At first glance, Buffalo and New York City would appear as different as two cities can be. However, over the past two centuries both have been connected by the Erie Canal, the Empire State Express that linked Buffalo’s Central Terminal with Grand Central Terminal, and the New York State Thruway. Infrastructure joining two cities not only moves people and goods, but ideas. During the late 1800’s, Buffalo was a proving ground for many innovative architects who transferred their ideas to the big city. A two-block area in downtown Buffalo has very significant architectural ties to New York City.
Above is the Ellicott Square Building. You may recognize it as the Ellicott Hotel from the movie The Natural. Built in 1896, it was the largest office building in the world at the time. In its basement was the Vitascope Theater, possibly the first movie theater in the United States.
Advertisement for Vitascope Theater. Ten cents in 1897 is $2.75 in 2016 dollars. November 7, 1897. Credit: Wiki Commons.
On the marble floor of the Ellicott Square Building are several swastikas. Before Nazi Germany, the swastika symbolized good fortune and is still used for that purpose in India and Indonesia. The architect for the Ellicott Square Building was Daniel Burnham who six years later designed this building:
That, of course, is the classic Flatiron Building. The shapes of the respective buildings were both determined by the street layout. While most of Manhattan is laid out as a grid, the Flatiron Building lies where Broadway diagonally cuts across 5th Avenue necessitating its distinctive shape. Daniel Burnham’s architecture firm still survives in the form of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White in Chicago.
Next door to the Ellicott Square Building is M&T Plaza:
M&T Plaza, Photo: Gregory Pijanowski
Does the exterior steel tubing and resultant narrow windows look familiar? The buildings below had the same type of framework:
World Trade Center, 2001. Credit: Jeff Mock, Wiki Commons.
Both M&T Plaza and the World Trade Center were designed by Minoru Yamasaki during the mid-1960’s. In each building, the exterior steel columns were intended to carry the load of the building’s weight. This precludes the need for interior columns maximizing floor space. A century before M&T Plaza was built, Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train stopped in Buffalo and his body laid in state on the site as some 100,000 filed by to pay their respects.
April 27, 1865 – Lincoln’s funeral cortege. Credit: Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.
Minoru Yamasaki passed away in 1986 and his firm Yamasaki & Associates ceased operations in 2010, a victim of the Great Recession. Of course, we are no longer able to appreciate the World Trade Center in person, but their architect’s legacy lives on in Buffalo which set the stage for his most prominent work.
The aftermath of another American mass shooting in Orlando means the gun control debate along with the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is again front and center in the media. How to handle this in the class? The best bet is to allow your students to construct an interpretation by going back to the historical roots of the 2nd Amendment.
Before that is done, I would recommend students to be skeptical of the initial reports regarding the motives of a mass shooting. Amid the confusion, the rush to get the story first, and now the need for everyone to get their hot takes in on social media, an awful lot of misinformation gets flung around the first few days after such an incident. As documented in Dave Culler’s book Columbine, the initial reports that the shooters were part of the goth clique Trench Coat Mafia turned out false. In fact, most of the Trench Coat Mafia had graduated the prior year. However, in a classic case of circular reporting, an erroneous statement by a student was repeated throughout the day of the shooting by several media outlets. The truth will often take days, weeks, months, sometimes years to illuminate.
That being said, it should be stressed to students that they build their own interpretations of the 2nd Amendment and not rely on someone to do it for them. The full amendment has to be analyzed by the class:
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
An excellent start to this exercise is to have the class read the 29th Federalist Paper by Alexander Hamilton and the 46th Federalist Paper by James Madison. These papers, written four years before the Bill of Rights were enacted, form the foundation of this amendment. Before the class embarks on this endeavor, it’s a good idea for the students to discuss their current preconceptions of the 2nd Amendment to give a baseline how their understanding progresses throughout this lesson.
Title page for Federalist Papers. Credit: Library of Congress.
