[OT] Simple math considered physics; turns out it's fun, not harmful

[Ben Scott]

On Nov 21, 2007 5:51 PM, Greg Rundlett <greg.rundlett at gmail.com> wrote:
> Or, if I should be sad that an average person might think that
> there is physics rather than math involved.

  Physics was involved.  Indeed, you just solved a physics problem.
The fact that you used math doesn't mean it wasn't a physics problem.
You also probably used English to talk to the guy; that doesn't mean
it was an English problem, either.  Or maybe it was; after all, if you
didn't know English, it wouldn't matter how good your math and physics
skills were, because you wouldn't have been able to get the needed
information from the guy.

  Related: An interesting point to ponder is: What problem did you
really solve?  You figured the time it took for the ball to travel
from "pitcher" to plate, and from that figured how fast the ball would
have to be going to travel the same distance in the same time on an
MLB field.  But is that really the same thing as a real MLB pitcher's
fastball?  I suspect not.  :)  But *that's* more about biology and
human-factors than either math or physics.

  Huh.  Maybe there is something to this "education" thing after all.  ;-)

-- Ben