Personal Project Exhibition
'What Is Time?' - Magazine
My name is Srishti Bendigeri, and I am in MYP 5C. I chose this to do this project because a couple years ago, I read a book discussing this topic (The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene), which was when I first realized that time was unknown. Even though we use it in our everyday lives, we have limited knowledge about what it is exactly. This area interests me because I am looking to pursue (astro)physics in the future, and I also enjoy learning about different views of life (philosophy). I had extremely limited knowledge on this topic before starting, so all of the information in my magazine is from the past few months' research.
Scientific and technical innovation
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What is time from a physics and philosophy point of view?
Aesthetics:
Must use the colors #011627, #BA274A, #6A8EAE, #B2ECE1, #F9C2C1
Must have a minimalistic design (using only the colors above, using minimal fonts (maximum 2), using basic geometric shapes
Must be printed on coated paper with a matte finish, with 80-90 GSM
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Cost:
Must have a budget of €25 for the manufacturing of my magazine (material cost of paper)
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Customer:
American and European women, 16+, middle-class (centered towards this class, but can be of any class)
The target is to inform this group about physics & philosophy
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Function:
Must inform the common person about time in physics and philosophy
Must be able to be easily understood as well as scientifically accurate
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Manufacturing:
Use effective software to create a professional magazine
Must be printed on double-sided matte A4 paper
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Size /Content:
Magazine dimensions: A4 (210x297mm)
Content: 9 theories + 1 paradox in physics
Content: 10 theories in philosophy
Must include cover page, page of contents, articles for theories, relevant visuals, about the author/editor
Must be 35-50 pages (double-sided)
I used a variety of primary and secondary sources. A majority of my research was done using information from the web (i.e. articles, essays, scientific studies) and books, however I also conducted 5+ interviews with people involved in either physics or philosophy. In Phase 1, I had already collected many sources, but as I started writing the articles I began to add more to the list. An obstacle that occurred was that I was originally planning to write a book (I changed to a magazine because of the timeframe, and also because the visuals were supported better on a magazine), so some of my research in the beginning was not relevant anymore. This meant that I had to redo a bit of my earlier work. I discovered how much work was actually required for the formatting, because I had been under the impression that the articles would take an extremely long time to write and check, and that the formatting would hardly take any time. As I started formatting, I realized that this actually required a long time to make it look more like a magazine (rather than just a slab of text).
I started off by playing around with Canva (the software I used to design the magazine), and made some easier spreads (like the 'Guess Who?' page). Then, I began to write the articles by first going through all the sources I had saved from first Phase, and then leaving the valuable ones. I also did some additional research (online or interviews), and then I started brainstorming certain sub-topics within one theory. As I continued my research, I kept filling in blanks in my brainstorming to make a more complete overview of the information I was discussing. I gave my articles for review to check the coherence of some ideas, and to pick out minor grammatical errors. At the same time, I began the formatting of the magazine, which I did by looking through some inspiration pictures and looking at backgrounds available on the software I used. Once the backgrounds were set, I pasted the text into the magazine (since they were already checked at this point), and continued the layout to make it seem more like a real magazine. I had some difficulty managing my time during this phase, because this project was quite challenging and time-consuming (as well as having to do regular school assignments). I made quite a few changes to the number of articles and the theories I would cover in the articles because I realized how in-depth I had to go into each of the theories to sufficiently explain it, and doing all of the articles was not possible in the timeframe (at least if I wanted to write the articles well and put in a significant amount of time for researching the information for each article). I became much more engaged in this topic in this phase, because by writing down whatever information I was able to collect, I also got to understand it more myself.