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Could someone write the same kind of article for chemistry ? That would help me to accept the fact that I didn't get it at all :-) Oh, while you're at it : accounting :-)
I think the main reason is that we can't physically interact with it with our hands. We don't play with it as children, the same way we do running water, throwing rocks, etc. Anything that you can't manipulate or play around with is very hard to develop an intuitive sense of. It takes a lot of study and imagination.
Navier-Stokes equations are not easy to understand.
In fact, it isn't so hard that they would like you to believe - it just seems that way when they remove the best parts due to national security :D You would have to go back to James Clerk Maxwell's original 20 equations to see what it's all about. Okey, quaternions are kind of hard, I'll admit to that, but all in all it makes much more sense.
Like QM, doing it analytically clears away misconceptions and gives a consistent view - but it isn't exactly something you can teach to children. It's useful to be able to explain things to laypeople and the not mathematically inclined, which means tightening up the metaphors.
I teach my children that we live in a sea of energy and that you can feel it when you move. It makes much more sense to them than trying explain inertia.
I tell them that of you rotate something, it will make an energy vortex making stuff seem heavier - and I show them with a gyroscope.
Then I explain that electrons are just like little gyroscopes, but of only energy. And it all makes sense to them. They don't think it's hard at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like QM, doing it analytically clears away misconceptions and gives a consistent view - but it isn't exactly something you can teach to children. It's useful to be able to explain things to laypeople and the not mathematically inclined, which means tightening up the metaphors.
You have a good point, but still, it's easier to explain to children stuff that makes sense. I teach my children that we live in a sea of energy and that you can feel it when you move. It makes much more sense to them than trying explain inertia. I tell them that of you rotate something, it will make an energy vortex making stuff seem heavier - and I show them with a gyroscope. Then I explain that electrons are just…
This experience also taught me to actively mistrust "intuition" and "common sense". Not that there isn't value in intuition (quite the contrary, it's priceless, from design to maintenance), but it's only useful when it rests on a solid theoretical foundation. Prior to earning that foundation, it's nothing but a (very bad) shortcut that people take because they want to feel knowledgeable, but don't want to invest the effort of going through all that math mumbo jumbo.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like QM, doing it analytically clears away misconceptions and gives a consistent view - but it isn't exactly something you can teach to children. It's useful to be able to explain things to laypeople and the not mathematically inclined, which means tightening up the metaphors.
You have a good point, but still, it's easier to explain to children stuff that makes sense. I teach my children that we live in a sea of energy and that you can feel it when you move. It makes much more sense to them than trying explain inertia. I tell them that of you rotate something, it will make an energy vortex making stuff seem heavier - and I show them with a gyroscope. Then I explain that electrons are just…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have a good point, but still, it's easier to explain to children stuff that makes sense. I teach my children that we live in a sea of energy and that you can feel it when you move. It makes much more sense to them than trying explain inertia. I tell them that of you rotate something, it will make an energy vortex making stuff seem heavier - and I show them with a gyroscope. Then I explain that electrons are just…
Those are excellent metaphors which I've never heard anywhere else.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have a good point, but still, it's easier to explain to children stuff that makes sense. I teach my children that we live in a sea of energy and that you can feel it when you move. It makes much more sense to them than trying explain inertia. I tell them that of you rotate something, it will make an energy vortex making stuff seem heavier - and I show them with a gyroscope. Then I explain that electrons are just…
Those are excellent metaphors which I've never heard anywhere else.
Could someone write the same kind of article for chemistry ? That would help me to accept the fact that I didn't get it at all :-) Oh, while you're at it : accounting :-)
The issue with chemistry is that you need to develop a "feel" (chemical intuition) for a lot of topics. A lot of chemistry taught in undergrad, like Organic, cannot always be neatly explained or solved with an equation. On top of that there seems to be as many exceptions to rules as there are rules themselves.