Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: [Phys-l] EM, is it energy




On Nov 30, 2007, at 1:40 PM, John Denker wrote:

There is an abstract notion of conservative flow that
is /approximately/ realized by flowing water and very
very /precisely/ realized by energy. As previously
explained, we don't say the flow of water "is" the
flow of energy, but certainly the flow of water is
_like_ the flow of energy. No analogy is perfect,
but this analogy has tremendous conceptual and
pedagogical power.


Actually, I think we only learn new concepts by approximate
similarities or analogy. I think a perfect analogy would be a
tautology, and I see NO pedagogical power in tautology;
therefore learning by analogy may be inescapable :^)

Getting excited about the fact that analogies aren't identical
seems a waste of time to me. Knowing the domain and range of
analogies, where they work and where they do not seems
to the the important idea.

Dan MacIsaac, Associate Professor of Physics, SUNY-Buffalo State College
222SciBldg BSC, 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY 14222 USA 716-878-3802
<macisadl@buffalostate.edu> <http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.edu>