A more general comment, related to the "Giancoli 5th" discussion:
Many high schools offer an AP or other math-based course as a FIRST
high-school course in physics. This is a mistake, especially for future
scientists and engineers. These students should first take, in 10th or
11th grade, a year-long conceptual course, and perhaps go on to an AP
course in 12th grade. By "conceptual physics," I mean a course with very
little or, preferably, no algebra--the kind of course that can be taken
equally well and in fact enthusiastically by students who are not
college-bound.
My main reasons:
1. Many studies show that science students are not learning the
concepts from their introductory math-based courses. They can work the
problems, but they still don't understand Newton's laws! The concepts need
to be taught first, then the technicalities.
2. Following a good conceptual course, future scientists and
engineers can go on to an AP course and really get something useful and
lasting out of it. And if they don't go on to the AP course, very little
is lost because this kind of course is offered on every college campus.
3. Poor high school physics enrollments, and a generally declining
physics profession, can be invigorated by a broad, conceptual, introductory
course that is appealing and relevant to ALL students--not just that very
small fraction of high school students who will go on to be scientists or
engineers. Future scientists need to be included in that course. I'll bet
that, if offered at the 10th or 11th grade level, 12-grade AP enrollments
would increase because of the increased number of students who would be
enthusiastic and knowledgeable about physics.
4. I feel certain that enrollments of physics majors on college
campuses would go up. I can testify that this kind of course awakens, in
many students, lots of enthusiasm about the dreaded topic "physics." From
my conceptual course on this campus, several non-science majors (business,
music, etc.) have switched to a physics major. This effect would be much
more pronounced if conceptual courses were national, and at the high school
instead of college level.
5. Most importantly of all, the world needs general, conceptual,
physics knowledge! Physics-related social topics such as global warming
and energy resources, along with philosophical/cultural topics such as "how
do we know" (scientific methodology), the origin and evolution of the
universe, are we alone in the universe, and the confrontation between
quantum theory and the mechanical universe, are crucial to our success, and
even our survival, as a species.
- Art Hobson