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Re: macroscopic vs microscopic degrees of freedom



I don't really want to pick on any one argument going on here whether it is
about work, heat, centripetal force, etc., but rather I am uneasy about the
apparent 'confusion' about what to teach and how. I really don't know if
the variety in approaches and definitions is good, bad, or indifferent. I
have the same concern over the rush to change the pedagogy through group
work, discovery, construction, etc., etc. since I can't see that anyone has
a reasonable idea of the ultimate outcome of such changes--other than
improved scores on the FCI


Bob's note about history teachers may not really apply. Students (at least
serious ones) expect history to be an interpretive study. Not so with
science. Now that may be wrong and it is good for students to see that
physics is not monolithic in its instruction, but with so many students
having the attitude that physics is inaccessible to them, I just don't know.
I'm sure there are limits to which we can 'do our own thing' but as to just
where those limits are, I remain unsure and uncomfortable.

Rick


----- Original Message -----
From: John Mallinckrodt <ajmallinckro@CSUPOMONA.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 31, 1999 1:30 PM
Subject: Re: macroscopic vs microscopic degrees of freedom


On Sun, 31 Oct 1999, Rick Tarara wrote:


I repeat my earlier stated concerns. While these attitudes are
certainly OK
amongst practicing Physicists, are they really OK amongst teachers of
Physics? Do we make physics even more inaccessible to students if every
instructor has his/her own set of pet definitions and unique curricula
such
that REAL conflicts (for the student) occur when moving from one course
to
the next?

Rick,

I'm not sure whose attitude you are aiming these remarks at, perhaps both
of ours. I also don't really know whether Joule "called the long term
result 'heat'" or not. I don't care and I think you are saying that you
don't either. I think you *are* saying that all that matters is that we
present a unified (and hopefully, but perhaps less importantly (?),
coherent) view to introductory students. I would not disagree very much.
Furthermore, I think that the modern perspective of virtually all
textbooks is that the short and long term result in the Joule experiment
is increased internal energy, not heat.

John Mallinckrodt mailto:ajm@csupomona.edu
Cal Poly Pomona http://www.csupomona.edu/~ajm