It was through… I don’t think they would have been as receptive to us if we had been just two people off the street with no back ground, or no connections.

JW: but, you come to me how far away the stars were in the sky, in arc seconds, and a position angle relative one to another, from north.

Will: Yes.

JW: Why, what did you do to make them accept that those were probably valid data? That you didn’t make it up?

Will: Oh, well, we checked our information with the information in the catalogue, as well, as a picture dialog on the internet with the stars, which caused us to have some questions about the labeling of those stars.

JW: I guess.. What did you and Mike, I guess we did it as a group, but you and Mike used it, to tell us what those, from the equipment we had, what the position angles and separation were based on your picture. I mean, you have this black picture with some dots on it, how do you find out? What do you do to find out, how for apart those dots are?

Will: oh, well, what we had to do was find out the resolution of the camera, we had to use ratios to find out how many pixels were in an arc second, parsecs per pixels.

JW: So, how did we determine that, how was that established?

Will: Gimme a minute now. I believe we look d on the computer and we found out how many pixels..

JW: okay, what ever you say. I’ll accept.

Will: I believe it was how many pixels were on the screen. And we found out how many pixels there were on the screen. We knew how far the screen was.. it was in centimeters, once we knew that, we could measure how far apart those stars were.

JW: But how did we know that?

Will: how did we know that..?

JW: You’re dancing around it. How did we actually know that?

Will:ooh.. oh boy.

JW: Okay.

4 Will: The resolution of the camera, was it?

JW: Yeah, how did we know that it was 6.1 arc/seconds per pixel. Maybe not you specifically ,but the whole group had to do something

Will: Oh, yeah, we had to take an average.

JW: Of what? What observations did we make?

Will: What is that called? A shift of some sort.. it was ..

JW: We did a trail for that, yes, okay.

Will: We had to take.. I want to say we did something that had to do with Pythagorean Theorem

JW: Yeah, we did.

Will: I’m almost embarrassed to say this, because I don’t remember exactally what we we were doing .but I remember us doing something with the Pythagorean theorem as far as it’s shifting In a two-demential direction. I don’t remember how we came up with points..

JW: Have you ever done any with your students, like calibrate a thermometer?

Will: Mmhhmhh.

JW: Like put your thermometer in ice water and then put it in boiling water, You haven’t calibrated a thermometer?

Will: No.

JW: Okay. What I’m getting at was.. we observed calibration stars.

Will: Ahh.

JW: Where we already knew the answers.

JW: Then, once we went to the unknowns, since we could reproduce known values,

Will:right.

5 JW: Once we demonstrated that to the navel observatory, that we know what we are doing here, from calibrations.

Will: okay.

JW: and this is what we did to establish that, then the next step is here’s the unknowns right behind them.

Will: Okay. Wow.

JW: That okay, this is not a test. And every word that you say isn’t necessarily gonna be used. You won’t be identified, anyway. Do you think that scientific knowledge, including what we did this summer ,requires experiments?

Will: Yes.

JW: do you define what we did this summer, taking photographs of binary stars, as a scientific experiment?

Will: Sure.

JW: So, you would say observing is an experiment, or is not?

Will: Observing…

JW: I mean, I could say, we look out the window here, the sky is blue. That’s an observation.

Will: It’s and observation, it’s not very scientific in nature.

JW: Okay. so, what, I guess we are going back to what is an experiment? But, what made what we did this summer scientific?

Will: Well, what made what we did this summer scientific was we had to do research, we had to experiment, we had to make observations, we had to share with the scientific community.

JW: Ahh, communications with the scientific community.

Will: Yeah. I mean, it’s not necessary, but is sure does ligitemize your studies. To have others that at least review what you’ve done, not necessarily agree, but just review what you have done.

JW: So, communication with other scientists helped make it..

Will: yes,

6 JW: Okay. So, let’s just talk briefly, what kinds of activities do astronomers do?

Will: Oh, hehe.

JW: You can be as specific as you want to be. You can use what you did, you can use what you think

Will: Well, I know they go out and find out how far stars are apart, how hot stars are, how luminous they are, the build telescopes, they .. have no idea all the things they do. I wasn’t really sure before last semester.. Oh, they also find out the periods of the planets. There is a lot.

JW: So, um, how do you think.. I brought various astronomers in, and they chatted with you about how they got to be astronomers. What do you think, you know, causes some one to decide to study, weather it’s chemistry or theirs life works is deciding what the little black spots on the sun are, you know, I’m gonna spend 20 years on this little project. What’s makes a person do that?

Will: I think it’s curiosty. If you look up at the sky, and you say, well ,it’s yellow, but, why is it yellow, will this burn out? How, it’s yellow, what’s making it yellow, or how long will humans be able to have the sun. So, then I spend my lifetime finding out Then I spend my lifetime finding out how long hydrogen or hiliuum will burn.

JW: Okay, I’ve known you, and I’ve started studying, maybe in graduate school, I’ve decided to start studying, say in graduate school, I’ve decidedto start studying astronomy. What do you think influences what people then choose to study with inthat discipline. How do they get specific?

Will: Uhhm, well ,I guess, guess is, that they have to take some classes, and find out what interests them the most ,what do you like about astronomy? Do you like building the telescopes ,do you like stars, or planets, ro..

JW: How do you think the scientific culture in which they life influences them?

Will: Well, I thin kthat..It’s gonna determine what you decide to study. Maybe 60 years ago, studies of the moon were like an incredible feat. You know, they probably had people trying to get out to the moon, and see what’s on the moon . But now, the moon is no big deal , and maybe now it’s planet number 10, or.

