Just in time for Valentine's 2022!

Somewhere along the line I added four Scientist Valentines to my personal collection and failed to add them to the Flickr album. Why? I don't know. But I'm here to make it right. With ample lead time for Valentine's Day 2022. In any case, the collection expands from 24 to 28.

Scientist Valentines aficionados will have no trouble spotting the new items (two female; two male). I have a favorite, but I'm not saying.

Scientist Valentines

It's scientist valentines time!

The album is here. The movie is here. And the printable is here. Enjoy!

Scientists: Valentines Day is nigh!

Just a quick public service reminder.

The Flickr album of the valentines is here.

Alex McKale's movie of the valentines is here.

This PDF can be printed (back to back/duplex). Each sheet can be cut into four valentines.

Enjoy!

Scientist Valentines 2017

With one week to go before the Big Day, it seemed like a good time to repost this perennial favorite. (The image below is an embedded slide show: click left or right to see the other 23 valentines.)



Scientist Valentines (Flickr album)

In addition to the extant set available on Flickr, I've modified the optional student assignment that I make available for those seeking extra credit. It might seem burdensomely detailed, but considerable thought and execution goes into making a good Scientist Valentine.

Scientist Valentines: The Next Generation

For previous Blog of Phyz posts regarding Scientist Valentines, follow this link:

Blog of Phyz Scientist Valentines.

And we keep links to the Flickr set and the label over in the column to the right.

Scientist Valentines: The Next Generation

I've been sharing my collection of Scientist Valentines for a few years now. I had a great time producing them. It's a nice mix is content knowledge, creativity, and graphic design.

Scientist Valentines

But why keep the fun to myself? I decided it might be fun to have students try their hands at producing Scientist Valentines. So I put together a set of instructions, and have now shared those instructions with my AP Physics 2 students. They were recipients of these valentines last year, so they likely understand the nature of them.

I have no idea what they'll come up with, but that's why I'm doing this. As I said in my Dank Memes post, physics is easy; comedy is hard.

I provided a list of science luminaries that I had not yet valentined. But they are welcome to go "off the grid" and valentine scientists I didn't list. They can also re-valentine a scientist I've already honored.

I've designated Scientist Valentines am extra credit project. It seems wrong to force students to produce such a thing if they are not motivated to do so. Here are the instructions.

Make Your Own Scientist Valentine (a.k.a., The Next Generation)

I'll share the best of what my students come up with. And I'd be delighted to see what your students come up with.

Scientist Valentines: The Movie

Physics teaching colleague, Alex McKale of Stanford OHS, has turned the Scientist Valentines into a video, complete with a lovely physics-song soundtrack. Check it out!

Physics Valentines

Time once again for Scientist Valentines!

I don't have any new ones at the moment. Being in the midst of a manuscript and the ongoing Canvas to Keynote exodus makes additions unlikely. But it's bad that Maxwell is not represented, and I think Mae Jemison deserves a Valentine.

Here's a list of Valentines posts to get you caught up.

My colleague, Dan Burns, recommends printing them out 4 or 9 to a sheet, cutting them out and giving one to each student. They go over better than you'd think!

Get your Scientist Valentines here!

It's that time of year again. Time to celebrate love and science for Valentines Day. My contributions can be found in my collection of Scientist Valentines.

There are 24 in all. "Collect 'em and trade 'em with friends!"

The story of these valentines can be found here and here.

Scientist Valentines

Shown & Told @ NCNAAPT UCB 11.05.11

Scientist Valentines
Blog of Phyz posts on SciVals can be found here. At the Berkeley Show & Tell, I passed out "quarter-sheet" prints of the Scientist Valentines (printed 4 per letter-size sheet of paper).

Here's the source PDF for those.

Back Masking
Richard Wiseman demonstrated this phenomenon to us at The Amaz!ng Meeting 4 (2006). The context: including skepticism/critical thinking lessons into the physics curriculum is time well spent. One theme worthy of exploration is the fallibility of our cognitive processes, including our ability to create patterns where none exist; pareidolia. This exercise in back masking is audio pareidolia.

