K M

Q W
Critical Thinking
• Did Edison invent the light bulb ?
• Did Marconi invent the radio ?
• Did Bell invent the telephone ?
• Did Morse invent the telegraph?

The answers are no. They didn't invent the

wheel. They were instrumental in making it
better and, in some cases, obtaining the patent.
1650 The German physicist Otto von Guericke experimented with generating electricity

1729 The English physicist Stephen Gray discovered electrical conductivity.

Benjamin Franklin proposes the notion of positive and negative charge, conserving a
1752 balance except when a deficit is brought about by some means. His famous kite
experiments, identifying lightning as a form of electrical discharge.

1800 Alessandro Volta invents an electric battery, the first source of DC current.

Using equipment of his own creation, Georg Simon Ohm determined that the current
that flows through a wire is proportional to its cross sectional area and inversely
1827
proportional to its length or Ohm's law. These fundamental relationships are of such
great importance, that they represent the true beginning of electrical circuit analysis

Michael Faraday experimentally characterizes magnetic induction. The most thorough of

early electrical investigators, he formulates the quantitative laws of electolysis, the
1831
principles of electric motors and transformers, investigates diamagnetic materials, and
posits a physical reality for the indirectly observed magnetic and electrical lines of force.

On April 24, 1877 Charles F. Brush was issued U.S. Patent No. 189,997 for his arc lighting
system. There were other arc lamps before Brush's that utilized electromagnets as part of
1876
a regulation system but it was the combination of the electromagnet with the ring clutch
that made Brush's design superior in regulating the arc.
 Thomas Alva Edison invented the light bulb, and houses, shops, factories,
1879 schools, streets, ballparks -- every place you could think of, indoors and
out -- could at last be easily illuminated after dark.
The following combination of letters represents a sentence from which one
particular vowel has been removed. If you can figure out what that vowel is
and re-insert it eleven times, in eleven different places, you will be able to
determine what the sentence is saying.

VRYFINXMPLARXCDSWHATWXPCT

“Every fine examples exceeds what we expect.”

 Peter Thiel

Max Levhin
Luke Nosek
• Confinity
• Digital Wallet system
• Mobile payment system
• Transfers money through email (1999).
• Confinity merged with x.com

Elon Muk
Peter Thiel Elon Muk

Reid hoffman

Jawed Karim Chad Hurley

Luke Nosek Max Levhin

Steve Chen
 Critical thinking

Quick thinking

Creative thinking

Analytical thinking
What is strategy?

Exists at
A plan to
multiple
achieve our
levels – all
goals.
linked.

As conditions Helps us make

change, the wise choices
plan itself as conditions
evolves. change.
Strategy involves planning a company's next
move
Tactics involve physically carrying out the plan.

"strategic is doing the right things

tactical is doing things right."
 Growth strategies
• Diversification
• Joint ventures
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Franchising
 Critical Thinking
“Reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to do and
what to believe”
OR
“Interpreting, analyzing or evaluating information, arguments or experiences
with a set of reflective attitudes, skills, and abilities to guide our thoughts,
beliefs and actions”
OR
“Examining the thinking of others to improve our own”
 Line A

Line B

Line A Line B
 A List of Processes - 1
(per A. Aarons, 1985)

