Re: Energy, etc (fwd)

[Richard Tarara <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Green <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>


> I repeat:  It is just as easy and far more pedagogically profitable to say
> it correctly.  Arguments to the contrary just show an unwillingness to
> learn physics or how to teach it,  The Great Feynman notwithstanding.
>
> Jim Green

The Great Jim Green not withstanding, most introductory physics students
(particularly those who will take no other physics beyond that intro course)
will not profit from graduate thermodynamic/stat mech/general relativity
approaches to the topics of energy, heat, etc.  The 'less correct' models
usually taught and prevalent in intro text books are more easily handled by
such students and sufficiently meet the primary goals of these courses.
Those of us who teach these courses must work with the backgrounds, critical
thinking skills, math skills, (and all those misconceptions) of our
students.  Mostly we are interested in these students getting a feel for the
methods of science--particularly the modeling approach for describing
nature.  Models that work within the relevant scope of inquiry (such as
Newton's Laws) and that are intellectually available to these students are
superior (IMO) to the more sophisticated current models that are often too
obtuse for teachers, much less for our students.

P.S.  Jim, you never answered my question (a week ago) about just 'what is
your system' when you assign mass, charge, energy, spatial extent, etc. to
just properties of the system.  Of what is your system composed?

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Department of Chemistry & Physics
Notre Dame, IN 46556
219-284-4664
rtarara@saintmarys.edu

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