Smash Kinematics

[trustycrowbar]

Who: Gordon and you. YES YOU.
What: Physics class
Where: Gordon's teaching lab & the immediate grounds outside
When: Mid-Morning
Warnings: Ethically questionable treatment of sandbags.

Unlike most teachers here, Gordon had handled a physics classroom before--Grad students go to extremes for money. He figured a multiple-tier structure would work, two difficulty levels covering the same subject.

In this case, their first set of homework could either be a tame block of algebraic expressions or a sultry set of differentials depending the student's level. Either way, the the lecture and lab would essentially be the same.

Comments

[breaks_pots]

Link nodded along, only half understanding even that basic summary, "What are the laws of nature?"

He hadn't realized there were rules to nature itself.

[trustycrowbar]

How to explain it...

"They're a set of basic principles that, as far as we can tell, explains the way the universe works. Things that seem extremely complicated can actually turn out to be quite simple when put into context of these laws. We don't know all of them yet... If we did, I wouldn't be studying them."

[breaks_pots]

"So no one told you about them? How did you learn them, then, if no one told you about them? And how do you know you're not breaking them if you don't know them all?"

Hnnng help stop I'm dying he's too cute--

[trustycrowbar]

"We figured them out ourselves through the scientific method. You observe something--usually a lot of somethings, and you use that to make an educated guess of how it works. Then you test that theory through experiment, if it holds over and over and over again, then you may have a law."

"As for breaking them? It's not possible. It's like throwing something at the ground and expecting it to phase into the center of the earth. It just doesn't work that way."

It's his superpower~

[breaks_pots]

He gave that some thought, face scrunching up before countering with "If they can't be broken, why are they called laws?"

Insert 'rules were made to be broken', 'YOLO', 'can't be tamed', etc here.

[trustycrowbar]

"Can you think of a better word for them?"

[breaks_pots]

"Truths" Because in a child's mind, the truth was absolute.

[trustycrowbar]

Oh if only it were, kiddo... Still, it sounds nice and dramatic. He seems to consider this, more for show than anything.

"You might be onto something there. But unfortunately so many scientists and students call them 'laws' that if you called them something else they wouldn't know what you were talking about. Then they'd be too distracted on the wording to find new Truths, you see?"

[breaks_pots]

Link frowned at that, not really understanding at all, "Why would that distract them? If you learn the real name of something you didn't before, calling it by the name you thought it was before learning it's real name once you do know it's real name is mean and confusing to others who know the real name. If everyone calls something the wrong name, it doesn't make them right and it doesn't mean they shouldn't be corrected."

While that might have sounded like something that was possibly profound, Link was thinking of all the times he'd been bullied and called names that weren't his own by Mido.

[trustycrowbar]

Lacking this context it takes the man a few seconds to parse the pile of semantic spaghetti he'd been served. Okay, more than a few. And a couple of quiet logistical figuring-out hand gestures too.

"Ah, yeah. All the more reason to agree on a term and stick with it."

[breaks_pots]

"No! It's not! Didn't you listen? If the name is wrong then it doesn't matter if anyone else agrees on a different name! It's still the wrong name!"

[trustycrowbar]

What's the matter with this kid? Why's he getting all upset?

"Alright, alright. Thing is, in science the right name is the name everyone agrees on. That's the point I should've... made before."

[breaks_pots]

"No it's not. If it's not really a law, then it shouldn't be called a law, it should be called what it is."

He was focused on this now. Justice needed to be had! ...or something. Mostly he was just very focused on it because of all the stuff he'd heard that day, this was something he could sort of understand.