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Re: [Phys-L] The Make-Believe World of Real-World Physics





For some---including myself---the "mathematical way" of presenting something can make it interesting, impactful, resonant, and applicable to the real world. This isn't always true for me, and it might not even usually be true, but equating "dry" and "mathematical" doesn't work for everyone.



________________________________
From: Anthony Lapinski <Anthony_Lapinski@pds.org>
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 9:51 AM
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] The Make-Believe World of Real-World Physics


I agree here. Have a "concept" book and a corresponding "math" book.
Physics books are hard enough to read. Putting math problems in the text
makes it more difficult to comprehend -- at least it did for me. I've said
this before -- physics is the most interesting subject. It should be the
highlight of a student's day. Make it Fun, Interesting, Relevant, and
Engaging. Yet it is often presented in a dry, mathematical way -- at least
it was for me over my school career. The books make it worse. We really
need to revolutionize how physics is taught in this country so kids can
get turned on to how the universe works.

Phys-L@Phys-L.org writes:
Perhaps you have hit on the crux of the problem? 

Why should a textbook be written by ONE person?  If you could find
someone who knows mechanics (or part of it) well enough, and another for
Thermo., and another for Optics, etc. you could spread the workload and
get a reasonable assurance that each section will have a higher accuracy.
It then requires an 'editor' to read it for grammar, punctuation, etc.
and to attempt to make it have a 'common voice' -- but that is not an
insurmountable task. 

While we're on the subject, you could then finally write a book and LEAVE
OUT the problem sets.  Y'know, the ones that they constantly reshuffle
meaninglessly to justify a new edition, and which causes havoc with
syllabi everywhere.  In this age of the Internet, just leave it out of
the book and put problem sets online where they can be easily:  edited
and corrected.

That's just my 2 cents worth,
Peter Schoch

On Jul 11, 2013, at 12:30 PM, Carl Mungan <mungan@usna.edu> wrote:

In particular, Mazur is right that there is a treeeeemendous amount
of nonsense in typical physics classes and physics textbooks.  I'm
talking about
a) some stuff that is just plain wrong,
b) some stuff that is 100 years out of date,
c) some stuff that is ludicrously impractical, for no good reason,
d) some discussions and diagrams that are confused and confusing,


I agree with this paragraph. But at the same time, it makes me
uncomfortable for the following reason. I personally think it's very
hard
to write an introductory physics textbook (let's say a first edition, to
make the point extra sharp). Much much harder than probably anything
else
that we physicists can write. We're experts in our research fields, and
can
have fairly high confidence that when we write a research article or
monograph, it's probably going to well established. (Even if it's got
errors in it, those will be found and fixed as the research field
advances.
Some errors are even very helpful in that they attract people to work on
showing what's wrong with them and what's better about some other view.)
But who can claim to be an expert in every field of physics, which is
what
an intro text has to cover (more or less)? In fact, a textbook writer
will
necessarily base much of his (her) writing on how he learned the stuff
and
what others have written. But we all know how new misconceptions and new
views of how to teach intro physics are constantly appearing.

How easy to therefore become paralyzed into not daring to write
anything!
Because most of it is going to fall into categories a to d above
eventually. Maybe not today, but maybe next year or next decade.

So for that reason I think we need to give textbook writers a big
amount of
encouragement and applaud their courage and give them the benefit of the
doubt as much as possible. And praise to the heavens whatever insights
and
new directions they manage to pioneer.

This is not meant to disagree with John's statements, just add another
viewpoint that often comes to my mind when I listen to criticisms of
physics teaching at PHYS-L and AAPT meetings. -Carl

--
Carl E Mungan, Assoc Prof of Physics  410-293-6680 (O) -3729 (F)
Naval Academy Stop 9c, 572C Holloway Rd, Annapolis MD 21402-1363
mailto:mungan@usna.edu ;   http://usna.edu/Users/physics/mungan/
_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@phys-l.org
http://www.phys-l.org/mailman/listinfo/phys-l


_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@phys-l.org
http://www.phys-l.org/mailman/listinfo/phys-l


_______________________________________________
Forum for Physics Educators
Phys-l@phys-l.org
http://www.phys-l.org/mailman/listinfo/phys-l