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Re: [Phys-l] rich context luncheon meat



Not a bad try, but I prefer a famous logician's (from memory)
He: "You don't clean a watch with butter."

She: "But it was the best of butter."

Regards,
Jackl
"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley




On Fri, 28 Jan 2011, John Denker wrote:

Simplicio: You know, last night my daughter was arrested for
robbing the liquor store again. At least this time she was
wearing her fishnet stockings. You know how I hate it when
she leaves the house without any stockings.

Sagredo: I see you are grading on a curve.

Simplico: Oh, yes. Who knows, maybe next time she will wear
even more, maybe pants or a skirt or something.


On 01/28/2011 05:53 AM, Dr. Richard Tarara wrote:

... the Heller problems are, IMO, a clear step up from back
of book problems.

I see you are grading on a curve.

IMHO you have two problems:
a) The Heller problems are an embarrassment.
b) If the textbook is worse, that doesn't solve problem (a).

Extraneous information, more complex setups, more info
that must be inferred are part of this set.

In the examples I saw, the "extraneous information" was utterly
superficial and transparent ... as transparent as fishnet.
-- The problem mentioned a "secret mission" but gave no details.
Any 3rd-grader would know that the "secrecy" of the mission
did not have any relevance to the required rate/time/distance
calculation.
-- The problem mentioned submarines but gave no details. This
is equally superficial and transparent.
-- The problem mentioned the ocean but gave no details. Again,
utterly superficial and transparent.

In contrast, if the exercise had said that the submarines had a
top speed of 20 knots on the surface and 30 knots submerged, then
I would count that as nontrivial extraneous information. I'm not
saying that by itself would transform this example into a good
example, but at least then we would have a common understanding
of what "extraneous information" means.

True 'real world' problems are the ultimate goal,

Agreed.

Yesterday the Heller problems were called real-world problems. Today
there is some recognition that they are not "true" real-world problems.
That's a clear step up in the right direction.
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