Plasma focus education

[Brian H]

jamesr;
Couple’a edit notes:

“for these its too soon to say.” [em] it’s[/em]
“However there are many details that can vary, such as the number of cathodes, capacitor design etc. that can vary.” [em]Too vary-ous. Expunge one. [/em]
“to move away from the centralised big Gigawatt plants to a more decentralised model.” [em]Suggest “more distributed model” [/em]

[Brian H]

TheMagicalBadger wrote: Firstly, Hello!

I’ve been following this project for several years as a paid-up member, but read-only stalker.
…

<80
I think the usual term is “lurker”. Much less threatening!
;>)

[asymmetric_implosion]

TheMagicalBadger wrote: Just a quick thing regarding definition of education levels, from a global perspective:

Good point. I guess the next logical step would be to list the math background (calculus, algebra, differential equations) and the physics area (optics, electromagnetism, plasma physics) at each topic section to warn the reader about the topics discussed. My problem with this approach is saying optics does not necessary suggest the level. More to think about…

[Patientman]

asymmetric_implosion wrote: annodomini2:

… written medium because the reader can re-read the section to better understand the details. As I mentioned above, I think I would assign a rank or a grade to each section to give the reader a heads up before they start a section.

Can you remember the first time someone described the nuclear atom reaction of pool balls. That was as basic as you could get for the world to understand what happens when you split and atom. It was classic, using analogy gives people something to relate to. Each time you finish a section try to put it into a written perspective. Use the outline tools from the book, “Made to Stick”.

– Simplest core of the concept (brake it down for each level of your audience. Top down or bottom up)

– Unexpected – Think of something such as George Loewenstein’s gap theory of curiosity, which says that curiosity comes from a
gap between what we know and what we want to know.

– Concrete – Ground your reader in reality by avoiding abstraction and extensive conceptual language.

– Credible – Give them a statistic that relates in human terms “odds of winning the lottery vs getting struck by lightening”

– Emotional – The cost of energy…. in pictures and stories

– Story – Wrap up the entire above statements into personal stories that relate to the subject.

These notes are useful to the final script development. As long as your going about the process, you might as well write down thoughts.

[Francisl]

Would it be helpful to refer to the math or science courses at the Khan Academy for persons interested in re-learning this information?

[Rezwan]

Francisl wrote: Would it be helpful to refer to the math or science courses at the Khan Academy for persons interested in re-learning this information?

Yes, they have a great section on physics. http://www.khanacademy.org/#physics

The best thing to do is:

1) look over their physics section and see what the gaps are to fill to get people to understand plasma physics.
2) Break it down, step by step, what are all the elements people need to know and in what order?
3) Then take each topic and make a 5-10 minute video about it.
4) Post these on the web with a master page showing the links in order.
5) Add some sample problems to help people think it through.

Most important: Then invite Sal to review the videos and post as is or remake them for the Khan Academy – which has a huge audience.

We can use the new wiki to bash out the specifics.

And…ACTION!

[Breakable]

Just to clarify this is the link to the new MediaWiki:
https://focusfusion.org/wiki_en/index.php/Main_Page

the previous link was to the old wiki engine. MediaWiki is more advanced and more suitable to media contents and educational articles.

[jamesr]

Breakable,

I had a quick test of the new wiki, with a plan of fleshing it out with a few pages. However before I get started can the TeX option be turned on for rendering maths formulae.

According to http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Help:Formula

To have math rendered, you have to set $wgUseTeX = true; in LocalSettings.php.

[Breakable]

Unfortunately it is more work than that to get math working. You need system libs latex, dvipng and lib OCaml.
As it is not a vps hosting we cannot install those ourselves so it will definitely take some time even if its possible (could be not).
Until we do the formulas will have to use images.
If we see that wiki is really useful, should be our primary approach and the budget allows, then we can rent a vps host.
So please try to make it useful as it is now and I will ask around about the math extension.
Just made a
https://focusfusion.org/wiki_en/index.php/Sandbox
so feel free to build some castles.

EDIT:OCaml is not php lib

[Brian H]

Maybe Wolfram Alpha would let you set up a subsite wiki. Sounds to be kind of up their alley.

[Breakable]

I don’t think Wolfram Alpha even has a wiki. There are some third party wiki sites available, but that would give up the control of platform which has some disadvantages.
There are some aspirations into remaking our website as a wiki which is not possible with outsourced resources.
A wiki-website would allow users to be more involved in the FFS mission of documenting, supporting and spreading the news about DPF (and fusion) research.

[jamesr]

Oh Well, thanks for trying.

I’ll try and jot some ideas down over the weekend and start putting up some content. I don’t just want to repeat what is already out there on other wikis like http://fusionwiki.ciemat.es and Wikipedia. But there will inevitably be some repetition. Particularly for short glossary type entries defining terms.

I think where we can stand out from the other wikis is, in part, being more accessible to a general audience, but also covering the big picture.

[Breakable]

It seems we cannot make wiki use math extension with our current hosting, so we will have to think about VPS in case we want to take full advantage of wiki.

[jamesr]

How about wikia.com?

I just created a quick test page http://fusionplasma.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Maths_Test and it seems to work OK.

[zapkitty]

Breakable wrote: It seems we cannot make wiki use math extension with our current hosting, so we will have to think about VPS in case we want to take full advantage of wiki.

MathJax
http://www.mathjax.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MathJax

On-server math text processing. Javascript-based so you can install it even on shared hosting:
https://focusfusion.org/mathjax/test/
Additional page of sample equations
https://focusfusion.org/mathjax/test/sample.html

And the obligatory Mediawiki MathJax Extension:
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:MathJax

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