I don't like the idea of changing the term for "heat" in
the thermodynamic vocabulary to "heating". I don't see the
latter term as parallel to "work", although it would be a
parallel to "working", as in "cold working" a bar of metal.
I wouldn't favor changing both terms, either.
Changes in the scientific nomenclature have the undesirable
effect of rendering older scientific works archaic. This is
the primary reason I like the literature and conventions of
astronomy. We may continue to use cgs and special measures
like parsecs, and we may retain arcane systems like the
stellar magnitude scale, but it is comforting to know that,
for instance, the latter scheme is useful in more easily
interpreting literature that is thousands of years old!
Learning the conventional rigorous meanings of the terms
"work" and "heat" is surely not a sufficiently difficult
task that students must be protected from it. It is through
rigor and clear definition that they attain enlightenment!
I agree with both John Denker and Jim Green (!) in thinking
that focusing on energy transfers is a bad thing, but it is
a conventional concept that, in a thermodynamic context,
does little violence to physical interpretation and problem
solving. It has the aura of respectability, and it is only
when one takes a metaphysical approach to physics* that one
must recognize the insubstantial abstract nature of energy.
Leigh
*I strongly advocate some consideration of the metaphysical
by physics students.