1. Consciously raising questions

2. Being aware of gaps in information
3. Distinguishing between observation &
inference; fact and conjecture.
4. Recognizing that words are symbols for
ideas, and not ideas themselves
 A List of Processes - 2
5. Probing for assumptions
6. Appropriately drawing inferences from data
7. Performing hypothetical-deductive reasoning
8. Discriminating between inductive and deductive
reasoning
9. Testing one’s own line of reasoning
10. Being aware of one’s own reasoning
 Operational Procedures of Critical
Thinking - 1
• Identifying key definitions
• Identifying ambiguity
• Identifying variables
• Formulating questions
• Defining issue or problem
• Classifying information
• Sequencing information
• Recognizing patterns
• Determining credibility
• Distinguishing fact from opinion
• Identifying assumptions
• Identifying values
• Noting missing evidence
• Identifying relationships
– Comparing & contrasting
– Cause and effect
• Summarizing information
• Using analogies
 Operational Procedures of Critical
Thinking - 2
• Predicting trends from data • Identifying errors in reasoning
such as:
• Predicting outcomes based
– Logical fallacies
upon evidence
– Errors in statistical reasoning
• Translating between verbal – Alternative conclusions that
and symbolic satisfy evidence
• Identifying conclusions
 Promoting CT in PHY - 1
• Create experimental designs:
– Design an experiment to investigate the relationship
between the length of a piece of wire and its resistance.
– Design an experiment to determine the relationship
between force, mass, and acceleration.
– Design an experiment to determine the period of a
pendulum.
 Promoting CT in PHY - 2

• Assess measurement reliability.

– The period of a pendulum is measured as a function of
length. One declares, “The relationship is linear.”
– A team measures six data points with a significant
degree of scatter and states, “The relationship is a power
function because it minimizes RMSE.
– “Consistent measurements are more reliable.”
– “The values range from 0.002 to 0.005; the dependent
value is a function of the independent variable and is,
therefore, not a constant.”
 Promoting CT in PYH - 3
• Evaluate viability of data-based claims:
– The law is y=ax6+bx5+cx4+dx3+ex2+fx+g
– The law is V=IR+0.032W
– The resistance of a wire will increase by .003W every time
its length increases by 1 cm.
– The minimum force required to pull an object up an
inclined plane will reach a maximum when the angle of the
plane is between 70 and 75 degrees.
 Promoting CT in PHY - 4
• Make situation-based predictions:
– There is a lake with an iceberg floating in it. As the iceberg
melts, what will the level of the lake do? Rise? Fall? Stay
the same?
– A rubber bullet and an aluminum bullet have the same
size, speed, and mass. They are fired at a block of wood.
Which is most likely to knock the block over? Which is
most likely to damage the block?
 Promoting CT in PHY - 5
• Test claim viability (misconceptions):
– “Gravity pulls more on a heavier ball than a light ball as
evidenced by their weights. Because there is a greater
force on the heavy ball, it must fall more rapidly than the
light ball.”
– The seasons result from the changing earth-sun distance.
Summer occurs when we are closest; winter occurs when
we are farthest.
 Promoting CT in PHY - 6
• Make approximations: (Fermi problems)
• How many piano tuners are there in Chicago?
• Estimate the number of square inches of pizza consumed by all the
students at Illinois State University during one semester.
• When it rains, water would accumulate on the roofs of flat-topped
buildings if there were no drains. A heavy rain may deposit water
to a depth of an inch or more. Given that water has a mass of
about 1 g/cm3, estimate the total weight the roof of Moulton Hall
rooms 208 and 210 would have to support if we had an inch of rain
and the roof drains were plugged.
 Critical Thinking - 1
• Strongly related to developing conceptual
understanding.
• Best done when students are continuously
pummeled with questions that demand a conceptual
explanation.
• Approach:
– Present the problem
– Let students think
– Socratically question
 Critical Thinking - 2
• Approach assumes that students know some physics;
students apply what they know.
• Develop the intellectual muscle by exercising it.
• Don’t let the quantitative approach supplant the
qualitative understanding - both are critically
important to physics.
• Predict the answer before calculating it.
 Critical Thinking Resources
• Thinking Physics series by Epstein and Hewitt,
Epstein, etc.
• Physics Begins with an M series by John W. Jewett, Jr.
• http://www.criticalthinking.org/
• Numerous WWW resources “critical thinking physics”
on Google, etc.
 Critical Thinking Dispositions
• Trying to be well informed
• Staying focused
• Willing to evaluate alternatives
• Taking a supportable position
• Seeking precision
• Proceeding in a logical and orderly manner
• Being sensitive to others’ positions