Re: [Phys-l] Glencoe physics: music

[Herb Gottlieb <herbgottlieb@juno.com>]

Congratulations, Tim.
It's about time that someone had the guts to come out 
with your great analysis of "simplifications" in physics. 
Perhaps this is even more true in Biology, psychology,
geology, and the other sciences.

Herb


On Thu, 9 Mar 2006 16:45:26 -0600 "Folkerts, Timothy J"
<FolkertsT@bartonccc.edu> writes:
> Let me play devil's advocate.  
>
> > Small constructive suggestion:  When writing a textbook, don't 
> > just rely on beautiful "artist's conception" diagrams;  put in 
> > some real data.
>   
> So real-world data should be the gold standard and we should 
> challenge
> any author who glosses over the way things truly behave and instead 
> uses
> overly simplified laws. 
>
> This begs the question - what is "over-simplified" and what is 
> "properly
> simplified?"
>
> > 1) How are you going to grade a test when the student says 
> >  a clarinet puts out even harmonics?  Mark it wrong??
>
> How would you grade a test when a student says objects fall with a
> constant acceleration g = 9.8 m/s^2 in the -y direction?  
>
> The instructor and the text have reiterated this statement, but ...
> * Real data of falling objects will show air resistance.
> * The value of g DOES change with elevation.
> * Coriolis effect will cause the object to veer to the side
> * As the object gains speed, relativistic effects would start to 
> show
> up.
>
>
> >   a) If you think this is an important topic, why are we saying
> >    wrong things about something so important?
> >   b) If you think this is not an important topic, why are we
> >    covering it at all?
>
> Couldn't the same be said for much of physics - especially from the
> perspective of non-physics & non-engineering majors.  
>
> They hear us say "friction isn't really constant, but we'll assume 
> it
> is" or "this assumes the pulley has no mass" or "we treat the light 
> as
> bending once at the center of the lens".  I could argue that just 
> about
> everything taught in 1st year physics is wrong at one level or 
> another.
>
> If friction and pulleys and lenses and the rest of it are important, 
> why
> teach an oversimplification?  If they aren't important, why cover 
> them?
>
> The Devil's Advocate, 
> Tim F ;-)
>
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