Re: Question about light and heat

[Larry Smith <larry.smith@SNOW.EDU>]

At 10:33 PM -0500 5/1/02, John Clement wrote:
> Right is a moral judgement, and when there is not universal agreement on
> what a term means or how it is to be used it is not proper to make such a
> judgement.  Since we can not agree to a universal definition of the word
> weight, then we will not be able to agree to a definition of the word heat.
> From the point of view of instructing students we need to start where the
> students are, and not where we would like them to be.  This may mean using
> words we consider imprecise as the noun heat or heat energy.  As the
> concepts develop they can be weaned from this usage to more precise terms.

While John's comments are correct as far as they go they give the defeatist
impression that we can never achieve clear and uniform pedagogy.  And we
probably can't as long as we think we can't.  But I, for one, think the day
will come when physics teachers will look back on our quaint time as the
era when thermo was kinda understood by a few but the pedagogical reform
hadn't yet happened that allowed all reasonably intelligent people to
understand it.

Some day all physics teachers will talk about heat the same way (maybe Jim
Green's way!, only as a verb).  Some day all physics teachers will agree on
the definition of weight and little gee.  Some day all physics teachers
will agree on whether forces _cause_ accelerations.  Some day physicists
will have developed the understanding and physics teachers will have
developed the language to teach what light is.  Some day all physics
teachers will agree on whether energy can flow.

Students will understand physics better because we will have understood it
better and we will have learned to use clear and universally accepted
terminology and definitions.  Maybe not in my lifetime or yours, but I'd
say within the next 100 years.  I hope we're not consciously delaying that
utopia.  Of course, by then there will be new physics that the teachers
will struggle to communicate, but at least the old stuff (our stuff) should
be down pat.

I might be wrong, but I'm an optimist.

Larry