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Brahe -> Kepler -> Newton 'factoids'



On 13 Jun 1998 06:33:27 Ed Eckel <edeckel@erols.com> wrote:

I am interested in seeing a development of this 'history' into a unit
for a current classroom ... Understanding Brahe's observations might
be used to motivate kinematics, computer modeling of the data might
make a nice introduction to developing alternate representations ...

I suppose that the representation will be in terms if angles. Turning
cellestial sphere angles into relative distances will take you to ancient
Greeks (Hipparcus, Aristarcus, ?) I like your project (of starting with
what we see on the sky and turning it into what we think).

Familiarity with geometry will be at least as important as with algebra.

... in a first course with no more than an Algebra 2 background ...

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Physical reality does not have to agree with our ideas. But in physics
our ideas must agree with that reality. Otherwise it is not physics.

Ludwik Kowalski kowalskiL@alpha.montclair.edu, MS at MSU, New Jersey
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