Earlier today I announced that I would be offering biology and chemistry tuition. This was an April Fool’s Day prank. I understand my comments about the lesser sciences reflect my strongly biased opinions and can be offensive to people who have dedicated time to studying them. Please be assured that I understand there is value in studying the lesser sciences. Everyone is different. Some people enjoy studying how the universe works in all it’s splendour, and others enjoy counting cells on a microscope slide. Some people enjoy unravelling the mysteries of creation, others like making sherbet. Some people enjoy stretching their perception of reality with Einstein’s relativity and quantum mechanics, others enjoy separating ink pigments on tissue paper.
Inter-disciplinary banter and jokes are commonplace (just look at this well known xkcd comic). By the time students are at university, many of the lines drawn between the sciences get blurred. On my degree, for example, I studied a module of solid-state physics; this was chemistry by another name. Chemists at university study the Schrodinger equation so that they can understand subshells. Biologists must have a thorough understanding of chemistry and energy transfers. Prof Jim Al-Khalili is a quantum physicist and science broadcaster. In the last decade he has been using quantum physics to try to solve some of the mysteries of biology, including photosynthesis (which is far more complex that taught at GCSE level!). Within the science department I work, where I am Head of Physics, colleagues will often joke with each other about their subjects. My intention is not to offend people, absolutely not. I won’t offer a non-apology apology about being offensive towards the lesser sciences because I am not sorry for that. It was a joke directed towards no person in particular, but rather to the science disciplines as taught in school, where they are artificially separated into physics, chemistry and biology.
On the other hand, I will apologise to anyone who thought I would actually be offering tuition for biology and chemistry, and is now disappointed. I cannot offer tuition for those subjects simply because I do not understand them enough, so I do not feel qualified to do so. I can help you with physics, absolutely. But biology? Chemistry? Nope, they involve too much memorisation of new terminology, and I’m not emotionally invested enough to commit the time to learning them.
The April fool’s day prank? I thought it was funny, and no-one got hurt.
Reminder: Weekly Live Tuition Sessions!
SUNDAY 11th January
GCSE Physics 9:30am – 10:20am Infrared radiation A-Level Physics 10:30am – 11:20am Measurement of specific charge GCSE Astronomy 11:30am – 12:20pm Exploring the moon If you wish to enrol on the tuition sessions and haven’t yet, then click enrol below
Physics with Keith 
“Lesser sciences”? WOW!
LikeLike
🤣
LikeLike