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Re: What Flows?




I think this is Paul Camp, but at this point, who knows: (:-) Besides our
system has been down for a while and I am just catching up.

The argument is not over whether one should introduce flawed
ideas and then modify them over time into more nearly correct ones
but rather over how one should go about introducing correct (or
nearly correct) ideas. If I have to start with the best physics I
know, then I would have to start my mechanics class on quantum theory
and that would be silly. Instead, I have to build outward based on
the flawed ideas that _the students bring with them_. To do that, I
have to present them with a series of situations in which those
preconceptions _fail_ and then ask the _student_ to resolve that
failure.

Spoken like a true constructionist. BUT note that the cartoons these
students are familiar with condones the idea of impetus. Do you want to
start their study of mechanics *there* and progress slowly to F=ma??? How
far back into the pre-dark-ages does one go tho start?? How much time does
one have for mythological physics?? In the college setting, there is not
enough time even for Serway as it is.

However, in the case of "heat flows", it is not the students which pose the
principle concern, *it is the instructors*!!! Sure if one has the time for
Socratic progression throughout the term, start with "fire, water, earth,
and air". But if the *instructor* does not understand the correct nature of
"heat" (and it seems not), the students will never learn. They will just
flounder around in mythology babbling about "heat flowing" --- and in the
following year they will be teaching others the same mythology.

Jim.Green@Snow.edu
Heat is not energy.
Heat does not flow.
Heat is work!!!!