Simone and Shelby got an exclusive interview with the most amazing physics teacher. Can you guess who? That’s right it’s the one, the only, the Luther Davis. We asked him some questions, and his answers are quite impeccable. You’re welcome.

What is your favorite topic to teach?

“So I do teach three subjects here at Lake Mary High School, and every subject has a personal connection that I have. The way that I like to look out at the world and see various things. I enjoy all three of those classes whether it’s advanced placement physics, where I’m still challenged sometimes teaching a particular topic. Honors physics, seeing lightbulbs going off for the first time. Or astronomy, where students get to know the universe in some special way. The topics I personally enjoy are the topics I still get to learn, such as maybe a new connection in AP physics about how an equation is derived. In honors physics, a new way of looking at a sport or something with a connection to physics I never thought of before. Or astronomy, something that lets me think about how earth developed, or where the sun came from, or how our galaxy might evolve; another way I might get to understand that topic myself. So anything that gets me thinking, I enjoy teaching.”

What is your favorite project you’ve worked on after school?

“Over the years, I have liked working with students after school in a way that I would like to do something on my garage, but my wife doesn’t let me do these projects in the garage so I do them here in my classroom and have students come along with the journey. So over the years we’ve built a hovercraft, a 10 horsepower lawnmower engine that gets up to thirty miles an hour, we’ve built a weather balloon that gets to twenty miles high, we’ve built a cable camera for our stadium, we’ve built a giant twenty foot tall medieval trebuchet that can launch a watermelon 500 feet. It’s in the air for eight seconds; it’s awesome watching those things hit the ground. We’re currently working on some jet engines, and we’ve done this in two phases. The first phase was the jet boat with two engines. We’re actually working on a larger project that’s three times more powerful that’s going to power my truck. That sounds pretty exciting, and that’s what we are working on now, and that’s why it’s my favorite project because it’s the project we are working on now.”

Out of your hobbies, what is your favorite one?

“Hobbies that I find personally satisfying come in three different perspectives. One, myself personally; I like to swim. It gives me good thinking time, it gives me the opportunity to set goals, achieve those. So swimming is an  important personal hobby that I have. The second perspective is family, I like doing things in the family. Whether it’s going to the beach, hanging out, day trips, or over the summer we go to national parks and kindof do a bunch of hiking and camping. The third thing is I like making a difference, and there’s two ways that I do that. Either as a teacher or a leader in the scout community. So, I am a leader in scouts and I can see that youth are growing up and need to follow certain good moral values. And the students in my classroom, they walk away having a further understand, whether it’s of astronomy or physics. So making a difference in that perspective I find very important as well.”

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?

“Where in the world might I like to visit? Well, many people might think the world is earth, but to me it also encompasses this notion of the universe. But I’ll stay somewhat close to home, and lets go to the moon Enceledus, which is a moon of Saturn. It has the purest ice in our solar system, and imagine if you are standing on the surface of Enceledus with nothing but all these icebergs and like large ice type structures, almost like ice castles all around you, with these water geysers shooting up into the air. But off into the blackness of space is Saturn, with its golden rings right there in front of you, rising above the horizon. The sun off in the background, and constellations all around. I think sometimes there are many astronomical vistas on earth such as the moon rising, and we take those for granted, because they are special. Imagine how many other cool places in our solar system that could be a really neat place to visit, just for that dramatic visual effect.”