Pump up your physics (in German)

I've heard about a new project from Germany, aiming to make physics more approachable. With a background in natural sciences and industry, Ottmar Koegel works to support foundation issues in teaching science in Germany: Pumping Physics is his baby.

His idea was to pick up on the kind of exercise-based learning that is found in musical instrument training, making the educational side more fun with a mix of illustrations and real-world scenarios, providing straightforward multiple choice questions to test and learn.

At the moment there is no English version, but for English readers, here's a taster (the translation is not a polished one).

More importantly, for any German readers, you can find out more about the book and see some of the actual examples at the Pumping Physics website.

I don't think this kind of approach is ideal for a popular science audience - I admit, the English example above was one of the less technical, but some of the questions do expect the reader to do some calculation and formulae work, so it feels more like a friendly textbook than popular science. But that doesn't mean it's not an interesting project, currently for the German speaking audience.

The book will be available in December.

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