My Father's Watch

My Father's Watch:Aspects of the physical world

A textbook published 1974 by Prentice Hall, NJ. Authors Donald Holcomb and Philip Morrison.

History

Title

The title, My Father's Watch, comes from a poem, by John Ciardi, reproduced opposite the title page. WHG wrote July 2, 1969 that he preferred "Patterns," suggested by DFH's editorial assistant,(see 21 May 1969 DFH to PM) to "My Father's Watch," that he associated the latter with "My Father's Mustache." PM warned DFH "HOLD YOUR HAT. IT IS WAY OUT," when he thought of the title in June 1969.

Course

According to the book's preface, PM and DFH taught a course for those who would only take one course in the physical sciences,

Publishing

John Wiley & Sons was also interested in publishing (see reply to Wiley, August 20, 1969). Also interested were Churchill & Benjamin, LTD; and WW Norton & Company; and W.H. Freeman and Company.

Fall 1968, the authors chose Prentice Hall to be the publisher, with WHG in charge of editing and most of the correspondence, and BM managing. DFH also thanks DE for publishing the preliminary version on schedule. John Riina, Assistant Vice President at Prentice Hall wrote a detailed letter on preliminary steps, August 23, 1968. In January of 1973, the book was put into production and Prentice Hall's Judy Burke took over responsibility as production editor.

There was a back and forth between publisher and author about supplementary materials and addenda, including answers and solutions, teacher suggestions, unpublished "interesting asides," demo suggestions, further reading suggestions, AV aids or suggestions, and a test question bank. In his marginal notes on a letter from the publisher, DFH writes that he desires most of these ideas to be included in the textbook itself.

In the fall of 1969, just as preliminary copies were being sent to eager college bookstores, the publisher asked the authors for a questionnaire to accompany.

A flurry of editing happened in the Summer of 1973, reviewing proofs and making changes. See correspondence between DFH and Judy Burke of PH.

Promotion

In October, 1973, Prentice Hall and the authors discussed promoting MFW to instructors, periodicals, and libraries. WHG writes in February 1974 that "advance interest in this text is very, very high." Sales for the first six months of 1974 were $11,267.

PM gave a presentation to the Southern California Section of AAPT in the Spring of 1973, where many attendees felt encouraged to consider MFW, as described in a letter from Leo L. Baggerly of CSC Bakersfield. In that letter, Baggerly also mentions Prentice Hall's "very attractive announcement brochure."

Reprinting

May 6, 1974, Prentice Hall sent a letter to DFH asking for corrections for the second printing. DFH replied with a short list of simple changes.

Authors

During the summer of 1969, DFH was in Canterbury, UK. At the same time, he was appointed chair of the Physics Dept. at Cornell. In a letter 21 May 1969, DFH writes to PM that "Someone at MIT must have a magic touch, or you have a docile student body -- I have seen no reports of MIT having 'blown.'"

DFH was on sabbatic leave Spring 1969.

Reviews

Malvin Ruderman, for W.H. Freeman and Company, August 1968.

Professor Manka of Sam Houston State U. June 1970, "the best we have received to date" according to the editor, WHG.

Albert Bork, UC Irvine, 1969.

John Allred, University of Houston, Spring, 1969.

Barney Sandler, NYCC. Prof. Sandler suggested a teacher's manual or solutions guide.

Rex Nelson, Occidental College, CA, Spring, 1969.

Use of text

Faculty from other colleges used MFW.

Prof. Donald Yennie and Al Silverman, also at Cornell used it in Fall 1969. PM writes to DFH July 3, 1969, that he would like to get Al Silverman to use it. Yennie and Silverman were team teaching Physics 201-202 1969-70.

Hans von Baeyer wrote to the publisher with a letter about how he would use MFW Fall 1970.

Prentice Hall provided a list of college bookstores that ordered multiples of the text between 10/01/1969 and 2/28/1970. Adoption lists from Prentice Hall only include orders of 10 or more

Arizona (Tuscon campus), 20.

