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Re: No Kinematics



From: SSHS KPHOX <kphox@MAIL.CCSD.K12.CO.US>

PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu writes:
There' s no useful physics there either (cue the
dropping chins).

A story that is largely true:

A friend and I were hiking in an area with many abandoned mines. We came
across one that we foolishly considered climbing down into with no ropes
or anything ( a loooooooong time ago). We wondered how deep the hole was.
I dropped a stone and heard it hit in about 2 sec. Ignoring the time for
the sound to return my kinematics equation gave me a depth of about 64 ft.
I think that was useful information.


I guess I do not agree with you, or Paul Hewitt. I do agree that there is
more fun stuff and elegant solutions in the conservation laws but I am
needed to be educated as to how that can fully replace basic kinematics.

Careful! That's not what I said. It's the *approach* to kinematics that can be improved. The traditional textbook kinematics can be improved by showing how that approach is merely a special case of F=dp/dt. Students need to see the big picture before they see a limited view.


Cheers,
Joe Heafner - Instructional Astronomy and Physics
Home Page http://users.vnet.net/heafnerj/index.html
I'll never be able to afford a Lexus, but I do have a Mac. Same thing.
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