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Re: [Phys-l] Practical Physics



Just to underline the importance of this general topic:

From time to time I ask ordinary folks (non-physicists) about
their high-school physics class.
-- What did it cover?
-- What do you *wish* it had covered?

Very often I hear that the course laid a lot of groundwork
but never did anything with it.

One specific category that comes up again and again has to do
with cars, especially emergency handling, emergency stopping
distances, swerving versus braking straight-ahead, et cetera.

It seems to me that such topics should be well within the scope
of any high-school physics course.

The opportunity here is even bigger than you might think, because
the high-school driver's-ed course is almost certainly teaching
the wrong answer to some of these important questions. For an
example of what I mean by that, see
http://www.av8n.com/physics/car-stopping.htm

========================================

FWIW the complaint that "the course laid a lot of groundwork
but never did anything with it" is not unique to physics. I
hear the same complaint about high-school math. It is beyond
common, it is trite to observe that people remember the terms
"permutations and combinations" but never had the slightest
idea what either of them was good for.