My humble advice to teachers:
Please do NOT take away from this discussion (and teach) the idea that the
term "halfway" can be ascribed to the geometric mean of two quantities. IMHO
this would do extreme violence to any, however intuitively stretched,
legitimate meaning of the concept "halfway". The arithmetic mean of two
quantities IS the halfway point between these quantities. The geometric
mean is just the geometric mean - it has its uses, but it is NOT the halfway
point. Let us not return our language to BABEL.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Sciamanda
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2015 8:55 AM
To: PHYS-L
Subject: [Phys-L] Halfway point ???
Wimp.com posted this banner, with no explanation ==>
Today's Fun Fact: An average dust particle is the halfway point
between the size of the Earth and the size of a proton.
Can anyone discern a “thought process” which makes this statement meaningful
?
Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
treborsci@verizon.net
www.sciamanda.com
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Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
treborsci@verizon.net
www.sciamanda.com