Should I start by saying that this long article just got published?
"The Great Myths of Rheology, Part II: Transient and Steady State Melt Deformation: the Question of Melt Entanglement Stability".
Journal of Macromolecular Science, Part B(Physics), Volume 49, issue 6, November 2010, pp 1148-1258.
You can find the links to the published paper, the Abstract and the Table of content by going to my teaching course on-line at:
http://www.WIZIQ.com/NewSchoolPolymerPhysics977161
go to the bottom of the page where I have several downloadable lectures listed. If the one you are looking for is not displayed (it rotates every week), you need to register to wiziq.com to have access to all courses, or send me an email and I will send you the free sign-up invitation. Also, check out the Eknetcampus website http://sites.google.com/a/eknetcampus.com/the-great-myths-of-rheology/
You will be able to connect with me on line through a series of classes which I will present LIVE on Tuesdays and Thursdays to enrolled students. Some of the class material is already available.
How did this idea of teaching on-line got started?
I was facing a panel of scientists (all French professors) this past September for my HDR (qualification to University Professorship) and was presenting my views on this new polymer physics, which I said I wanted to teach to graduate students. One of the reviewers had strong eyes, had been quite agitated during my presentation, and had been given the lead start to question my qualifications:
He said: "so, are you suggesting that what I taught my students for the last 30 years is wrong, worth tossing to the bin".
He had a mustache much thicker than mine (see picture below), and, I have to add, I had reviewed with my niece Pauline, on the morning of the HDR, a short memorandum written by Cardinal Mazzarin on the art of convincing an audience (to achieve success?);
I replied:"... not to the bin, no Sir, absolutely not to the bin, but, may I suggest we could all honor it in a nice room of the history museum?"
Darn, I just thought of that answer, it's good, I should have said that, but, instead, I probably said "Heu, ..., well,..., but, ...heu, yes,..., well not really...". I am like Jean-Jacques Rousseau who had "l'esprit d'escalier", always thinking of what he should have said when he was running down the stairs afterwards, not when he was there, mumbling a stupid answer.
In any case, OK, I can now teach, the President of my HDR Panel said so, reading the verdict: "and now..., you have been given the ability to guide students to research the truth", ...or something like that.
Quite a responsability. I take it seriously.
My next move was to make available on-line to the community of students a few of my hundreds of courses which I have prepared, but not finished, like a painting without a signature. I have finished a few. They are on-line at the address given above.
I have another anecdote about my HDR: I finished my presentation by giving two quotes, one from Ilya Prigogine and one from Scott Page:
" All models are wrong, and that's why you want a diversity of models" (S. Page, Social Scientist, U. of Michigan, Time, June 1, 2009 p.40)
and
"L'ecart a l'equilibre conduit a des comportements collectifs, a un regime d'activite coherent impossible a l'equilibre...Pour donner une signification dynamique a cet ecart d'equilibre, nous devons incorporer l'instabilite au niveau dynamique" (I. Prigogine, Nobel 1977, in "La Fin des Certitudes", Editions Odile Jacob (1996), p. 183,184.)
The mustached Panelist urged me to explain myself about this crazy intention to teach to students that "all models are wrong". "I will not give you my daughter as a student", he said. Yet, the panelist next to him elbowed him and said:" but he can certainly have my son..."
My intention is to teach to graduate students first, those engaged in their doctoral research. They must learn all the models and make up their mind so that they can create new ones. What is beautiful in science is the "experimental method" (Claude Bernard). Undergraduate students must learn how to apply the experimental method and models are just a part of the story on how to master this.
Models open up new ideas for new experiments, the truth is in the next experiment.
