Re: [Phys-l] terminology

[ludwik kowalski <kowalskil@mail.montclair.edu>]

On Dec 4, 2008, at 11:58 AM, John Clement wrote:

> The power misusage is essentially a problem with common usage.   
> People tend
> to naturally equate energy and power.  Concrete operational thinkers  
> (30+ of
> the population) actually have sever difficulty with understanding the
> distinction.  Formal operational thinkers (<20% of HS graduates)  
> have no
> problems with it.
>
> I remember my children seeing a "magic schoolbus" episode in which  
> they
> explicitly said power was the amount of energy.  This was thrown in  
> at the
> end of an otherwise fairly accurate episode.

In my classes, I used to say that confusing energy with power (kWh  
with kW) is like confusing distance with speed. The slogan "save the  
kW" should be criticized.

Ludwik Kowalski, a retired physics teacher
5 Horizon Road, Apt. 2702, Fort Lee, NJ, 07024, USA
Also an amateur journalist at http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/cf/