I think that 1986 may have been the last year before 2020 that I didn’t go on a single roller coaster or other amusement ride. Our older children had yet to discover the joys of carousels, veteran cars and children’s boats.
For 25 years, since 1995, I have used amusement parks as part of physics teaching, for my own students in physics and engineering programmes, as a guest teacher in math and technology teacher education, for teacher professional development events and also for many years as coorganizer of Edutainment days at Gröna Lund and physics days at Liseberg. Not this year.
Still, we are, of course, privileged to have a large house, with a large garden and plenty of nice walks and bike excursions at the doorstep. Working from home is mostly OK.
Waterbombing the sea and flowerspraying the forest fire
The Swedish response to Covid-19 has been very erratic. Amusement parks had to stay closed, with reference to a law of public order (from 1993!), while crowds of people have been allowed in shopping centres and in public transport, as described in the blog post from July.
All over Europe – except Sweden – the amusement parks opened, using the joint detailed plans for safe opening. Sweden, in general, has taken very different approaches to the rest of Europe. The Swedish policy feels like waterbombing the sea while using a flower spray on a forest fire.
The blog post from July, outlining my view of the situation is a translation of one of many versions of an opinion piece that faced rejection from several newspapers (following three accepted pieces, though). So, this year, I have faced more rejections than all previous rejections from earlier years. On the other hand, I have got several physics education papers published.
Theoretical roller coaster rides and other 2020 texts
Without the distraction of real amusement park visits, it has been quite a productive writing year, starting with a paper I never thought I would write – on Newton’s first law and smartphones in amusement parks, which spawned out of a book manuscript (that was also rejected by two publishers, but finally landed successfully with the AAPT/AIP, due in June 2021 – thanks Rebecca Vieyra for suggesting them).
Virtual amusement rides don’t give you the experience of weightlessness or many g’s, but they can remind you of the experience and also provide overlays of theoretical forces. This work, in collaboration with Malcolm Burt, is part of a second paper spawned from the book writing, about different ways of representing acceleration in one-dimensional motion.
During a year with fewer distractions, I have also dug into old notes, and finally written up papers about balls rolling down a playground slide (spawned from the playground chapter of the book) which has been in the pipeline since 2015. A paper about Archimedes principle together with two high-school teachers, following a facebook teacher discussion, only had to wait three year to be written. The really old notes were from constructing the competition problems for the EUSO 2010 in Gothenburg, expected in the March 2021 issue of Physics Education.
The “best-seller” about jerk, which has now been downloaded nearly 1/8 million times, was followed by two papers this year, one about jerk and snap in roller coasters, together with David Eager, and one literature review about Jerk within the context of science and engineering, including also Hasti Hayati (who did most of the hard work) and Hans Alberg (who always manages to find relevant historical references, even if they are not always easily available).
I was also invited to coauthor a paper about Physics Toolbox Sensor Suite Play (do try it, if you haven’t already – it is great for demonstrations, and to introduce teachers and friends to the sensors in the phone).
Zoom, zoom, zoom
Four licentiate students had their final seminars during the year. Simon Holmström defended his work during what would be my last meeting with colleagues in Lund. All the others have been via zoom – and of course, it is wonderful that telepresence can work as well as it does.
A couple of teacher professional development activities also happened over zoom – with the the advantage of enabling teachers from different parts of the country to meet.
Looking forward to 2021
Like all teachers, I am really looking forward to some IRL interactions during 2021. Of course I also look forward to experiencing the new dark ride Wonderland at Liseberg – and to riding roller coasters again.
Please, politicians – sort out a sensible pandemic law, where closures depend on reality and not on what is covered by a law from 1993! Stop waterbombing the sea!
Helix, Valkyria, Balder, Lisebergbanan – and the Monster at Gröna Lund. I don’t want to wait any longer!
Research, Rabbits and Roller Coasters 