5/1/2013 Siv Schwink
Department Head and Professor Dale Van Harlingen said Errede’s initiative, creativity, and hard work have turned his passion for music into unique learning opportunities for Physics Illinois students:
“Errede is using music to introduce students to rigorous experimental physics. I speak for every member of the faculty when I say that we are immensely proud of his work and deeply grateful to have him as a colleague.”
Written by Siv Schwink
Professor Steven Errede has been selected to receive the Arnold T. Nordsieck Physics Award for Teaching Excellence for the 2012–2013 academic year, for “creating innovative, engaging instructional laboratories in acoustics and the physics of musical instruments for beginning and advanced undergraduate students.”
Errede has developed undergraduate courses, undergraduate research opportunities, and pubic outreach programs that allow music lovers to explore the acoustical physics of music (POM).
In addition to teaching a freshman discovery course, Physics 193, and an upper-level undergraduate course, Physics 406, on the acoustical physics of musical instruments, Errede has provided a significant number of students with independent study opportunities in the physics of music. The seeds for these offerings were planted in the summer of 1996 when Errede got back in to playing music after a hiatus of about 25 years:
"I spent much time during my childhood and teenage years playing classical violin and piano, then playing in various rock 'n roll and blues bands. That summer, I rediscovered the joy of playing music again, but I also laughed at myself when I realized that about half the time, I was instead trying to measure things to figure out why or how the musical instruments I was playing made the sounds that they did. It was impossible to shut off the physicist. I was having so much fun myself doing this, that I thought that this might be a fun class to teach. After a decade of teaching these two POM courses{C}{C}{C}{C}—incorporating into them all of what we have learned along the way{C}{C}{C}{C}—they are a total joy for me to teach.
Errede admits, "I shamelessly use the fact that all humans love music as a 'hook' to get students excited about the science underlying music and musical instruments. All of the course material in the more technical upper-level POM course is eminently applicable{C}{C}{C}{C}—with appropriate modifications{C}{C}{C}{C}—to other physics courses."
Errede said it was his own "immensely beneficial" research experience as an undergraduate that sealed his enduring personal commitment to providing high quality undergraduate research experiences for Physics Illinois students.
Department Head and Professor Dale Van Harlingen said Errede’s initiative, creativity, and hard work have turned his passion for music into unique learning opportunities for Physics Illinois students:
“Errede is using music to introduce students to rigorous experimental physics. I speak for every member of the faculty when I say that we are immensely proud of his work and deeply grateful to have him as a colleague.”
The Nordsieck Award is made possible by a memorial endowment from the family of distinguished Professor Arnold T. Nordsieck (1911-1971), a theorist in the mathematics of computation at Illinois from 1947 to 1961.
Among his many contributions, Nordsieck built the first computer to be used at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the differential analyzer. This innovative analog computer was assembled in Urbana in 1950 from $700 worth of surplus World War II supplies and is today on display at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
The award will be presented today (May 1), at 4:00 p.m. in Room 141 Loomis, immediately before colloquium. Errede dedicates the award to his parents and all of the exceptional teachers (K-grad) who had a hand in his own education.