Re: Fun with C

["Elias Salomão Helou Neto" <eshneto@gmail.com>]

On Apr 24, 4:46 pm, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
wrote:

> Anyway, importance
> of classic mechanics looks overestimated. You cannot see planets when
> living in a large city, but do can the computer on your desk. Explain why
> it works using Newtonian mechanics.

Why would anyone try it? Newton mechanics is about movement and
gravity. I guess you confuse things because of the term "mechanics" in
"quantum mechanics". You're the one who should try to explain why
rocks fall using quantum mechanics. I see you have a great deal of
difficult in separating each problem's domain.

> > Then why not start with string theory first before general
> > relativity?
>
> String theory is not yet generally accepted.

But Newtonian mechanics is. You must understand it. We don't teach
Aristotle's viewpoint, it is not about teaching historic views, but
rather an useful and simply understandable theory. And a correct one,
whether you want it or not, Newton's mechanics is correct within a
huge range of values.

In fact, if quantum mechanics did not agree with classical mechanics
in the macroscopic world ("classical" quantum mechanics would agree
with Newton's theory even at the microscopic realm), it would not have
been accepted. The same holds for relativity when velocities are not
really high and masses are not huge. It makes a lot of sense teaching
the classical viewpoint first, if not for any other reason, to justify
new theories by showing that they agree with it.

What you want to is to teach theories that are only useful for a much
smaller set of problems than Newton's theory is. And to forget
Newton's theory. Sorry, but it is far from being wise. It is quite the
opposite: it is being fundamentalist.

And there is more to that. Quantum mechanics is, as of today, not
fully compatible with relativity. Should we pick which of them to
teach? Is any of them wrong? Newton's mechanic is the midterm, with
each of the theories agree well. Not to teach it, really?

There is no correct fundamental theory in physics. There will never
be, at least it will not be possible for us to ascertain that it is.
All we have are good models that work within certain range of
phenomena. Arguably, Newtonian mechanics is the most useful of all
them.

Elias.