JW: Okay. Let’s say you decide to become and astronomer.

Will: Okay.

7 JW: Working off your physics background, and you are looking for a master thesis project. What things do you think.. how would you search out a specific person to study with. What would be important to you?

Will: How would I…. Uhh… find a lab partner?

JW: No, not a lab partner, a astronomer on faculty, whom you are going to work with, do your research with, and write a master’s thesis or a P.H.d dissertation with, or whatever How would you go about even selecting that?

Will: Well, first ,I mean, some of this I’ve already been into, I’ve already been accepted in by that university.

JW: Yeah, I’m assuming you are there, and already looking around for a project.

Will: Well, what I do is probably go in and look at all the proffesor’s curriculum advitas, and see what they have done. See who is maybe interesting, who is interesting to me. I dunno. I like., let’s see, Binary Stars. And this person didn’t do binary stars, but this one did. I just read what he’s done, and see how close it is to what I want to do. Maybe I’ll work with him, because maybe somebody’s work will be close to what I’m doing ,so we could help each other.

JW: Okay.

Will: I think that’s is how I would..

JW: Okay, that’s a reasonable response, absolutely. We’ve already got what you defined as a scientific astronomical observation. Uhh, in one of these Naus questions, I asked about, “Some people claim that scientific investigations, including astronomy, follow some general set of steps, that we call the scientific method.” Uhh, how closely do you think that we follow the scientific method in our investigation. Do you think that there is a scientific method? Like the one in your science book.

Will: Sometimes I think it should be followed, and other times I think that you should go outside of it.

JW: Do you think that we followed that method ? Did we make observations, make a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, those steps?

Will: Yeah, I believe so.

JW: What was our hypothesis? I know I’m having to ask you to back up to six months ago.

Will: I think our hypothesis was that, because there were.. Ah, gosh.. I think it was …

8 JW: It doesn’t have to be your particular group. It could just be the class in general.

Will: To test the stars, our hypothesis was that to make sure this set of stars were recorded in the right..position… but that’s not really a hypothesis, is it?

JW: You’re right No, no it isn’t. Maybe we didn’t have one?

Will: No, no we didn’t.

JW: I can tell by the look on your face ,you are going, “ I don’t know..”

Will: Yeah, maybe not?

JW: Did we follow the scientific method as taught in your textbook?

Will: Well, seeing that we didn’t have a hypothesis, I guess not.

JW: but, did we do a scientific investigation?

Will: Now, you see, that part is, yes, we did.

JW: Yes, absolutely. To the level that practicing astronomers accepted it.

Will: True, true.

JW: okay, I guess. Several astronomers working independtantly ask the same question, for example, what was the universe like ten billion years ago? Will they necessarily come to the same conclusion looking at the same data?

Will: ah, to me, not necessarily. No, they will defiantely come up with something different.

JW: Why?

Will: Well, what influences that is that there are a lot of unknowns, so there is a lot of room for hypothesis, scientific estroger, you know, some believe the universe is closed, it’s gonna sorta collapse back in, or it was very small, microscopic, and then it blows up. Some belvie that maybe it had different origins, and that it took…

JW: Okay. So, to you, what does the term data mean in astronomy? I mean .you probably know what it means when you are doing it with your students, but, what was our data that we used?

Will: Well ,the data was the separation, uhh, the position angles, right ascention, those were data.. you know ,how big the apperature was, or.. is that what you are asking me?

9 JW: what ever you want to.. So, what is data analysis? Especially in astronomy.

Will: well, data analysis is.. ahh.. that’s tough. Okay, data analysis is getting what you have observed and seeing if it fits maybe the preconceived numbers or, by measuring, and saying “Okay, what kind of error do we have here, and why?

JW: How do you.. what do you do to try and picture this, then ,to try and analyze it? You sent some stuff to the navel observatory. What were those?

Will: Those were pictures, that we took, I don’t remember if we sent the radio map or not..

JW: I did, yes. I sent it. So ,that was a graph we made.

Will: Yes, graphs ,the pictures, uhh, the previous numbers.

JW: And what did you do with the previous numbers relative to your numbers?

Will: well, we tried to see if it fit into the cycle of the star.

JW: So, you compared, too a previous case?

Will: yes.

JW: So, you said what I thought you should say, so, could you know tell me what data analysis is, what that involves? We are back to that again.

Will: What involves, it involves measurement, it involves calculation, comparison,uhh.. some research, maybe?

JW: what kind of research?

Will: Just, research, to analyse your data.

JW: So, what would you do to analyze your data? You did some of it, your just not saying it, because you know you did it, you’ve already told me

Will: What’d I do to analyse the data? I compared.. I uhh..

JW: How do you make the comparison as to weather it fits or not?

Will: Well we plotted an ellipse of some sort, ..We ploted an elipse, and we plotted uit as it was going around the graph, and we looked at our star, to see if it was in that ellipse. We looked at the data of the star, we looked at the other point with in that, or maybe it was outside, I’ve forgotten.

10 JW: So, you are talking about graphing?

Will: Yes, graphing, writing , extrapolation,

JW: Okay, that’s what I wanted to know. So, is data analysis different from the term data?

Will: Yes.

JW: So, what is the difference?

Will: well ,data that the sky is blue. Analysis would be seeing the sky was indeed blue, and maybe testing it’s wavelength, or something like that.

JW: Okay. Okay, very good. I think we are getting close to the end of this here . We have talked about scientific inquiry, the nature of experiments,.. I’m just curious, now, tell me some stuff that you are doing?

Will: Well, I haven’t put this into action et, I might in a new school.

Tape ends.