“Dave Harriman seems to know effortlessly everything worth knowing about physics and its history; yet he also knows that the student must be led through the material carefully, in crystal clear steps, if he is to understand the logic and power of the subject. As a result, physics taught by Harriman comes alive in the student’s mind as a real part of his thinking. Harriman taught me physics personally, so I know whereof I speak.” — Dr. Leonard Peikoff
David Harriman, philosopher and historian of physics, is the originator of VanDamme Academy’s revolutionary science curriculum. An expert both in physics and in proper pedagogy, Mr Harriman developed and taught a two-year course on the history of physics for VanDamme Academy.
His unique approach is to teach physics historically, thereby teaching it inductively. From the early Greeks to Copernicus to Newton, this course presents the essential principles of physics in logical sequence, placing each in the context of the earlier discoveries that made it possible and explaining how each was discovered by reasoning from observations.
Teaching physics by this method not only renders physics thoroughly intelligible–it also makes physics an inspiring story of discovery, in which great thinkers triumph in their quest to grasp the nature of the physical universe.
VanDamme Academy is now making this revolutionary physics course, “Introduction to Physical Science,” available to the public. While Mr. Harriman’s easily accessible presentation makes the course appropriate for students as young as grade seven, the course’s profound content (unavailable anywhere else) makes it equally valuable for adults: from those seeking to gain the science education they never had to lovers of history who want to understand how we reached today’s wondrous world of technology.