After the students have read the papers, a class discussion should ensue. I like to compare this to my three stints on jury duty. Some in the jury always wanted to vote right away. Its been my experience a discussion first would bring to my attention angles of the case I had not considered. And that is likely to be the case here as this is the student’s first attempt reading these documents.
The followup discussion should address the following themes:
Do the Federalist papers address individual self-defense or argue the right of states and/or federal government to form standing militias?
What was the importance of public militias during the time the constitution was drafted? Do those reasons apply today?
In the era of industrialized warfare, could an armed militia protect the public from a tyrannical government given the asymmetry in firepower? Examine some recent case studies such as the Soviet Union, Syria, and North Korea.
Are the popular arguments, pro or con, for gun control covered in any sort of context in the Federalist Papers? Are media commentators knowledgeable on the topic?
And finally, ask your students how the assignment has changed their perceptions of the 2nd Amendment?
Having students construct their understanding of the 2nd Amendment does not mean whatever comes to their minds is to be taken as fact. Their statements should undergo critical review by the rest of the class. The class has to comprehend any criticism is not intended to be personal, but as a quality control measure on their understanding of the context of the Federalist Papers. As a teacher, you must address the fact that any criticism should be based on what was read in the assignment and cannot devolve into ad hominem attacks. The use of such attacks is an admission the student has lost the argument and did not integrate what was read as required to participate in the discussion properly.
The teacher in a sense acts as a referee during the discussion. The classroom is not intended to be an ideological bubble, the students will get plenty of opportunity to experience that in today’s society. A conflict of thought and ideas are healthy in the classroom. The teacher should ensure the student’s arguments exhibit a solid understanding of the Federalist Papers and are not cherry-picking or taking out of context any of the readings. Unlike social media, a student’s place in the discussion is earned with reading comprehension and a critical understanding of the material. The loudest voice should not win in the classroom.
History has a certain advantage as original documents can be understood at the high school level. This is opposed to science where journal articles usually require advanced training to grasp. The internet makes the Federalist Papers easily available to each student and that was not the case when I was in high school. In a controversial topic such as gun control, constructionist learning techniques allows the student to build their own understanding rather than rely on an authority figure to do it for them. And this is a skill set that will serve your students well in the future.
*Image on top of post is an engraving of the Battle of Lexington. Credit: John H. Daniels & Son/Library of Congress.
During the nascent age of home computers, the Apple IIe football game Tuesday Morning Quarterback had a momentum indicator that fluctuated in favor of both teams throughout the game. When momentum was on my side, short gains turned into long gains, touchdowns came easier, and life was good. When on the opposition’s side, fumbles and interceptions became the norm and the odds of anything else going bad, along with my blood pressure rising, increased. The concept of momentum in sports is well-known, lesser so, is the physics concept of momentum which has many application in sports and astronomy as well.
Momentum is defined as follows:
p = mv
Where p is momentum, m is mass, and v is velocity (both p and v are in bold as they are vectors with two quantities, magnitude and direction). Thus, a marble rolling at 1 m/s has more momentum than a freight train at a stop. And obviously, a freight train moving at 1 m/s has far more momentum than that marble at the same velocity. A change in momentum over time also tells us how much force has been imparted on an object. In more formal terms:
F = dp/dt
In other words, force is equal to the rate of change in momentum divided by the rate of change in time.
Safer barrier after a NASCAR crash. Photo: Jared Smith/Wiki Commoms.
