Associate Professor of Physics Brian Watson enjoys teaching physics, saying, “How else could I get paid to play with toys and gadgets?” In addition to the toys, Watson says he finds it “rewarding to model the natural world with mathematics, and to teach students how they can do it too.”

Watson says that many students come to college with what he calls the “high-school calculator disease” that led them to do well on standardized exams, but also caused them to miss out on learning physics. “I find it very difficult to move students toward a more mature way of learning physics that relies on making models and using data and math,” he says.

But, Watson adds, the challenge is worth it “when, after struggling with an idea, students finally ‘get it.’ One of my best moments was when a former student told me, ‘I became a physics teacher because of your introductory course.  I even use cats in projectile problems!’”

In addition to the challenge of teaching, Watson also finds it rewarding to interact with his physics colleagues. He also works with a physics research group at McGill University in Montreal, where he is using “multifractal geometry and computer simulation techniques to study how light is transmitted through clouds.” In addition, Watson noted that he has become “interested in booming sand dunes, a curious and unexplained phenomenon which occurs in certain deserts,” a topic on which two physics majors have done senior research projects.

Watson is a long-time member of University Chorus and has also sung with the McGill Choral Society. He is active in the local adult figure skating group, sometimes referred to as the “Black and Blues,” and enjoys botany, growing antique varieties of apples, birding and visiting Montreal, about two hours from campus.                                      

--Kristen Bednar ’09