In Doug Gobeille鈥檚 astrophysics courses, work feels like play and lessons inspire wonder.
鈥淗eads up, UNC-Chapel Hill: 溏心vlog免费B站 is coming for your Guinness world record for highest Galilean cannon launch.鈥�
Professor of astrophysics Doug Gobeille proclaims this with the spiritedness of a 10-year-old boy thirsty for a schoolyard dustup.
The Galilean cannon is a simple demonstration of the principle of conservation of linear energy in which three balls of different weights are stacked (heaviest on the bottom to the lightest on top) and dropped, transferring energy to, and launching the topmost ball.
But Gobeille鈥檚 enthusiasm for this project isn鈥檛 just about Galilean cannon record-breaking; it characterizes his approach to instruction in all his courses, from introductory to upper level. Essentially, Gobeille wants students to feel the same excitement he does for everything from supermassive black holes (his area of expertise) to the tiniest asteroids.
Gobeille, who grew up watching Carl Sagan鈥檚 Cosmos on PBS, seeks to inspire the same sense of wonder in his students that Sagan inspired in him. Students in the introductory course, Astronomy 108: Stars and Galaxies, for instance, received extra credit on an exam for attending a lunar lab one night this past spring. They gathered around a telescope on the Quad to look at Jupiter and the moon. Murmurs of 鈥淐ool!鈥� and 鈥淲ow!鈥� could be heard as students fell back in line for a second and third look鈥攏o small thing when the temperature was below freezing and the line nearly 50 students deep.
They even stayed in the cold a little longer to chat with Gobeille about how to tell satellites from airplanes in the night sky (hint: satellite lights don鈥檛 blink).
In upper-level courses such as Physics 491: Astrodynamics, students are using software to simulate the building, testing, and launching of rockets that would land astronauts safely on Mars and return them home. For this assignment, students 鈥渏ust鈥� have to launch their rockets and get their missions to Mars and back; they don鈥檛 have to worry about some of the important details鈥攍ike safety and food.
And if you think planning a there-and-back mission to Mars or breaking a world record seems wildly out of the scope of what students could possibly achieve during a single semester, you鈥檙e right. Gobeille grins at the suggestion that these are challenges designed to keep students coming back for more.
鈥淔or now, we鈥檙e worrying about the rockets,鈥� Gobeille says. 鈥淏ut students can come back, take another course, and I鈥檒l throw much harder problems at them.鈥�
What kinds of problems? 鈥淭hings breaking, for example,鈥� he says, and laughs. 鈥淭hat鈥檇 be so fun.鈥�
As for that world record for highest launch of a Galilean cannon?
The physics and engineering students in Gobeille鈥檚 Physics 492: Practical Classical Dynamics will be refining and testing Galilean cannon prototypes this summer.
鈥淭he objective is height. I really want a high enough launch that we鈥檇 need Federal Aviation Administration clearance, which means over 1,000 feet,鈥� Gobeille says.
But the record to beat is just 13 meters, or 42.6 feet. Surely, talking about FAA clearance is overkill?
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think so,鈥� Gobeille grins again. 鈥淟aunching over 1,000 feet wouldn鈥檛 be that hard.鈥�
鈥擬aryBeth Reilly-McGreen
PHOTO: NORA LEWIS
The Wonders of Space: A Self-Study Guide
Rocket (or Galilean cannon) building, stargazing, the existence of extraterrestrials (pretty unlikely, Gobeille says), even the topic of death by exposure to outer space (it鈥檇 be unpleasant, according to Gobeille)鈥攖hese topics and more are fair game in Gobeille鈥檚 classes, including a science fiction course he co-teaches with film/media professor Rebecca Romanow. He suggests the following books, films, and series for anyone interested in expanding their horizons.
Read
Fiction
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke.
Aliens colonize the planet and end poverty, hunger, and disease. Then the trouble begins.Contact by Carl Sagan.
Scientists set out to find the source of a signal from outer space.Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick.
A bounty hunter fights androids disguised as humans.
Nonfiction
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan.
A case for scientific thinking as a means to preserve our democratic institutions.
Stream and Watch
Film and TV
Altered Carbon
A series based on the book by Richard Morgan. A prisoner is given a new body and asked to solve a murder in return for his freedom.Black Mirror
A sci-fi series exploring the drama and, occasionally, horror stemming from human interaction with technology.The Twilight Zone
The original 36-episode first season of the sci-fi series (1959鈥�1960).Rick and Morty
An Emmy-winning animated series about the intergalactic adventures of a sociopathic, time-traveling scientist and his hapless grandson.Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses the wonders of the universe.
YouTube
鈥擨n a Nutshell
Visit the Kurzgesagt channel on YouTube for short, fun videos about things like war in space, solar storms, black holes, and gamma ray bursts.