I have to ask. What makes a problem intrinsically interesting?
One must somehow care about the answer, or the answer must
must be necessary to the completion of some task. The neat
problem we had a couple of weeks ago about the maximum
compression possible in an ideal gas under a certain set
of circumstances is an intrisically interesting problem. I
have showed it to two colleagues since, and they were
interested.
Contrary to common myth, there are stupid questions. I can
give numerous examples, and I've asked some myself. I think
this is a stupid problem. I gave a problem on my last exam in
Physics 101 which can easily be extended to cover the same
material intended here, but which is more interesting. See http://www.sfu.ca/physics/ugrad/courses/1999-3/p101/P101E2.pdf
problem #2(e). One need merely add "What is the acceleration
of the eraser at that time?
Leigh
(There is one error in another solution in this set. I'm
still waiting for the first of 300 students to point it out.)