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Re: reifying energy



At 07:47 09 05 2002 , the following was received:
We can twist ourselves into complex knots trying to avoid reifying energy
and in the process confuse students even more than we now do. In
INTRODUCTORY physics courses, especially those that are the ONLY physics
course a student will take, reifying is NOT a bad way to go! We do buy
energy from the power company.

Well, Rick, if an intro course is the only exposure to physics the student
will ever have and no further use will be made of the concepts, then they
should not be taking the class -- if we are talking about college, they
should not be in college - they would be wasting their time there.

On the other hand if the students are going on to be grammar school
teachers for example or maybe TV spokes people or dentists, don't they
deserve to be educated correctly? If not, the teachers would go on to
miseducate their students and the spiral would continue. Etc etc
etc. Look what we are dealing with now -- Bill Nye the Science Guy for
heaven's sake. Wouldn't it have ben better to teach this fellow correct
science so he could propagate some thing other than comic book physics?

Jim Green
mailto:JMGreen@sisna.com
http://users.sisna.com/jmgreen