Liam B.

Learning with Liam

How we’ll work together

“I don't want you to memorize F = ma — I want you to feel the engine push you into the seat.”

Every physics problem is a short story about where the energy and momentum go, so we draw the picture first and reach for the formula last. Once the diagram is right, the algebra is just bookkeeping, and bookkeeping never scared anybody.

A little background

Liam’s story

Liam grew up in Pittsburgh's Brookline neighborhood, where his dad worked maintenance at the Allegheny Observatory and would sneak him in after closing to look through the 30-inch Thaw refractor. He nearly washed out of Michigan's intro mechanics sequence — a 61 on his first Physics 140 midterm — until a TA made him draw every free-body diagram before touching an equation. He finished that term with the top score on the final and spent the next three summers in Michigan's high-power rocketry club, certifying Level 2 on a homebuilt I-motor bird that hit 4,300 feet over a soy field outside Ann Arbor. He still runs a backyard astrophotography rig in the dark-sky pockets north of the city, stacking 200 sub-exposures to pull the Pinwheel Galaxy out of light-polluted skies. He's logged 4,000+ tutoring hours and keeps a whiteboard photo of every student's first correct free-body diagram.