Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman is one of the most celebrated scientists of the 20th century. In the 1960’s, before he launched into discussions of mechanics, waves, or properties of heat and matter, he did a spectacular pendulum demonstration. I remember hearing as an undergraduate about this Feynman story and was impressed by the bravado and power of the demonstration. It struck a chord in me and of course, being an experimental economist I love the power of games and experiments to demonstrate important underlying concepts.
One of his former students, Michael Scott (the first CEO of Apple Computers) recounts, “There were 183 of us freshmen, and a bowling ball hanging from the three-story ceiling to just above the floor. Feynman walked in and, without a word, grabbed the ball and backed against the wall with the ball touching his nose. He let go, and the ball swung slowly 60 feet across the room and back - stopping naturally just short of crushing his face. Then he took the ball again, stepped forward, and said: "I wanted to show you that I believe in what I'm going to teach you over the next two years."
Wow! As Michel Scott recounts this event years later, it is clear that Feynman’s demonstration was an impactful learning experience. And, the fact that the mass of the ball was not concentrated at the center; there was friction on the rope, etc. served to make the point more robust. But, what parallel to this kind of demonstration do we have in economics?
Each time I run our MobLab Competitive Market game, I think of this Feynman demonstration. Over the course of several rounds of play students converge to the equilibrium price-quantity predictions. It’s almost like clockwork. With assumptions of diminishing marginal utility for buyers, increasing marginal cost for sellers, and centralized information on bids/asks markets converge to equilibrium. It’s a spectacular thing to behold.
To make an impact similar to Feynman in my own classes, I write the price and quantity predictions and hand them in a sealed envelope to a student in the front row. After we are done playing, I ask the student to open up the price-quantity predictions that I wrote before we started playing. The prediction is dead-on and I feel like saying, “I wanted to show you that I believe in what I am going to teach you this semester.”
Would you like to learn more about MobLab interactive economics games? Get in touch with our team. Click here to schedule a one-on-one demo meeting.
One of his former students, Michael Scott (the first CEO of Apple Computers) recounts, “There were 183 of us freshmen, and a bowling ball hanging from the three-story ceiling to just above the floor. Feynman walked in and, without a word, grabbed the ball and backed against the wall with the ball touching his nose. He let go, and the ball swung slowly 60 feet across the room and back - stopping naturally just short of crushing his face. Then he took the ball again, stepped forward, and said: "I wanted to show you that I believe in what I'm going to teach you over the next two years."
Wow! As Michel Scott recounts this event years later, it is clear that Feynman’s demonstration was an impactful learning experience. And, the fact that the mass of the ball was not concentrated at the center; there was friction on the rope, etc. served to make the point more robust. But, what parallel to this kind of demonstration do we have in economics?
Each time I run our MobLab Competitive Market game, I think of this Feynman demonstration. Over the course of several rounds of play students converge to the equilibrium price-quantity predictions. It’s almost like clockwork. With assumptions of diminishing marginal utility for buyers, increasing marginal cost for sellers, and centralized information on bids/asks markets converge to equilibrium. It’s a spectacular thing to behold.
To make an impact similar to Feynman in my own classes, I write the price and quantity predictions and hand them in a sealed envelope to a student in the front row. After we are done playing, I ask the student to open up the price-quantity predictions that I wrote before we started playing. The prediction is dead-on and I feel like saying, “I wanted to show you that I believe in what I am going to teach you this semester.”
Would you like to learn more about MobLab interactive economics games? Get in touch with our team. Click here to schedule a one-on-one demo meeting.