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Re: Stop using calories?

Herb says:

The trouble with using the calorie (or the bigger Calorie) as a unit, not
only adds unnecessary terms for the beginning physics students
to learn, but it tends to reinforce the discredited concept that heat
is an invisible substance (caloric) that can be added or removed
from matter.


How does it do that? I doubt many intro students will have heard of
'caloric' so that they can make the word association. And if they have
heard of it, it was probably in the context of hearing that the concept was
wrong.

--
--James McLean
jmclean@chem.ucsd.edu
post doc
UC San Diego, Chemistry