11–20 of 71 posts
“Just like the "explanation" of seasons by the Earth's changing distance to the Sun, or textbook pseudo-explanations of history, like the "crisis" over the discovery of irrationals, or Maxwell's "mathematical" reason for adding an extra term to Ampere's equation.” Love it! Anyone have any others?
I recently encountered this in a sailing class when the teacher was explaining how "pull-mode" works in sailing, where the wind is coming from ahead of the vessel and pulls the sails rather than pushing them. I knew this theory to be debunked and yet couldn't work out the answer from non-debunked physics (and certainly didn't want to disrupt the class by arguing physics with someone who's been sailing for 50+ years -…
No idea why you would provide the equal transit time theorem to students, it makes such a low amount of sense that you're inevitably going to get your students extremely confused if they are paying any attention at all. "Why does the air have to transit in the same time period?" "But _why_ is the air moving over the top faster? Weren't you going to tell me how a wing works?" Etc etc etc It is the worst kind of lie-to…
Mathematics has been my way to avoid that. And I'm quite inept at mathematics. But if I can develop an abstract intuition of a problem I feel like that takes a lot less space in my head than trying to hold words to that effect in memory.
Or as old man Cato said "Grasp the matter, words will follow"
https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/UEET/StudentSite/dynamicso...
“Just like the "explanation" of seasons by the Earth's changing distance to the Sun, or textbook pseudo-explanations of history, like the "crisis" over the discovery of irrationals, or Maxwell's "mathematical" reason for adding an extra term to Ampere's equation.” Love it! Anyone have any others?
Simplified explanations of how electrical current flows in conductors comes to mind. Water analogies, for example.
The basic equations are actually identical for a lot of domains, including rotational motion which gave rise to the Spintronics game.
- The wing deflects the air down, so that's one way of creating lift, but most wings are not just flat
- An airplane can fly upside down
- It's a bad idea to take off behind another plane
- Modern wingtips have special shapes that makes them more efficient
- Answer has something to do with vorticity, but what exactly?
Hopefully we can get something better than whatever AI uses to explain these. I haven't asked it yet, but I get the feeling it would produce something plausible sounding that I won't be able to easily refute, ie it would trick me into thinking I understood it.
No idea why you would provide the equal transit time theorem to students, it makes such a low amount of sense that you're inevitably going to get your students extremely confused if they are paying any attention at all. "Why does the air have to transit in the same time period?" "But _why_ is the air moving over the top faster? Weren't you going to tell me how a wing works?" Etc etc etc It is the worst kind of lie-to…
Progress in science and technology oscillates between breakthroughs and consolidation: new ideas are exciting but the repercussions and formalism need some time to sink in. If you don't give it enough time you are left with overly elaborate and confusing frameworks. Usually the academics sort this kind of thing out before it goes into mass market education but it's never too late to simplify.
I recently encountered this in a sailing class when the teacher was explaining how "pull-mode" works in sailing, where the wind is coming from ahead of the vessel and pulls the sails rather than pushing them. I knew this theory to be debunked and yet couldn't work out the answer from non-debunked physics (and certainly didn't want to disrupt the class by arguing physics with someone who's been sailing for 50+ years -…