- #1
Doug1943
- 37
- 5
In material introducing Newton's First Law to students, we sometimes see a supplementary statement to this effect: in addition to changing the velocity of an object, forces can distort its shape.
But surely here two different situations are being conflated: (1) the effect of a single force on an object, and (2) the effect of two different forces whose vector sum is zero on the same object .
Doesn't this 'extension ' of the First Law introduce confusion, exactly where we should be trying to induce students to abstract away non-essentials as much as possible?
What's going on with the 'extended' situation -- shape distortion -- needs to be addressed when taking up the Third Law, and is in fact rather subtle.
What do others think?
But surely here two different situations are being conflated: (1) the effect of a single force on an object, and (2) the effect of two different forces whose vector sum is zero on the same object .
Doesn't this 'extension ' of the First Law introduce confusion, exactly where we should be trying to induce students to abstract away non-essentials as much as possible?
What's going on with the 'extended' situation -- shape distortion -- needs to be addressed when taking up the Third Law, and is in fact rather subtle.
What do others think?