Exactly. Words that have very specifc technical definitions in the c=
ontext of physics include mass, weight, heat, temperature, and energy=
, among others. "Blue" is not, and as far as I know, never has been =
a technical term in physics, because unlike the others, it's not quan=
titative. One cannot measure "blueness" and assign a number to the p=
roperty of "blue." The proper technical term is "electromagnetic rad=
iation with a wavelength of 480 +/- 15 nm." Since this is a mouthfu=
l, physicists use the approximate alternate name, "blue," for the qua=
litative appearance to the eye of this region of the specrum. Which,=
by the way, is what (nearly) everybody else calls it.
The actual numbers depend on what wavelength range looks blue to you.
Vickie Frohne
-----Original Message-----
=46rom: Forum for Physics Educators on behalf of John Denker
Sent: Fri 1/28/2005 10:24 PM
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU
Subject: overloaded terms (was: color)
=20
Consider the following terms:
-- elastic
-- heat work energy power acceleration force tension field
-- group ring field algebra ideal
-- likelihood marginal
-- red green blue cyan
There are huuuge numbers of words where the technical meaning
differs substantially from the streetcorner meaning.
We can agree that this overloading comes at a cost: it causes
practical problems including pedagogical problems ... but we
are nowhere near having a feasible alternative, so we pay
the cost and move on.
Science (including science teaching) as we know it would be
seriously disrupted if we adopted the attitude that 'elastic'
means whatever "most people" take it to mean. Ditto for
the other words on the list.
Correct usage is, of course, context dependent. When I'm in
the sewing store, I don't ask for cyan cloth, even if that's
what I want -- instead I ask for "blue", for the simple reason
that I want the clerk to understand me. But in other contexts,
such as teaching the science and engineering of color, we
ought to use the technical terms.
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