From: "John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>
|. . .
| Do you also (in the name of consistency) forbid speaking of
| gravitational forces?
|
| From a modern-physics point of view, gravity and centrifugity
| are profoundly analogous.
Repeating, I am teaching NEWTONIAN mechanics, whose greatest triumph was the
quantitative analysis of the gravitational force. Included as part of the
teaching of Newtonian mechanics are an appreciation of its historical
position, its limitations as an early model, and anticipatory glimpses of
its successors. But I don't think we should teach modern physics as if GR
and QM sprang from nothing yesterday. We owe it to our students and to
Newton, Lagrange, Euler, et al to give the Newtonian model a full hearing on
its own merits and limitations. This is how our race came to GR and QM;
give modern students a chance at the same fulfilling experience.