Jeff Milner has created and maintained a great page of back masking examples with appropriate user controls. Note: some clips are more compelling than others.

Here's an interactive Quicktime of the presentation, which featured Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, and Led Zeppelin.

SciVals, Take Physics, and Std posters EZ-links added

You'd think that having a week off might result in post after post of pithy pedagogical prose. But you would wrong.

The worst of it is that while my calendar insists it's already Friday, the number of items scratched off my to-do list would argue it's more like Tuesday.

Anyhow, I've added links to the "Sites, Pics, and Docs" sidebar to the right. The added links are for the Scientist Valentines, TAKE PHYSICS flyers, and the California 9-12 Physics Standards. I'd hyperlink the text in this post, but that would defeat adding the links in the sidebar.

I also gathered the links to my own content and moved them to the top because, hey, this is a blog: it's supposed to be about me!

55,296 and counting

As of 12:00 midnight, the Scientist Valentines had collected a cumulated total of 55,296 views in fewer than 10 days.

The Bohr, Celsius, and Curie cards got over 3000 views each. Most cards were somewhere in the 2000-range.

Seems they were pretty well received!

New Scientist Valentines added

Max Planck: "Energy may be quantized, but my love for you is continuous."
Nicolaus Copernicus: "My whole world revolves around you."
Michael Faraday: "Your lines of force are highly attractive."
Aristotle: "My natural place is to be with you."

UPDATE 1:
Jane Goodall: "Kiss me, you fool!" (a must-see)
Lise Meitner: "I've been fission for a Valentine like you"

UPDATE 2:
Rosalind Franklin: "There's no DNA-ing my love for you"
Grace Hopper: "According to my computations, you should be mine!"
Johannes Kepler: "You bring harmony to my worlds"

UPDATE 3:
I was holding off on Einstein. So many ways you can go. I made my choice. And I just want to say that I didn't go into physics because I was good at poetry.

UPDATE 4: Maria Goeppert-Mayer makes 24. Whew!

Scientist Valentines

Scientist Valentines

Ironic Sans posted this idea years ago. Scientist valentines. Go look; I'll wait.

The idea is genius, and my mind spun with ideas for more. (The creativity is more of a curse than a blessing, I say with as much false modesty as I can muster. Still though, important errands and tasks languished while I set these ideas to electronic realities.)

I've posted a baker's dozen, and hope to add more. I don't have David Friedman's artistic skills, so mine simply exploit images found via Google Image Search. I did try to find portraits made when the scientist was in his prime, rather than the more more prevalent "venerable sage" renderings. After that, I fiddled and fussed over each valentine in my favorite obsolete graphics program, Canvas. The heart surrounded by a planetary-model atom graphic seemed like a good idea. Then I exported them as JPEGs, imported them in Aperture, added captions, and published the set as a collection on Flickr.

Featured scientists (so far) are Bohr, Celsius, Curie, Darwin, Galileo, Heisenberg, Kelvin, Newton, Ohm, Pauli, Sagan, Tesla, and Volta. For the physics-ly uninitiated, I included a brief explanation of each valentine. There's nothing that helps a joke kill so much as taking the time to explain why it's funny.

As a mark of highest flattery, I used a few specific scientist/slogan combos from the original Ironic Sans post. But I added a bunch of my own. I still have a few in the hopper, and there are countless more to be had, conjured by minds cleverer than my own.

Feel free to print and distribute them to appropriately deserving geeks. And I encourage you to develop the similar ideas that spring to your mind. Or leave your ideas in the comments so others might develop them.

There's still plenty of low-lying fruit here. Aristotle: "My natural place is by your side." Copernicus: "My world revolves around you!" Heinrich Hertz: "You and I are on the same wavelength." Charles Coulomb: "I get a charge out of you." William Gilbert: "You've got a magnetic personality."