Re: Energy as ability to do work

[Chuck Britton <britton@ODIE.NCSSM.EDU>]

I certainly bring up the 'tired old' definition as the ability to do
work for the simple reason that most students have heard it. I pays
to draw on their previous exposure even IF that exposure was not
completely rigorous.

I go on to say that the definition is NOT totally correct (at LEAST)
because zero point energy can not be transformed into more useful
energy.

I prefer to define WORK (in a general sense) as the PROCESS of
transforming energy from one form into another.

I hope that my feeble efforts here at the high school level will not
do irreparable harm to very many of the students who are subjected to
my less-than-perfect presentations..


At 6:36 PM -0500 10/26/99, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
> A definition does not have to be perfect to be useful. You can say, in
> an elementary school, that "flowers and animals are living things" and
> then proceed with "what do they have in common?", etc. Yes, there
> are microorganisms, and dead flowers, etc. But this is for later.
>
> Chuck Britton wrote:
>
> > Then I guess I better get out of the teaching game entirely!  (NOT!)

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Chuck Britton                                   Education is what is left when
britton@odie.ncssm.edu                          you have forgotten everything
North Carolina School of Science & Math         you learned in school.
(919) 286-3366  x224                            Albert Einstein,        1936