"Save $$$ - The deadline for Early-Bird Preregistration for the 2000
Summer Meeting in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, is Friday, May
26...(TODAY!!) ..... Save time and postage by submitting
electronically through the web at
<http://www.aapt.org/meetings/sum00/mainsum00.html>."
And while you're saving money, time, and postage consider signing up
for some of the workshops. For example, for those who might wish to
experience the REAL Socratic Method(1) first hand, Rudy Sirochman and
I will be presenting an SDI Lab workshop.(2) As stated in the
abstract:
"After a brief introduction, participants will work through portions
of SDI Lab #2 "Newton's Second Law," just as if they were students.
The experiments will involve motions of pendulum bobs, falling
bodies, and kids in accelerating trucks."
Why bother with such boring stuff in an age of geons, black holes,
and quantum foam?(3)
The pendulum problem is one that, according to Fred Reif,(4) has
baffled physics professors at Berkeley (of course it poses no problem
for their counterparts at Caltech, Cambridge, Harvard, or Indiana
University).
The falling body experiments demonstrate that most students do not
understand the physics of falling bodies even though they may be able
to crank through algorithmic falling-body problems and even answer
relevant FCI questions correctly. (See, e.g., ref. 5.)
The "pinning force" in the accelerating truck is analogous to the
"centrifugal force" in circular motion. As most instructors are
painfully aware, these "forces" are can pose vast confusion for
introductory course students (see, e.g., ref. 6), as will be shown in
a short videotape of an actual SDI lab.
Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<rrhake@earthlink.net>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>
REFERENCES
1. G. Vlastos, "Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher," (Cornell
Univ. Press, 1991), esp. Chap. 2, "Socrates contra Socrates in
Plato"; G. Vlastos, "Socratic Studies," (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1994).
2. R.R. Hake and R. Sirochman, "W20: Socratic Dialogue Inducing
Laboratories," (8:30am - 12:30pm, Sunday July 30) AAPT Announcer
30(1), 68 (2000)
3. J.A. Wheeler (with K. Ford), "Geons, Black Holes, and Quantum
Foam" (Norton, 1998).
4. F. Reif, "Scientific approaches to science education," Physics
Today, 11/86, p. 48-54.
5. W.J. Leonard, W.J. Gerace, J.P. Mestre, and R.J. Dufresne.
"Multiple-Choice Questions: Searching for Some Answers," AAPT
Announcer 29(4), 99 (1999).
6. A.B. Arons, "A Guide To Introductory Physics Teaching" (Wiley,
1990), p. 78-79.