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... better but lazier students who were firmly convinced that since F =
ma, they could describe force as the product of mass and acceleration and
did so on a test.
Question: Describe what a force is.
Answer: mass times acceleration.
My argument was [...]
F and ma were two different concepts.
that equality did not imply identity,
And, yes, (cringe) I argued that force causes acceleration.
My students would argue back that the symbol = means *the same*, and we
would go around and around.
Perhaps after the recent discussion I might be more inclined to say that
force is *associated with* acceleration of a mass, but surely no one has
said or is thinking that they are conceptually identical. Right?