Re: Old guitar strings--actually Leigh's comments

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@sfu.ca>]

Rick Tarara was annoyed at me for condemning the practice of teaching
falsehoods, even when they are justified by theory. When I said (quote
below) that physicists are usually ignorant of these real world
oddiyies I meant it. *I* was unaware of the bullet business until John
Mallinckrodt made me question it, which I did. I now know something I
didn't know before, which gives John a bit of well deserved
satisfaction. I get my jollies out of perforating the pomposities of
pretentious physicists*, even if I have to burst my own balloon
occasionally.

Leigh

*Does it count 4 for alliteration if I use "physicist"?

> > Physicists are usually ignorant of such real world oddities as these.
> > That is the kind of ignorance which leads to interactions that annoy the
> > man in the street (who may be knowledgeable in some art or craft). An
> > example came up recently when a teacher overreached his competence in
> > suggesting that bullets dropped vertically and fired horizontally fall
> > at the same rate. People with knowledge of small arms ballistics (many
> > of whom never take standard physics courses) know that is untrue. The
> > disease even manifests itself more dramatically when physicists try to
> > put other fields, some of which are doing nicely already, on a "proper
> > scientific" foundation. An example is the introduction of "scientific
> > pitch" based on a middle C frequency of 256 Hz to make calculations
> > easier for even tone-deaf physicists!
> >
> > Leigh