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Re: momentum before force





Paul: as you say, the idea of momentum has an ancient history in which is
co-evolved with the idea of force. I'm looking for a way to short-circuit
that evolution by motivating momentum *without* the idea of force ---
purely so that only one new concept needs to be introduced at a time.

--
--James McLean

Then, as you say, conservation of momentum is the way to go. Motivate
it by study of collisions, looking for things that don't change.
Later, you can get to force by looking at how they _do_ change for
individual particles but not necessarily for groups of particles.

I wonder if you are going to run into pedagogical road blocks,
though. The idea of quantities distributed amongst a variety of
particles which conspire to keep those quantities constant was
resisted for some time during the development of classical mechanics.
Lagrange was so proud of the idea that he wrote about it at great
length in the beginning of the Mechanique Analytique.

Paul J. Camp "The Beauty of the Universe
Assistant Professor of Physics consists not only of unity
Coastal Carolina University in variety but also of
Conway, SC 29526 variety in unity.
pjcamp@csd1.coastal.edu --Umberto Eco
pjcamp@worldnet.att.org The Name of the Rose
(803)349-2227
fax: (803)349-2926