Safer barriers in auto racing use this concept. Fatalities in racing used to be a fairly common occurence. There were 37 fatalities during the first 57 runnings of the Indianapolis 500. Improvements in auto design, head restraints, and the safer barriers have dropped those numbers considerably. The safer barriers act as a cushion to soften the blow of a race car against the wall. What the barriers do is prolong the time of impact. Looking at the equation F = dp/dt, doubling the time of impact reduces the force imparted on the race car by one half. The amount of time of impact is small, we’re talking milliseconds here, but enough to dramatically increase driver safety. Another sport is grappling with the same concept, but with an impact that occurs inside the body.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a degenerative brain disease found in football players. CTE results in memory loss, aggression, and early dementia. The disease is the result of repetitive concussive blows of the brain against the skull. The brain has some protection against common bumps in the form of fluid inside your skull, but the fluid gives way when a violent blow, such as often occurs in football, is taken by the head. In effect, the inside of your skull lacks a safer barrier in these instances. This shortens the time of impact leading to an increase in force directed to the brain. And here you can see how problematic this is for football. You can’t insert a safer barrier inside the skull, the answers lie in changing the game in a manner that reduces these impacts. Really, the only solution at this point is to eliminate contact in the game, something that would radically alter the nature of football which has become the most popular sport in America.
Momentum also plays a role in rotational movement, which is applicable to a much less violent sport than football.
Angular momentum (L) is defined as:
L =Iω
Where I = moment of inertia and ω = angular or rotational velocity.
I varies by the shape of the spinning object but is proportional to the radius.
As angular momentum is conserved, if the radius of an object is reduced, its rotational velocity increases. Figure skaters use this principle to create rapid spinning movements in their routines. As the skater begins to rotate, the arms are drawn towards the body to reduce radius and increase velocity. You can try this at home on a swivel chair. Have a friend spin you around with your arms outstretched, then pull your arms inward. You will note the rate of your spin increasing. Not as much as a figure skater does, but enough to notice.
Imparting a rotational force on an object is referred to as torque. If an object is malleable, increasing its angular momentum by adding torque to it will cause it to flatten. You’ll see this at your local pizzeria when the cook takes a blob of pizza dough and spins it in the air. The blob becomes flattened into a pie shape that is then cooked in the pizza oven. Beyond Earth, there are many applications of this principle.
Angular momentum flattens protoplanetary disk around the star HL Tauri Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Yen et al.
Our Solar System originated when torque was applied to an interstellar gas cloud. This force most likely came from a nearby supernova. As the gas cloud began to rotate, it flattened and commenced the process of constructing the Sun in the center and the planets in the disk. This process has been observed in other planetary systems in the formation stage. How spiral galaxies originate is not completely understood, but a galaxy’s angular momentum causes it to flatten into the classic spiral shape we see in so many space images. When galaxies collide, the reverse of this process takes place.
The The Antennae Galaxies/NGC 4038-4039 colliding. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration
When two spiral galaxies collide, the odds of their angular momentum being in the same direction during the collision is slight. Think of it this way, kids often start a whirlpool in a swimming pool by walking around the perimeter of the pool in the same direction. This torquing action increases the angular momentum of the water in the pool. If some other kids jumped in the pool and starting walking in the opposite direction, this torquing action offsets the original whirlpool, causing the rotation of the water to decrease. This is essentially the same thing that happens to spiral galaxies when they collide. The result is the two galaxies merge to form a giant elliptical galaxy with little rotation. In essence, this is pizza effect put in reverse as the two flatten spirals form a blob shape.
And how does this apply to us? Well, not us directly, but in a few billion years, the Milky Way will collide with its nearest large neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. While the two galaxies contain over a trillion stars combined, the odds of the Sun colliding with another star is slim. That is a consequence of the large distances between the stars. If the Sun was the size of a basketball, the nearest star would be 4,300 miles away. However, the collision will eject stars from their respective galaxies and gravitational disturbances could cause incoming comets to collide with planets. As this event will occur billions of years from now, the Sun will be nearing its red giant phase meaning Earth has become uninhabitable. Humanity will not contend with this event unless interstellar travel has been achieved. The video below is a computer simulation of the collision.
So momentum is not just a phrase tossed around in “horse race” punditry, but an actual physics concept with applications in our daily lives and the rest of the universe.
*Image on top of post is Mike Stratton’s tackle of Keith Lincoln in 1964 AFL Championship game. The tackle was a momentum changer both in the physical and allegorical sense as the play turned the game in Buffalo’s favor. Credit: Wiki Commons.
