Splash Biography

ADRIAN CULVER, 2nd-year physics major at UChicago

Major: Physics

College/Employer: University of Chicago

Year of Graduation: 2011

Brief Biographical Sketch:

Adrian (or "the Culverizer," as he is sometimes called) grew up in Andover, MA. With any luck, his vast enthusiasm for physics will make up for his lack of experience with teaching high school classes. Adrian is also into mathematics and jazz music.

Past Classes

(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

S195: Basics of Einstein's Special Relativity in Splash! 2008 (Oct. 04, 2008)

Have you heard of the Pythagorean Theorem? Have you seen an x-y coordinate system before? That's just about all you need to understand Special Relativity. If you've taken any physics or physical science course before, that will be helpful. Basically, Special Relativity describes the strange things that happen when objects move really fast. Time and space don't behave the way you'd expect them to. But I won't just tell you what happens--I'll explain to you WHY it happens. The concepts will be tricky, but the math will just be basic algebra.

M196: REAL Calculus in Splash! 2008 (Oct. 04, 2008)

For people who have some experience with calculus. "Limit as x approaches a" means that 'x' gets really close to 'a'---right? Well, sort of. That's the basic idea, but actually 'limit' has a much more precise mathematical meaning. "x gets really close to a" is just way too vague--what do those words mean? I'll explain the definition of 'limit', and if there's time remaining I'll show you what 'derivative' actually means.