While the subject of Dr. Mathur’s lecture was beyond me, I really appreciated how he chose to make the lecture interactive by asking us questions and leading us to figure out the answers to some of these seemingly unreachable conclusions. It made the material easier to follow step-by-step and his visual representations helped as well (although there was still a bit I didn’t fully grasp of course). It was interesting that as Dr. Mathur said, we only needed “high school physics” in order to understand everything in his lecture. A subject that seems so unreachable and complex, when actually thought about in individual components, can really be explained somewhat simply, or with basic knowledge. I think that we learn about certain principles in classes, or in high school especially, but we don’t always see how they have applications currently in research, or in very complex research. So what I learned from this lecture, generally, is that sometimes the answer to a very complicated problem is really quite simply explained.
It is a good take-home lesson. I think by consensus, the class agreed that he made a difficult topic at least reachable. And you are right, having context about the importance of a topic really makes basic things you learn in school so much more meaningful.