Re: [Phys-L] science versum math WAS: Buoyancy Questions

[Ian Sefton <I.Sefton@physics.usyd.edu.au>]

On 08/07/2013, at 8:05 AM, Bernard Cleyet wrote:

> On 2013, Jul 07, , at 07:11, Chuck Britton <cvbritton@mac.com> wrote:
> ...
>
> That's curious!   At Manchester (Eng.) I was told by one who earned his doctorate there, that classical mechanics was not taught in the Physics Dept., because it's applied maths.

At Sydney University in the 1950s we got it both ways.  But I first met lagrangeans in maths lectures - very useful for working out how a golfball rolls down the hole.

Years later when I was teaching physics at the same place we tried to adopt a more conceptual approach with "real-world" examples etc.  But some of our engineering colleagues did not like our doing that to their students – they preferred the "axiomatic approach".

Cheers
Ian