Student bookstore at AZ (Tuscon campus), 36.

Occidental Col. bookstore, CA, 150.

Oglethorpe U. Bookshop, GA, 84.

Cornell Campus Store, NY, 75.

Triangle Book Shop (Cornell), NY, 50.

Sam Houston State College, TX, 50.

Later in 1970, the Temple University Student Store purchased 1000 copies, and the College of William & Mary ordered 20.

In 1972, Arizona Book Store bought 25 and the Students Bookstore at AZ bought 120.

In a letter to the editor, April 4, 1973, about the list of solutions to the exercises in the book, DFH writes that the solutions should be printed in as small type as possible to emphasize that the solutions "are a court of last resort."

Extraction for a course on energy

In a letter to Professor C. G. Shugart, head of Physics at Northeast Louisiana University August 6, 1974, DFH describes how the part on energy could be extracted as a separate course from the previous sections. Shugart and Prentice Hall were spearheading a large adoption of the text among colleges and high schools in Louisiana.

June 3, 1974, DFH recommended to Prentice Hall that a Prof. D. W. Devins, Department of Physics, University of Indiana, be sent a review copy, stating that Devins "teaches an energy course for non-science students at such a level that MFW might be useful."

DFH himself proposed in a letter to PM June 3, 1974, a scientific course on energy he would teach at Cornell, using MFW at least as a review reference.

Updating to usability in 2011

Enduring qualities

Being honest with the reader about the purpose of a section may improve the reader's receptivity to the section. There is possibly relevant research that students perform better with instructors who openly discuss pedagogy. (citation needed) There are many places in the text where the authors speak directly to the students about why they present an idea or save one for later.

The authors also help the student with metacognitive work like organizing concepts.

I would be really interested in a text that could help the general public out of their common confusion between power and energy (p. 240). Middle school math teachers are trying to teach us all about rates, but the difference between rates and accumulated amounts are lost on so many people when it comes to electricity. See my page Kilowatts and kilowatt-hours.

Style

Readers may prefer less verbosity.

'The answer is clearly in the negative' may be replaced with 'the answer is no,' or even 'the resistance is not constant.' (p. 269)

Relatedly, there might be many phrases that can be removed with no effect on the intended curriculum. For example, one could remove the reference to science fiction's force fields on page 257.

Vocabulary should be updated.

'Shall' should be replaced with 'will.'

'Sources of energy' should be replaced with 'energy resources.'

The flow of examples should be examined.

The first quantitative example in chapter 10 (pp. 232-233) is wonderfully complicated. Maybe this is a good thing, but it should be examined again. Maybe the reasoning should focus less on equations and more on relations.

Content

Citation of previous chapters must be removed if the energy chapters are to be published separately.

Does mechanical energy need to be presented before other forms?

Since every introductory physics course begins with mechanics, the students who drop out of physics early are the students who have been exposed only to mechanics. Perhaps other topics would be more enjoyable for students, and develop a taste for physics that makes mechanics less bitter.

Changing this may offend many physics teachers, because this sequence is so frozen into the curriculum.

Maybe concepts of electrical power and energy, as envisioned in household uses, should come before electron theories.

Linking to contemporary pedagogies

Maybe there is a not-too-exhausting way to treat the presentation using some promising or tested pedagogy from recent educational research. For example the text could be correlated to physics simulations, or it could give cues for peer instruction.

Accompaniments

A new edition might need a list of resources—web, books, lab materials. EnergyTeachers.org might be useful for making a new list.

Abbreviations

DE

David Esner, Director of Special Projects at Prentice Hall

MFW

My Father's Watch

DFW

Donald Frank Holcomb

PM

Philip Morrison

WHG

William H. Grimshaw, Physics Editor at Prentice Hall

BM

Bob Melendes, head of Project Management Group at Prentice Hall