Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!udel!princeton!phoenix!gauss!markv From: markv@gauss.Princeton.EDU (Mark VandeWettering) Newsgroups: comp.graphics Subject: Re: Visualization in Education (was Message-ID: <11979@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: 6 Dec 89 15:20:06 GMT References: <5771@eos.UUCP> Sender: news@phoenix.Princeton.EDU Reply-To: markv@gauss.Princeton.EDU (Mark VandeWettering) Organization: Princeton University Lines: 48 In article <5771@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes: [ eugene chats about the ARK ] >This goes back to the Asteroids video game. The concept of "Negative >Gravity." Randy's system had this. Great to learn about acceleration, >force, but how long do you dwell on something which does not exist >in known science? One of the problems that students has is that their learning tends to lack generalization. They cannot generalize what they have learned in one domain to aid them in learning in another. If the idea is to teach people about Newtonian physics, then repulsive gravity is an entirely valid concept. There is no real reason why the acceleration vectors should all point toward a given point. They do for gravitational attraction of point sources, but that is merely an instantiation of an experiment in Newtonian physics. Learning about negative gravity helps drive home the basic fundamentals that govern motion. It is useful? I think so. >It's a model. Is the point to learn about gravity >or to dwell (no pun intended) on a somewhat poor model? I have no >immediate answer, the question is open. One argument, the fiction >writer argument says, No harm, the person can create whole worlds, >ala Tolkien, you would not want to stiffle creativity would you? >Fine, let the English Departments pay for computers. 8) What's >weird is that our science may exist in ONE reality. That would >be hard for some free thinkers to swallow, but it is an option >we must be prepared to explore. Anyways, no easy answers, no one >wants to come down too hard. Do you place a "Too much time in >negative gravity" message in the system? Science is ultimately the quest for understanding. We understand sometimes by looking long and hard on what is real (what we can observe). Sometimes it takes dramatic insight to generalize concepts our observations and to actually guess at the mechanisms behind things. With very little encouragement, this could turn into a philosophy of science discussion.... I think I will pause here and regroup should such a discussion occur... >--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov > Support the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Mark VandeWettering Support Free Software