Re: R: Scientific method was physical pendulums/ an opportunity

[Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

> Hi Paolo-
>         You ask:
> *************************************************************
> Forgive me, but I'm not sure I understand. Do you mean that
> students coming
> from high school are unable to use algebra and solve
>     m a = m g
> and the like symbolically? Please take no offence from my
> question, just
> laugh at my poor understanding of English language.
>
> Paolo Cavallo - Italy

The sad fact is that many of our students in introductory physics, more so
the 1-semester physics for poets class than the calculus based course, (the
algebra based course lying in the middle) can't do the symbolic algebra.  I
remember a talk from Cliff Swartz, where he was talking about this sad fact
and mentioned that is one of the reasons the Navy taught three forms of ohms
law

a) V = I R

b) I = V / R

c) R = V / I

It is a sad and depressing fact.  BTW I also notice the same phenomena Jack
mentions below.

Joel Rauber

> **********************
>         I mean that they will not use algebra to set up the
> problem.  As
> a result, they never see
>         ma =mg.
>         Instead of setting up the problem they immediately begin
> calculating
> numbers.  Their procedure is:
>         1.  calculate the value of mg.
>         2.  set the calculated value equal to ma.
>         3.  divide the calculated value by m.
>         4.  say, "Eureka, I have found a!"
>                                 Regards,
>                                         Jack
>
>
>         "I scored the next great triumph for science myself,
> to wit, how the milk gets into the cow.  Both of us
> had marveled over that mystery a long time.  We had
> followed the cows around for years - that is, in the
> daytime - but had never caught them drinking fluid of
> that color."
>                 Mark Twain, Extract from Eve's
>                 Autobiography