Or tie the two together by dropping the same block from a known height onto the table via a 90 degree smooth curved chute to losslessly change vertical motion to horizontal, and let the table have a known coefficient of friction, and see how far the block goes. This introduces, more or less painlessly, potential energy, kinetic energy, energy dissipation through friction. Then you can plot drop height vs. distance moved on the table, etc. There are probably actual school experiments of this type. Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: <dasimov@earthlink.net> To: "math-fun" <math-fun@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Tuesday, July 18, 2006 1:28 PM Subject: Re: [math-fun] Another physics question
<< The idea was to give a time-independent example of energy, but explaining the difference between mass and weight may not be clear to beginners, especially why acceleration has to be involved.
One pedagogic loophole the keeps acceleration only implicit, would be to define work (energy E) as determined by the time t it takes to bring a (frictionless) body of mass m up to speed s (along a straight line): E = ms/t. This has a visceral aspect to it, always a good thing in teaching.
--dan
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