User talk:Vanished user 392817

 Hello and Welcome to Wikiversity Marx01! You can contact us with questions at the colloquium or me personally when you need help. Please remember to sign and date your finished comments when participating in discussions. The signature icon above the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy, Civility, and the Terms of Use policies while at Wikiversity.

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Physics
You should check with User:Marshallsumter and User:Guy vandegrift regarding physics and astronomy projects. They're already making great progress in these areas. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 14:30, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much! Marx01 (discuss • contribs) 19:57, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hello User:Marx01. I am working on a number of projects. You can help me with the last one (#5) right now.


 * 1) Physics equations is a first year course that uses a quality open source textbook that is, unfortunately, not calculus based. A first draft of this project is 70% complete, and I have already used it to teach both semesters at least once.  The cover page is a detailed physics formulary in which a summary of each chapter can be hidden/unhidden.  It is possible to print out an entire semester's worth of formulas for students to use as they take their wikiquizzes.  Students love these wikiquizzes because the act of doing homework is unified with the act of studying for the test; I am finally beginning to get good student evaluations in that course.
 * 2) Astronomy_college_course represents my latest and hopefully best unit in Astronomy_college_course, a gen-ed course heavily populated by science-phobes. I have found the Wikipedia and Wikibooks articles on Astronomy to long and detailed for the typical non-science college student.  So I condense the material, for example in my WP sandbox: User:Guy vandegrift/sandbox/Tychonic system.  Students are also encouraged to study this wikiquiz before reading the chapter.  College students have great difficulty reading scientific literature, and I hope that taking the wikiquiz before reading the section helps them better understand the material.  This pre-reading of the wikiquiz serves another purpose:  I explain to these science-phobic students that even I find scientific literature boring...unless I am trying to answer a question.  The wikiquiz helps them focus on specific questions (i.e. those that will be on the test) and skim the rest.
 * 3) How things work college course is a course I will be teaching this Fall. As you can see, it is at best 10% complete.  If you like to work alone, write a short article for the general public on any technical topic of your chosing and write a true-false wikiquiz to help students focus on what they need to learn.
 * 4) If you like vector calculus, go to the Wikipedia page Del in cylindrical and spherical coordinates and link the invitation on the second line back into Wikiversity.  This project might bring quality people into Wikiversity.  It would be great if you could verify just one of the vector identities on WV, just to establish that this is a living project.
 * 5) Your knowledge of Python is extremely interesting to me.  I have been using Excel to generate the random numbers required for my wikiquizzes.  This is a really stupid way to do things because it is so easy to accidentally modify an Excel code.  I need something that will help me write the very simple wikitext that constitutes a wikiquiz (for example, I need to generate a given multiple choice answer in different order so that students sitting side-by-side during an exam will gain no advantage by glancing at a neighbor's test).  I am not asking you to write Python code (unless you want to).  But I could use advice on which language I should learn in order to do this myself.  Until you came along, my choices were Java and Matlab.  I know nothing about Python.   So my question to you is this:  What are the pros and cons of Phython for this task? --guyvan52 (discuss • contribs) 16:20, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Hi guyvan52, I can get back to you later today on some of the other things in the list, but with respect to #5, I can give you some insight now.
 * Pros
 * Python has numerous modules, which is the biggest pro with regards to any project. They are easily callable libraries of functions, typically with great, easily obtainable documentation, which streamline most projects. For this project, numpy would probably make it pretty easy to generate and record many pseudo-random numbers. If you prefer a particular method of producing random methods, you have several to pick from with numpy. Also if you know any matlab, matplotlib is a very similar, open-source alternative that runs through python as a module.
 * Python is intuitive, and was built with data manipulation in mind. It is more readable than Java and Matlab, and logic is easy to understand within complex programs.
 * There are many free courses online that offer a basic shell in-window and do not require download, so you can test-run learning it to see if you like it or not. code academy is my favorite by far.
 * You do not have to declare variable types at the beginning of the program, as they are inferred.
 * Cons
 * For large data sets, it can run slow. This is mainly because of the way python's back-end is written (it is fundamentally coded in C). I've never had a problem with this, but I do usually use FORTRAN for generating large amounts of data.
 * There are some bugs that can be found in various shells which can be annoying. I've encountered one or two over the several years I've worked with python.
 * It is constantly a learning experience--I usually have several pages open trying to find the right module feature that works with what I'm doing.
 * Installation can be somewhat frustrating, especially on Windows. Anaconda or canopy can help, and both have free options (I can't believe they offer priced ones, and have never needed to buy anything for python; the free versions should be more than enough for this).
 * Matrices can be non-intuitive. You can, however, make python talk to Excel, although I'm not entirely sure how to do that myself. There's a few modules out there for it though.
 * All of this said, the cons likely won't affect your project too much.
 * I would maybe try python a little to see if it's what you want. I learned Python before I needed to use Excel and Excel frustrates me to no end, so I can't offer too much help on that. I'm not one for finding the right buttons to press, and prefer scripting/coding myself. I might be able to help you with a program next week if you wanted, but this week I'm a little too busy to write one. -- Marx01 (discuss • contribs) 19:57, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I just talked to someone in our engineering department; most of my students are engineers.  They really want to the students to learn Matlab. I hate that it is not open source, but the fact that they want me to teach Matlab in the physics course carries a lot of weight.--guyvan52 (discuss • contribs) 22:13, 26 June 2014 (UTC)
 * That makes sense—most of the engineers I know do use it, mainly because it's what companies, universities, and labs have been using and they pay for the tech support because it can make sense in some of those schematics (i.e., easier to give a number to call then hope there's a forum post on it, can can eschew liability for flaws onto Matlab rather than the company's decision to use open-source). To respond to your other points:
 * It's really good to see a first-year physics course that offers a succinct, precise summary of equations like that; I know I didn't have that in my beginning physics classes (or the attempts fell quite short of expectation, anyways). Also I really like the ease of navigation; it makes the content seem less intimidating. I saw that one of the sections had calculus based equations alongside non-calculus ones—do you think it would be a good idea to offer a course with calculus and one without, that were similar up to that point?
 * I like the structure of the course! I'm skimming through your condensed text and it's pretty intuitive and explains well without straying too much on each bit (something some scientific texts do a little too often, regardless of intended audience).
 * Are you looking for more down-to-earth topics, or would you like something that might be less traditionally 'useful' but likely interesting to a large span of audiences (for example, stellar deaths, exoplanets, extremophiles, etc.). I would be willing to write for either or anywhere in between!
 * I might take a look into that! I would need to brush up a little bit on vector calc., but I think I could do a think or two.
 * Thanks for all the information about what's happening on the wiki and within the physics & astro division! Good to know it's alive and well and excited to be a part of it. --Marx01 (discuss • contribs) 00:36, 2 July 2014 (UTC)