Re: physics before math????

[Leigh Palmer <palmer@SFU.CA>]

> What if physics provides a "need" for the math? What if math has a greater
> clarity for students who see application in physics? One possibility is that
> algebra and physics concurrently taken may be symbiotic. Students could
> emerge both knowing and understanding math and physics more deeply. I do
> think that the effort is worth investigation.

I think a mathematician might disagree with you. A better example in
my view would be to combine the teaching of Euclidean geometry with
surveying. The loss of geometry from the core curriculum of British
Columbia schools was the greatest retrograde intellectual decision
ever taken by our burocrats. Euclidean geometry is true mathematics;
the idea of proof is introduced in a way which can be tested tangibly
by doing plane surveying, and if this is done ambitiously enough the
dpearture from the geometry of the plane represented by Earth's
curvature can even be detected.. If this all seems too old fashioned,
a GPS can be introduced, and some geography can be integrated.

Understanding of and a liking for the subject of plane geometry used
to be my best single predictor of talent - in prospective physicists!
I miss it very much.

Leigh