I agree whole-heartedly with your definition of high school physics simply being algebra. College physics only goes one step further, using calculus to show you how the equations are related or derived.
Geometry is actually very similar (though I won't be able to convey my point as easily nor as eloquently as you might). In high school physics, they give you the pre-derived equations and have you do the labs in hopes that you can prove to yourself that the equations work. Why the equations work is often left on the back burner and forgotten about while waiting for everyone to meet the first objective. Now, with geometry, they show you all the shapes and hand you the boiled-down, algebraic equations for area, volume, etc with the same expectations. The hows and whys aren't presented until you get to calculus 2. Then they show you where the equations come from and how to perform the calculations faster using integrals.
As far as statistics goes, the only thing I understand is averaging test data in order to model that property in a much larger population. Especially if it were a destructive test. Then you'd have no product left.
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Date: 2007-01-11 09:19 pm (UTC)Geometry is actually very similar (though I won't be able to convey my point as easily nor as eloquently as you might). In high school physics, they give you the pre-derived equations and have you do the labs in hopes that you can prove to yourself that the equations work. Why the equations work is often left on the back burner and forgotten about while waiting for everyone to meet the first objective. Now, with geometry, they show you all the shapes and hand you the boiled-down, algebraic equations for area, volume, etc with the same expectations. The hows and whys aren't presented until you get to calculus 2. Then they show you where the equations come from and how to perform the calculations faster using integrals.
As far as statistics goes, the only thing I understand is averaging test data in order to model that property in a much larger population. Especially if it were a destructive test. Then you'd have no product left.