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JANET CONRAD: I would love
to try to teach physics

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to first- to third-graders
using no equations,

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only using examples and only
using little experiments

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because there is just
an enormous amount

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that you can learn by
looking at what is happening.

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And one of the big concerns that
I have about the way physics

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is taught is that we love to
go into all of the mathematics.

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And I actually think
that people end up

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divorced from what's going
on in the real world.

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They start to understand
the mathematics really well,

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but they actually
don't understand

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the physical phenomena.

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And physics is a contact sport.

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You have to play with it, right?

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You will not understand
angular momentum

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until you have been spinning
around and pull your arms in

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and suddenly you
go out of control.

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You know?

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It's those things that
you have to try in order

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to really understand it.

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And I believe that we can start
doing that at a very young age.

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And the problem, of
course, is resources.

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You need real resources
to be able to teach kids

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things like that.

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But right now, I can
teach a very small child

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one of Maxwell's equations.

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I can show you how we do it.

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This is the one which says that
a moving magnetic field induces

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current and also, currents
induce magnetic fields.

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OK?

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So what I have here is a
very heavy piece of copper.

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It's actually a beam
pipe from ferry lab.

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It's a pretty
thick piece, right?

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And so it's copper, so
current can flow through it.

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And I have here a magnet.

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And I can drop my magnet in
and it takes a really long time

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for the magnet to fall out.

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And you can show this
to a two-year-old

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and they will just
watch that forever.

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They are so excited to see that
because they know something

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is very seriously wrong here.

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And what's happening is the
magnet is inducing a current,

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and a current is inducing
a magnetic force opposite

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of that magnetic field.

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And it's preventing this
thing from falling as fast

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as it would.

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And, you know,
second-graders will get this.

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And then when they
finally get to the point

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where we do it with the math,
then they'll really get it.

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So that's what I
think we need to do.

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That's for my long-term goal.

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[LAUGHS]