Science, Education and Feynman ? Her mind's eye is?

I said, ?That?s how it looks to me, when I see you teaching the kids ?science? here in Brazil.? (Big blast, right?)

Then I held up the elementary physics textbook they were using. ?There are no experimental results mentioned anywhere in this book, except in one place where there is a ball, rolling down an inclined plane, in which it says how far the ball got after one second, two seconds, three seconds, and so on. The numbers have ?errors? in them?that is, if you look at them, you think you?re looking at experimental results, because the numbers are a little above, or a little below, the theoretical values. The book even talks about having to correct the experimental errors?very fine. The trouble is, when you calculate the value of the acceleration constant from these values, you get the right answer. But a ball rolling down an inclined plane, if it is actually done, has an inertia to get it to turn, and will, if you do the experiment, produce five-sevenths of the right answer, because of the extra energy needed to go into the rotation of the ball. Therefore this single example of experimental ?results? is obtained from a fake experiment. Nobody had rolled such a ball, or they would never have gotten those results!?.

?.and I started to read: ?Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed..

I said, ?And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven?t told anything about nature-what crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can?t.

?But if, instead, you were to write, ?When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called ?triboluminescence.?? Then someone will go home and try it. Then there?s an experience of nature.?

-Richard P Feynman ?Surely Your?re Joking, Mr. Feynman!? Adventures of a Curious Character

Can you relate to that? because I can!

?I am hoping I am not alone in feeling so! oopsie!! hehe

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Source: http://rachitamisra.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/science-education-and-feynman/

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