Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Clowning Around with Physics

Circus Physics introduces physics to youngsters using a clown. I suppose this is a rather entertaining way to make kids learn without them actually realizing that they learn something. I just wish they could do without the "centrifugal force" part. It'll take physics teachers years to correct that.

Zz.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I concur. I am a senior physics teacher and it is very difficult to get through to the students that there is no such thing as centrifugal force.

ZapperZ said...

I don't envy your task. I used to teach undergrad intro physics, and it was extremely tough to get a few built-in misconceptions out of the students head.

Zz.

Unknown said...

And when teachers do not specifiy and emphasize that even at university level : you get engineers with a strong belief in the existence of this force (it is actually more subtile than that but for them there is no doubt).