Motivation and Approach

I am the first to admit that it is to some degree unusual for the Founder of a high tech company to sit down on a regular basis and to write materials explicitly aimed at educating children in the basic principles at the foundations of the technology the company is involved in developing. This may be true -- although there are remarkable exceptions-and I feel compelled to explain why any amount of resources of a company like the one I have the privilege to lead should be spent on helping children and educators understand what we are doing.

Let me premise by stating without ambiguity that I do not spend time on this task because of sophisticated company growth models showing that somehow this is an investment for InterStellar Technologies Corporation. I am not remunerated for this effort, nor does InterStellar Technologies Corporation have any financial agreements of any kind in place with any educational entity mentioned in this part of our site. I simply do it because furthering education reflects a philosophy of life imparted to me by my parents as a value to live by. I feel I received quite a bit from my family, my society, and my teachers. I want to give some of it back, for instance, through a medium such as the Internet which allows the spreading of knowledge to those who can at least have access to a computer.

I am not sure everyone will like what I have to offer, my way to present it, or my inner motivations, and to those who so feel I can only say that there are many other resources out there to explore and I encourage you to do so. To those who wish to continue reading, I want to explain I come from an educational system, a time, and a place, where the core of knowledge required for every student was clearly defined and actually written into the law of the land (see also my biography). I still now, after many years, am expanding on that knowledge I received as a child, by reading and learning every day.

I realize some will feel it is unrealistic, even abusive, to require that a sixth grader study Italian literature, history, geography, foreign language, algebra, science, music, shop, and first elements of Latin. By the time I was a junior in high school, those demands had grown to include philosophy, third year ancient Greek, and comparative European literatures. I find no reason to boast, as hundreds of thousands of Italian children of my generation went through this type of education over time, including Enrico Fermi. This was what the public school system demanded of us. I am grateful for it.

I realize now that receiving such a strong core knowledge education was a fantastic business card as a college student; Latin and Greek made me smarter and faster; literature gave me a better understanding of the human condition and it is still today my personal source of spirituality; I learned a foreign language (English); and, most importantly, the experience made me a happier man. That reason alone represents my motivation to want to share the desire for knowledge among as many children as possible, as well as their parents and educators.

However, I believe this happiness comes with a price, well worth paying, but unavoidable. The price is that core knowledge, growth, and the ability to learn more and more complex notions are the result of patient, continuous, focused work of all involved, including the child. Culture is built from the bottom up and, as both a past teacher and as a parent, I have little patience for those who would want science to be taught as a big circus of flashing demonstrations designed to impress children by engaging their senses, but not their minds.

Consequently, my approach will work for those who are engaged in building such culture, but hardly for those who want to be awed by loud explosions and circus stunts. The following explanations assume parent/teachers who are actively raising inquisitive, curious, and critical children who want to be taught and have no authority problems with their role on the receiving end of this process. It is not impossible, in the case of children with very special interest and initiative, that the materials referenced and those I present may be acquired through self-study - I have done a fair amount of self-study as a budding amateur astronomer, and it worked for me.

I hope that, in some small measure, learning of the circumstances, history, physical foundations, and mathematics of the vacuum will provide you, whether a student or a parent/teacher, with an added amount of happiness, as it does for me every day. At the same time, I also encourage you to remember that life is greater than any of its parts and that a well rounded individual is more than just a physics experiment. For what it's worth, and as I mention in my biography , I enjoy sailing, flying, ballroom dancing and socializing with a few good friends. The physics and technology of the quantum vacuum are still only part of the equation that defines you as a human being.

Happy Studying! Fabrizio Pinto, PhD