Re: entropy

[David Dockstader <DRDOCK00@UKCC.UKY.EDU>]

Leigh's high school physics class sounds pretty much like mine.  However,
long before high school I was given a book called The Boy Scientist.  It
had stuff in it about relativity, atomic energy, and all kinds of other
cool stuff.  As I recall,it was fairly accurate, although quite simplified.
It was a lot more interesting and a lot more fun than the stuff we did in
school.  If we are to suceed as educators I think we need to provide a mix
of things that can be pretty well understood and things that are truly mind
boggling.  Kids are interested in this stuff.  It's like sex.  We can't hide
it from them so we may as well see that they get the information from us
instead of off the street.  We may not tell them all we know (or think we
know), but we tell them enough to give them something to think about, something
to encourage their curiosity, and something they can build on.  There is
certainly no reason to go out of our way to muddy the waters, but neither is
there any reason to hold back because they may not get a perfect understanding.
Most significant gains in science have been made by folks who had less than
a perfect understanding.  In fact what drives most scientists is that their
understanding is less than perfect, and they know it.  They make new
discoveries because they are striving to improve on their imperfect
understanding.  If we want our students to be interested and successful in
science we need to give them the same opportunity.

A few weeks ago we discussed "What's different?"  One thing that may be
different, at least in degree, is the use of science and scientific analogies
in non science settings.  Students will hear about relativity, entropy, and
the uncertainty principle in English, history and social studies.  They will
even hear about them in church!  If we pretend they don't exist when we're
in Physics class we might as well stick our heads in the sand!
If we don't teach entropy how else can we prove that politicians who promise
to take us back to the '50s have their heads full of cotton hay and rags!

On Mon, 25 Nov 1996 15:34:48 -0800 Leigh Palmer said:
> > I don't know how much thermo H. S. students are typically expected
> > to study and know. It has been too long for me to remember my own
> > experience with H. S. thermo.
>
> I still remember mine. We learned about temperature and temperature
> scales (and how to convert), heat capacities, thermal expansion,
> latent heats of phase transitions, and the mechanical equivalent of
> heat. I seem to recall we also learned about wet and dry bulb
> thermometer readings. Somehow my teacher didn't think I'd be at any
> disadvantage not knowing that entropy is a measure of disorder. It
> turns out he was right. No one clued me in on the disorder thing
> until I learned about the line of spins; then it made sense!
>
> I think all those topics are suitable for high school, including
> the wet and dry bulb thermometer stuff. I remember that the radio
> used to carry "frost warnings" (I grew up in LA and there were
> orange groves where Disneyland now stands). We learned about that,
> too, and of course dew points. Students in appropriate geographical
> locations should learn why they sometimes have to scrape ice from
> their windshields when the air temperature is above freezing. There
> are far more thermal phenomena that kids ought to be told about in
> high school, while they may retain some trace of curiosity about
> them and when they are ready to learn them, than any teacher can
> possibly cover in the time allotted. Why on Earth must we include
> arcana like entropy in a high school curriculum when we can't even
> do it right?
>
> Leigh