Re: understand understanding, simple explanations, etc.

["Dewey Dykstra, Jr." <dykstrad@bsumail.idbsu.edu>]

> > The references to quantum mechanics and displacement currents in a
> > discussion which started with an appeal as to how to explain something to
> > 11 year olds astounds me.
>
> Then your strategy is simple. You don't try to explain a physical
> concept to someone unready to appreciate the explanation. That
> means you cannot explain concepts that require mathematics for
> their explanation to mathematically unprepared people. Now you
> understand the ultimate fulitlity of much of what is misrepresented
> as "conceptual physics".
>
> QED
>
> Leigh

Maybe the answer is not in giving explanations to others....

Dewey

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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr.                   Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics                    Dept:  (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418        Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University                  dykstrad@bsumail.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive                   Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570                       novice piper

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
"Every [person's] world picture is and always remains a construct
of [their] mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
--E. Schrodinger in Mind and Matter, 1958.
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe."  --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
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