New nonfiction article – Understanding Physics – a primer for writers and teachers

While digging in my archives, I found this gem about teaching physics that I wrote when I was taking physics classes in order to get my teaching certificate. It talks about how physicists think differently from other people. Here is an excerpt, enjoy.

Understanding physics

Physics is quantitative. This is the heart of the subject, and the heart of how it is taught. If a physicist can write an equation to describe something, then he understands it. Thus to a physicist, the world is one big word problem, and when he learns how to state the equation, then he’ll understand everything about it.

Some physicists probably see the symbol”+” when someone says the word “and” automatically. For them the thought of having fifteen ways of describing a concept would simply be confusing, for how could it be more precise to use the words “combine”, “annex”, or “compound” when the symbol “+” says it with so much less fuss? These physicists probably had comments on their English papers telling them to use a thesaurus.

-R