[IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and "Mastering" Educational SW

[Edward Cherlin]

You can see the sort of problem Alan describes on occasional episodes
of Mythbusters on the Discovery channel, where they talk about myths
in the movies. The most recent such that I saw was "Curving Bullet",
based on a scene in the Angelina Jolie movie Wanted, in which swinging
a gun is supposed to make the bullet move in a curve. Few people
believe Newton on this point: "Every body continues in its state of
rest, or of uniform motion _in a right [straight] line_, unless it is
compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it." Possibly
because we have all seen curve balls thrown in baseball, bent (like
Beckham) shots in soccer, English and spectacular massé shots in pool,
hook balls in bowling, or even boomerangs returning to the thrower,
all produced by friction with the air or a surface below.

Also, it is not enough to teach Galilean gravity simply as constant
acceleration. We must demonstrate that constant downward acceleration
combined with constant sideways motion produces a parabola _in the
reference frame of every unaccelerated observer_. (Galilean
Relativity) This is a deep point (deep in significance and in
consequences, not hard to teach) about the nature of conic sections in
math, and about the nature of physical law.

As Alan points out in part below, we must teach gravity from the
pre-scientific point of view up through Aristotle, then Galilean,
Newtonian, and Einsteinian gravity, then the nature of exploration of
possibilities in quantum gravity, string theory, and other Grand
Unified Theories, and the even more inclusive proposed Theories of
Everything. (The E8 TOE is particularly beautiful, but that isn't
enough to make it true.)

At the same time, we have to teach children how to understand the
ontology and epistemology of physics. Newton's Absolute Space, later
the Luminiferous Ether, was an understandable but serious error in
both, for which there was no evidence. The only justification that
Newton could have given was, "I can't imagine anything else." This is
known as the Argument from Ignorance, which has produced many
spectacularly bad results in science and philosophy.

Which leads us to logic, including mathematical logic, and logical
fallacies, and from there to law and politics, and so on. It also
leads us to the ethics of science. I define ethics as the
consideration of what we should do even if we don't want to. In
physics, that includes considering all possible objections to the
theory you are trying to prove, and not "making hypotheses". Those
last are Newton's own words. He failed his own test on this point.

However, none of this is what schools are _for_, in what is laughably
called mainstream thinking. Schools, since the invention of the
Prussian Welfare State, are little factories for little minds so that
they know enough to do their assigned tasks, and nothing more that
would let them interfere with their rulers. Except for children of the
elite, who attend quite different schools intended to teach them to
rule, to conquer, and to pillage, and to regard the rest of mankind as
industrial tools and cannon fodder. This was invented for purposes of
nations, and has been transformed for purposes of corporate
management.

"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age
of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of
mankind."--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Alan Kay<alan.nemo at yahoo.com> wrote:
> This doesn't teach physics ... it is aimed mostly at providing typical
> problems with some diagnostic aids and hints to (theoretically) help
> students learn how to apply what they are supposed to have learned by other
> means to physics problems.
>
> (However, it is difficult to find any physics text for high school or
> college that actually teaches physics and physical thinking. Even lab
> courses usually use the lab to verify the "truths of physics" (there are
> actually no such things) rather than to try to get evidence for formulating
> and guiding the creation of theories which can lead to further experiments.)
>
> As an example, the lab for gravity is used to verify the Galilean formulas
> (which postulate constant acceleration). This is because with simple tools
> in air it is difficult to measure accurately enough to get data which more
> closely resembles what is going on. (Dropping a heavy object 14-16 feet in a
> vacuum measured very very carefully will reveal a difference of about 1 part
> in a million between constant acceleration and inverse square acceleration,
> and it takes incredible tools to show that inverse square acceleration is
> not the whole story either.)

It is much easier to demonstrate inverse square acceleration using a pendulum.

> The sad results according to those who have studied this in colleges for
> more than 30 years (for example Physicist Lillian McDermott) is that 70% of
> all students (including science majors) fail to understand even Galilean
> gravity, and a much higher percentage don't understand that Galilean gravity
> is an approximate theory, that Newton's theory is a much better but
> approximate theory, that Einstein's General Theory is a much better theory
> but also approximate). There are many reasons for all this, which can be
> gisted as (a) "the epistemology of science" is not at all what most people
> suppose, and it is rather distant from the normal ways our minds are set up
> to work, and (b) that most "educational" processes most places in the world
> including the US are still teaching "knowledge as religion to be believed
> in", which *is* what our minds are set up for, and this is how things have
> been since the Pleistocene.

This is one of several reasons why Creationists are able to argue, at
least among themselves, that Darwinism is just a competing religion.

> Best wishes,
>
> Alan
>
> ________________________________
> From: Greg Smith <gregsmithpm at gmail.com>
> To: iaep at lists.sugarlabs.org
> Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 8:53:02 AM
> Subject: [IAEP] Comments on David Kokorowski, David Pritchard and
> "Mastering" Educational SW
>
> Hi All,
>
> Does anyone have experience or comments on the educational work of David
> Pritchard and David Korokowski, MIT Physicists?
>
> They created the Mastering Physics (and other subjects) software:
> http://www.masteringphysics.com/site/index.html
>
> Its commercial SW focused on College level learning and its uses what they
> call a "Socratic" method of learning (possibly related to sophistry). See
> some of their papers here:
> http://www.masteringphysics.com/site/results/index.html
>
> I'm interested in feedback for my own edification but thought it might also
> generate some discussion on the best educational tools for Sugar/XO.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Greg Smith
>
>
>
>
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>



-- 
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://earthtreasury.org/worknet (Edward Mokurai Cherlin)