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No Kinematics



PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu writes:
There' s no useful physics there either (cue the
dropping chins).

A story that is largely true:

A friend and I were hiking in an area with many abandoned mines. We came
across one that we foolishly considered climbing down into with no ropes
or anything ( a loooooooong time ago). We wondered how deep the hole was.
I dropped a stone and heard it hit in about 2 sec. Ignoring the time for
the sound to return my kinematics equation gave me a depth of about 64 ft.
I think that was useful information.


My students rather enjoy the success of launching projectiles off the
hallway balcony and predicting the landing point with kinematic equations.

I guess I do not agree with you, or Paul Hewitt. I do agree that there is
more fun stuff and elegant solutions in the conservation laws but I am
needed to be educated as to how that can fully replace basic kinematics.

Ken Fox
Science Department Coordinator
IB Physics Teacher
Smoky Hill High School
Aurora, CO
kfox@mail.ccsd.k12.co.us