🚀 go-pugleaf

By the way, there are at least two other ways, not unrelated, in
which my parable of the three-momenta is hideously slimy and
unfair.  Find them for extra credit!

The argument on which everything I've said rests is that the
proper way to teach SR is via a four-vector approach, such as
that in Taylor and Wheeler, instead of using the arguments that 
appear in most intro books.  In my opinion the definition-
of-mass issue is by comparison quite cosmetic, though a clear
preference does follow from the four-vector treatment.

However, there's a glaring flaw in all of this, namely:  I've
never actually taught a class in special relativity!  I've
suffered through a traditional treatment of the subject, only to
be illuminated later reading, of all things, Misner, Thorne, and
Wheeler's _Gravitation_ (a path I would not recommend for those
who only want to learn SR-- their weird take on differential
forms boggled me).  But I don't have any experience as a
teacher of the subject, and Leigh Palmer, for instance, 
obviously does.  So, really, I'm quite unqualified to argue 
about any of this.

Does anyone out there have actual experience teaching SR via the
Taylor and Wheeler approach, or, better yet, both that and the
more traditional treatment using mostly three-dimensional quantities?
How do they actually compare in practice?  As we theorists get
reminded several times a week in this newsgroup, the only real
test of truth is experiment!  

-- 
Matt McIrvin  mcirvin@husc.harvard.edu