Re: heat is a form of energy

[William Beaty <billb@ESKIMO.COM>]

On Sun, 12 Sep 1999, Leigh Palmer wrote:

> I've chopped large sections out of Bill Beaty's reply to me. I
> apologize for any perceived slight and/or distortion which may
> seem to arise from that action.

I expect this, since without it, a message-exchange would grow
geometrically in size as each sentence attracted two new ones in reply!

:)


> > When I first encountered SR back in high school, I found it to be deeply
> > abhorrant.  It implies that TIME is not solid anymore, and that
> > SIMULTAENETY is all screwy.  As a "Newtonian" thinker I simply could not
> > accept this.  It would mean that I'd have to throw out everything I
> > understood about the physical world.  But then I started to accept it, and
> > I simply came to the conclusion that Newtonian Mechanics was flawed, not
> > SR.
>
> Einstein experienced a similar disorientation when he first
> recognized this problem with simultaneity. Imagine how much more
> difficult it must have been for him!
>
> Your error here is that you attribute your misunderstanding of
> simultaneity to your schooling in Newtonian physics. That is wrong.
> The idea of simultaneity is much more primitive than that; perhaps
> it is even innate in all species that move. Newtonian ideas did not
> cause your disorientation to SR.


The original issue was something like "Does knowning Newtonian Mechanics
make SR/GR harder to learn?"  I agree that relativistic time concepts
might be difficult to understand because of childhood physics knowledge.
However, if the child then takes a Newtonian physics course and
internalizes a very clear Classical concept of time, learning SR/GR would
become WAY more difficult.

On thinking more about this, I don't know if I entirely agree that
unschooled people (or creatures) have such a solid grasp on simultanaety
and absolute time.  If they wear watches they do!  :)  But if they grow up
in a culture with weird perspectives on everyday physics ("Western"
causation versus "Eastern" correlation, for example), their ideas about
"time" might more resemble an outer-limits episode than the time-concepts
we in the USA seem to always end up internalizing.  This hearkens back to
the "Tao of Physics" stuff which claims that many modern physics concepts
are not so strange to people who practice non-Western religions.  (I'm not
certain about how the Buddhists/Shamen view relativistic tempoal
shennanigans though.  Most of those books centered on QM and Bohm-ian
"all is one" stuff, not Relativity.)


> > If we eliminate the terms "sound" and "light", and replace them with the
> > term "energy", does this improve the teaching of physics?  I'd say no.  If
> > we eliminate "heat", and we instead say that "energy" flows from a hot
> > object to a cold one, I don't see this as a way to improve students'
> > understanding.  It seems more like an attempt to be "right" in an absolute
> > sense, rather than an attempt to be "understandable."
>
> I warn my students that what I tell them is *not* right in any absolute
> sense. I merely give them my best description of Nature *pro tempore* -
> at the present time. Should I give them less?

It's best to be forever tenative regarding possible future modifications
of our understanding.  Nevertheless, is it really so useful to ban the
word "Heat"  and replace it with "Energy?"  It still seems to me very
similar to banning "Sound" and "Light", and instead saying that only the
word "Energy" can be used when propagating wave-patterns are described.


> As I've said before, many students have survived my teaching; quite a
> few are now themselves teaching. I believe I have, at least, "done no
> harm".

I suspect that you are creating thinkers.  Teach a person to fish, and she
might ignore all of your advice about the proper casting techniques!

:)


> I asked Bill:
>
> > > Do you believe there are different types of energy?
> >
> > "ARE" is a problem!  :)
> >
> > Yes, I do use a mental tool called "different types of energy"... but then
> > I see that those "types" are not real, and they simply are part of the
> > "mental tool," and have no existence apart from it.  If I use other mental
> > tools, then the whole "types of energy"  concept never arises in the first
> > place.
>
> I'll accept that answer as complete and satisfactory, and I will be
> charitable and ignore the subsequent paragraph.


Heh!   I wonder what I said...



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