My paraphrase should read:
It makes no sense to tell students that NUMBER is
a QUANTITY and then turn around and ask them to distinguish a NUMBER
"here" from a NUMBER "over there". It is a crime against the laws
of mathematics.
Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
treborsci@verizon.net
www.sciamanda.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Sciamanda
Sent: Saturday, August 20, 2016 6:09 PM
To: Phys-L@Phys-L.org
Subject: Re: [Phys-L] treating force as a vector ... consistently
JD complained:
"It makes no sense to tell students that force is
a vector and then turn around and ask them to distinguish a force
"here" from a force "over there". It is a crime against the laws
of mathematics."
Let me paraphrase this remark:
It makes no sense to tell students that QUANTITY is
a NUMBER and then turn around and ask them to distinguish a QUANTITY
"here" from a QUANTITY "over there". It is a crime against the laws
of mathematics.
Like QUANTITY, VECTOR is a mathematical entity used as a calculational MODEL
to represent a property of an entity.
Just as the QUANTITY 2 can represent a property of my legs, the same
QUANTITY 2 can represent the number of major American political parties -
so the VECTOR F can represent several different forces (equal in magnitude
and direction). They are identical mathematical entities, but are used as
models of different physical entities.
Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (Em)
treborsci@verizon.net
www.sciamanda.com