Didaktikogenic Physics Misconceptions

[yenchin]

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/miscon.htm" : Student misconceptions induced by teachers and textbooks.

Wow... how many times have those mistakes been repeated in schools?!

 

[Chi Meson]

Hah!

I can say that I am not responsible for more than one of these, and even that one is splitting hairs a bit (the alpha beta gamma radiation). I will at least begin to attach a caveat to that one next time I get to radiation.

Some students are just too thick, though. I will tell them, for example, that the Doppler effect has nothing to do with how loud the noise is, how the sound of an object does get louder if it is closer, but that is not the Doppler effect. We will spend a day or two on Doppler, including throwing a noisy ball back and forth, running past the noisy ball, deriving the formula, solving problems for the shift in frequency, repeating the definition of the Doppler effect over and over...

I get to the test, and the simple question is:
"Describe what is meant by the 'Doppler Effect' for sound, and give an example of how it might be caused." There are always a few who answer in terms of how loud the sound gets when an object gets closer.

Some misconceptions are so ingrained, it would take a wood chisel to physically remove them from their brains. And for some reason I am not allowed to do that!