Xref: utzoo comp.graphics:9144 sci.edu:866 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!uunet!cbmvax!mitchell From: mitchell@cbmvax.commodore.com (Fred Mitchell - PA) Newsgroups: comp.graphics,sci.edu Subject: Re: Visualization in Education (was Message-ID: <9197@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 3 Jan 90 20:17:40 GMT References: <5771@eos.UUCP> Reply-To: mitchell@cbmvax.commodore.com (Fred Mitchell - PA) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 46 In article <5771@eos.UUCP> eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) writes: >... > >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? It's a model. I think it would be rather interesting to explore aspects of alternate fields. "Negative Gravity", for example, may be representative of how two negatively charged bodies might behave. There's always an application somewhere that somebody will eventually discover. >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. No! Then the English Departments would want us to do simulations of Shakespeare! :-) >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. I've always wondered if the present reality we preceive is the only possible one, or is it the only one in which intelligent life-forms such as us Computer Hackers can evolve from primordial slime? :-) >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? No, just switch it too positive without warning! >Another gross generalization from > >--eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov -Mitchell mitchell@cbmvax.UUCP "Reality is a Human Fantasy about the REAL Universe!"