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Re: little "g"--my summary



As one of the responses indicated, the problem arises because we teach about
acceleration and use free fall as an example before we teach anything about
force.
Maybe we are trying to teach acceleration too early. It seems pretty brutal
to try to teach (to students just beginning to study calculus) a concept which
represents a continuous change in a quantity which is itself a continuous
change in something (did that sound complicated? I hope so!). I am convinced
that most of the fear and loathing students feel for physics results from
their failure to understand acceleration at the beginning of the course.
Martha Takats
Physics Department
Ursinus College
Collegeville, PA 19426
mtakats@acad.ursinus.edu