🚀 go-pugleaf

Reply on; J.S.  Miller, as it appeared in Physics Today (July, 1982,
page 10).  > > ...  "This machine business is a curse upon us - anathema
! It robs > the beauty of physics - it cheats the students - it is a
sickness ! > It destroys the humanism the subject posesses.  Deliver us
from this > affliction - this plague - this evil monster - which so
abuses the > spirit of physics."

There is a ring of truth to the above, however our student's MUST be
exposed totechnologies that are part of our lives.

Following is an example of how technology can circumvent understanding.
I gave my students a bonus problem where I ask them to find the point
between the earth and the moon where the gravitational force of
attraction would be the same.  Some needed help.  Given the following
m(earth)/d�2 = m(moon)/(3.9E8-d)�2 I soon had a student who solved it.
He has an HP 48g (I think) calculator.  I ask him how he got the answer
and could not explain.  He simply plugged the above equation into his
calculator and it solved it for him.  There just has to be something
missing when you can't explain how to isolate the square quantities or
apply the quadratic.

Just a PS.  Have any of you ever thought that if students knew how to
use a slide rule their thinking skills would be better?