Newton’s law learning assessment: an experience with high school students

The Force Concepts Inventory is a test to determine the level of conceptual knowledge of students about mechanical physics and to evaluate the effectiveness of different teaching strategies on the conceptual component of learning. The test is applied with the purpose of knowing the level of conceptualization of the students of a Physics subject course. The results of the pre-test made it possible to find out the level of conceptualization that the students possessed and provided information for the development of workshops based on real physical situations that required the elaboration of force diagrams. The results of the post-test allowed estimating Hake’s learning and showed evidence about the conceptual evolution of the students and information to develop future teaching activities on Newton’s laws.

Real Problem Solving as a Teaching Strategy for Physics Education: Case Study

The project presents the application of the stages proposed by Poyla for solving problems in mathematics, which have been adapted in mechanical physic. Critical reading strategies have also been applied resulting in reading physical problems comprehensively. Objectives: To incorporate real problem solving as a teaching strategy in two mechanical physics courses (one experimental and another traditional), in order to characterize the group that applies the problem-solving strategy. To validate the problem-solving strategy in mechanical physics. Methods: Mixed research including analysis and contrast of results obtained from two control groups: one experimental (24 university students of Mechanical Physics) and another traditional (16 university students of Mechanical Physics). The control group approaches the study of the subjects in a traditional way where the problems proposed are solved intuitively and somehow mechanically. The experimental group solves the proposed problems by applying each of the stages of the proposed sequence. The experimental group solves the proposed problems by applying each of the stages of the proposed sequence. This study differs from previous studies in that most are related to problem-solving in mathematics and in this case, we focus on physics with the value of involving elements related to critical reading, which gives a more realistic look of the Physical phenomenon studied from the interpretation of its occurrence and how it impacts the environment, which favors its theoretical understanding and gives meaning to its mathematical modeling.

De kracht van inertie : Een Sartreaans perspectief op verzet

The force of inertia. A Sartrean perspective on resistanceAlthough Sartre’s philosophy of freedom is often considered as a philosophy of resistance, rooted in the experience of the Second World War, Sartre did not formulate a full-blown theory of resistance. However, his Critique of Dialectical Reason contains a wealth of material that allows a rethinking of the notion of resistance. In much of the literature, this notion is inflated so as to include action, opposition, struggle, exodus and a range of other phenomena. In order to acquire a sharper sense of the specific meaning of resistance, this paper argues, this notion has to be reconnected with its origins in mechanical physics. Sartre’s key concept of inertia provides a starting point for such a theoretical strategy. Although human beings are fundamentally free, they can live their relation to others and to themselves as if they were inert things. From a Sartrean perspective, resistance means making oneself inert in order to be able to persevere and to hold the line in the face of a threat. Resistance occurs at both sides of a struggle, and can take different, asymmetrical forms. The two fundamental modes of sociality Sartre distinguishes, namely the group and the series, offer different types of resistance to opponents.

Numerical Analysis of the Effect of Electrode Strips on Spot-Welding Process

Resistance spot welding is an important technology widely used in manufacturing industry. It is a coupling process which involves thermal, electrical and mechanical physics fields. Due to the formation of weld nugget is transient and non-visible, the experimental analysis is difficult. In this paper, a thermal electrical-mechanical coupling technique is carried out by finite element method to study the effect of electrode strips on weld nugget formation and surface indentation under different processing parameters. Experimental and numerical analysis results show that the electrode strips can reduce the surface indentation depth effectively and is helpful to the formation of weld nugget.

Systems and Functions

Descartes’ reliance on functional analyses to understand automata has struck many critics as deeply problematic, particularly in light of his rejection of the necessity of ends or final causes in physics. This chapter examines how important answering this question was to Descartes to avoid falling into the trap of vitalism, on the one side, and a materialist reduction of human nature, on the other. It advances a non-teleological analysis of “function” that steers a middle course between teleological/normative accounts and naïvely causal accounts that identify functions in terms of what they contribute to the complex causal capacities of a system. Causal functional analyses are accused of begging the question on the identity of the system to whose capacities they contribute. Drawing on an examination of how Descartes uses the notion of “function” in biological contexts and how it relates to a concept of work, implicit in his physics, it is argued that his notion of “function” is neither teleological nor causal in the standard sense, although it represents an extension of the causal approach. Descartes thus makes a unique and lasting contribution to debates about the notion of function and its place in a mechanical physics.

MATHEMATICS IS THE LANTERN: VITO VOLTERRA, LÉON WALRAS, AND IRVING FISHER ON THE MATHEMATIZATION OF ECONOMICS

The interdisciplinary project to unite the field of mathematics with the social and biological sciences marks the work of Vito Volterra, one of Italy’s most prominent mathematicians of the twentieth century. This paper explores the connections between Volterra’s 1901 inaugural address at the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome and the work of two of his contemporaries, Léon Walras and Irving Fisher. All three thinkers were ardent advocates of the mathematical turn in economic thinking. This paper argues, however, that it is the previously unexplored relationship between Volterra and Fisher that sheds the most light on the way in which mechanical physics contributed to the project of mathematization within economics more generally. Furthermore, it explores the way in which mathematical inquiry postulated a new and coherent abstraction of the economy, at the same time that it gave epistemological authority to the economist.

Digby, Kenelm (1603–65)

Seventeenth-century English Catholic, original member of the Royal Society, and one of the first philosophers to produce a fully developed system of mechanical philosophy, Sir Kenelm Digby cut a dashing figure as a poet, privateer and philosopher. As a Catholic and royalist, he spent much of his life in semi-exile on the continent where he conversed with many of the political and intellectual leaders of his time; as a philosopher, he was favourably compared to René Descartes and John Locke. He attempted to wed the philosophy of Aristotle to the new mechanical physics, which maintained that every event in the material world is reducible to matter in motion. His interests and writings cover a wide range, from religion and magic to vegetative growth and literary commentary. The explicit goal of his most significant book, Two Treatises (1644), was to prove the immortality of the human soul. To this end, the first treatise constitutes an exhaustive study of bodies and their features. By showing that all corporeal qualities are to be explained in strictly material terms, he prepares the way for a thorough discussion of the soul. Digby argues that the soul must be immaterial (and hence immortal) because otherwise its features cannot be explained. He went on to apply the mechanical principles which he developed in this work to a variety of topics, including some traditionally associated with the occult. His works on alchemical, medical and religious topics were also widely read.