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Energy analogies

I like the Energy <==> $$$$ analogy.

We can even fold Entropy into it (sort of) by noting that $$$$
transactions are accompanied by fees, commissions, interest etc. that
results in a general decrease in the amount of $$$ available to the
consumer.

So I s'pose banks and brokers are non-conservative, lossy institutions?



At 7:12 PM -0400 on 10/14/01, John S. Denker wrote

General pedagogical point: I get a lot of mileage out of the analogy:
energy <==> money
It's not a perfect analogy, since energy is much more strictly conserved
than money is -- but my students typically have a reasonable intuition
about monetary transactions as a zero-sum game. This gives me a starting
point. As the saying goes, learning proceeds from the known to the unknown.

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