Three Lessons

A high-school classmate of my dad’s is still a practicing dentist — on him and my mom in Taiwan this morning — at the age of 84! Perhaps I could tutor until that age. I am having success with RNM’s 7th-grade son, SWM, who seems to be enjoying his physics lessons. He requested physics as a topic after browsing Halliday and Resnick 3rd edition, which was my college textbook. Today he and I did torque as applied to bicycle gears. I may be able to explain cross product to him (right-hand rule we did today as well, magnitude is basically varying opposite/hypotenuse of a right triangle) as well as the limit of Calculus (he knows the formula for slope and I simply need to show him how this shrinks).

I love RNM’s children so much that this teaching is inspired.

— Adapted from an email at 9:35 PM CT on 21 Dec 2025