Math teachers, a great many of them that is, do not often have students deal
with units. Instead, the math teacher tends to deal with "pure numbers".
They rarely deal with actual measurements. They rarely use significant
figures
and use dimensional analyst on very rare occasions. In physics, we deal with
measurements rather than pure numbers and have a quite different philosophy
about the use of mathematics. We do mathematical operations on measured
values
and obtain results which have, beyond their numerical value, real meaning.
Math teachers think in terms of apples and oranges; science teachers thing in
terms of meters per second or newton meters or grams per cubic centimeter and
so on. All very real, very measurable quantities.
I try to get together with the pre-calc and the calculus teachers every few
months so we can discuss common topics that we both deal with in our
respective
curriculum. I let them feed me their agenda and try to get some of mine
across. It's been useful. We now coordinate our treatment of vectors,
trigonometry, and motion problems.
Glenn Knapp
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Physics Kahuna
Kahuna Physics Institute - on the flapping edge of physics research.
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Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
<html><div>Math teachers, a great many of them that is, do not often have
students deal with units. Instead, the math teacher tends to deal
with "pure numbers". They rarely deal with actual
measurements. They rarely use significant figures and use
dimensional analyst on very rare occasions. In physics, we
deal with measurements rather than pure numbers and have a quite
different philosophy about the use of mathematics. We do
mathematical operations on measured values and obtain results which have,
beyond their numerical value, real meaning. Math teachers think in
terms of apples and oranges; science teachers thing in terms of meters
per second or newton meters or grams per cubic centimeter and so
on. All very real, very measurable quantities.</div>
<br>
<div>I try to get together with the pre-calc and the calculus teachers
every few months so we can discuss common topics that we both deal with
in our respective curriculum. I let them feed me their agenda and
try to get some of mine across. It's been useful. We now
coordinate our treatment of vectors, trigonometry, and motion
problems.</div>
<br>
Glenn Knapp
<br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4>-----------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</font><font size=3>Physics Kahuna<br>
Kahuna Physics Institute - on the flapping edge of physics research.
</font></html>