Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: emergency egress



Jim,

Can you at least refer new subscribers to the relevant post in the archives?

I've only been a subscriber for a couple of years - I'm still not clear on
how to write it more "correctly." I know I can't use "dump" or "transfer".
Can I use "transform"? If so, how?

-- You can't dump the energy into the people (they would get too hot).
-- You can't dump the energy into the slide (it would get too hot).
-- You can't make the slide conduct heat to the outside, since part of
its job is to carry people past a region of flames.....

----------------------------------------------------------
| Robert Cohen Department of Physics |
| East Stroudsburg University |
| rcohen@po-box.esu.edu East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/ (570) 422-3428 |
----------------------------------------------------------

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Green [mailto:JMGreen@SISNA.COM]
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 3:46 PM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: emergency egress



Well, Ludwik, I guess that you have established my point: We all
"understand' the garbaged physics -- and teach it -- That
is the pity.

Jim,

Please take a stab at Ludwik's suggestion. I'd be interested
to read how you
phrase it.

-Tim

Well, Tim, if I believed that anyone really wanted to improve his/her
teaching re the treatment of "energy", we could enter into
this discussion
-- privately -- as a few have done in the past. I have helped some
re-write their labs in fact.

But I currently believe that after all Leigh Palmer, and I,
and some others
have said over the past many months, those who want to improve in this
regard have already done so. Others just want to generate excuses to
continue teaching the way they always have. Some may even
say "Well, I
know it is incorrect, but I don't want to change -- It is just too
hard! -- I don't get paid enough!"

Any one of us could say it correctly (it is not difficult),
we just don't
want to.

I well understand why there is this problem: Someone in the
distant past
talked about "energy" as a substantive fluid ie as "stuff" --
maybe Young
himself -- Others used the same language -- Teachers of
physics adopted the
language -- Their students adopted that language -- They
became teachers
and worse, authors -- Their students read those texts and
became teachers
-- Their students became teachers -- and by and by we have
come to this
garbaged mess.

And most just don't want to change -- Hell it was good enough
for Young, it
should be good enough for me -- and my unaware students --
after all what
do they know.


Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen