Remix.run Logo
amluto 3 days ago

I’m entertained by the Newton’s Third Law example. The leveled-to-fifth-grade example is actually decent. The leveled-to-eleventh-grade example is outrageously bad — I’m sorry, Google, but Newton’s Third Law does not say that, when I dribble a basketball, the downward force from my hand on the ball is equal but opposite to the upward force from the floor when the ball bounces. Nor are those forces even close to equal.

(In very, very slight fairness to Google here, the time-averaged forces from my hand, gravity, the floor, and minor things like air resistance, do add up to zero, and this follows from Newton’s Second Law and the fact that there is no net change to the ball’s velocity over a dribbling cycle. But this is not what they’re saying, and it isn’t even a particularly credible example of Newton’s Third Law. Google should add a whole lot more thinking to their model or they should just stick with fifth grade.)

thierrydamiba 3 days ago | parent [-]

Out of curiosity, does the work you do involve considering edge cases often?

amluto 3 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, I guess? The edge cases are the interesting cases :)

Seriously, though, what’s the point of trying to teach kids Newton’s Laws if you don’t try to give the kids a decent understanding of what situations they apply to and what one might conclude from them? Otherwise you’re just teaching cocktail party trivia.