- #1
DiracPool
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Hello, I consider myself an up-and-comer theoretical physicist (although getting a bit of a late start), and there's something that continues to trouble me about the way physics is taught both professionally and popularly, and I want to survey how others feel about the issue.
The issue is the portrayal of scale. For example, we always see the moon right next to the Earth in almost every depiction. Perhaps even more famously are the depictions of the scales of electron orbitals and the relative sizes of particles. I know the short argument is that it is impractical to portray the actual scale variances in these depictions. Even so, rarely do educators ever even try to sidebar a visualization of these scale differences which I think have seminal importance in understanding these systems.
For example, I just recently came across this scale appropriate depiction of the earth-moon radius and the subsequent scale appropriate transmission of light.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Speed_of_light_from_Earth_to_Moon.gif
Before seeing this, I basically had to guess this. Is it so hard for educators to incorporate these types of desciptions into their presentations? Am I alone here?
The issue is the portrayal of scale. For example, we always see the moon right next to the Earth in almost every depiction. Perhaps even more famously are the depictions of the scales of electron orbitals and the relative sizes of particles. I know the short argument is that it is impractical to portray the actual scale variances in these depictions. Even so, rarely do educators ever even try to sidebar a visualization of these scale differences which I think have seminal importance in understanding these systems.
For example, I just recently came across this scale appropriate depiction of the earth-moon radius and the subsequent scale appropriate transmission of light.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Speed_of_light_from_Earth_to_Moon.gif
Before seeing this, I basically had to guess this. Is it so hard for educators to incorporate these types of desciptions into their presentations? Am I alone here?
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