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Re: [Phys-l] teaching energy




----- Original Message ----- From: "Rauber, Joel" <Joel.Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>
To: "Forum for Physics Educators" <phys-l@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] teaching energy


The trouble I'm having is that IMO, the field concept is one of the more
abstract things one comes across in beginning physics. My students have
more trouble with fields than they do with "action-at-a-distance". If
one is using an idea of "locating energy" I find it hard to believe that
locating it in the field is any more concrete than locating it in the
interaction between two objects. But perhaps that is just me.

No, I agree with you that it is problematic, but it is far superior to the previous claim that the energy of a lifted object was stored in the lifted object! A beginning student can accept that a field (field lines) could be stretched, compressed, etc like a spring. I think that students are less bothered by the idea of fields now (as a result of Modeling, for example) than they were in my day (sixties).