Correction: “The Atwood Machine: Two Special Cases”

Joseph O. West

Citation: The Physics Teacher 37, 262 (1999);

View online: https://doi.org/10.1119/1.880267
View Table of Contents: http://aapt.scitation.org/toc/pte/37/5
Published by the American Association of Physics Teachers

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LETTERS
[Editor’s Note: I am told that some
Phys-L listserv contributors have
been criticizing my judgment for pub-
lishing an article by John Mottmann
in the February 1999 issue of TPT.
So far, however, I have received only
two letters, one of them explaining
the circumstances of the trial at Cal
Poly, and the other chastising me for
my editorial judgment. Here are
(shortened) versions of those two let-
ters, along with a mild rejoinder by
Dr. Mottmann.]
Studio Physics at Cal Poly
I read John Mottmann’s article,
“Innovations in Physics Teaching—A
Cautionary Tale” Phys. Teach. 37, 74
(Feb. 1999) with some interest. Since
I was intimately involved in the Cal
Poly effort to set up a studio class-
room, I feel qualified to respond. I
started teaching at Cal Poly in the fall
of 1997 and got involved in the studio
project a year later. At that time a dis-
agreement had essentially brought
the project to the verge of collapse; to
save it, four of us volunteered to
work on selecting and developing the
curriculum for the new mechanics
course. None of us had a background
in physics education. As we worked
that fall to prepare the studio for its
opening in the winter, it became clear
that our collective knowledge of
active-engagement instructional tech-
niques, and the physics-education
research supporting them, was very
close to zero. I soon found myself, a
28-year-old lecturer with a Ph.D. in
gravitational theory and absolutely
no experience in physics education,
taking the lead in the development of
the studio.
It would be a mistake to infer from
Mottmann’s article that the Cal Poly
physics studio demonstrates the fail-
ure of carefully planned and properly
260 THE PHYSICS TEACHER Vol. 37, May 1999
t o t h e
instituted active-engagement curricu-
la to produce meaningful gains in stu-
dent learning. On the contrary, it
illustrates that simply buying com-
puters, building a room, and then ask-
ing faculty—without substantial
knowledge of the lessons learned
through many years of physics-edu-
cation research—to hurriedly piece
together a curriculum is not the right
formula for success. What is needed
is expertise and experience; the com-
puters and the room are less vital.
In my opinion, there were serious
problems with our implementation of
the studio curriculum, and in retro-
spect I do not consider anything we
did during those first two quarters to
be particularly innovative or effec-
tive. Mottmann’s “Cautionary Tale”
merely illustrates that caution is
needed when instituting any signifi-
cant educational reform. It certainly
should not be viewed as evidence
(even anecdotal) that carefully
designed innovations in physics
teaching are not effective.
Shawn Kolitch
Department of Physics
1274 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403
skolitch@darkwing.uoregon.edu
Expression of Concern
In his February 1999 article in this
journal, John Mottmann shares his
observations of a physics teaching
innovation tried by California
Polytechnic State University. I think
that it is admirable that the author
tries to evaluate a costly reform pro-
gram at his university. While there
are flaws with his methodology, he
correctly notes errors and limitations
of narrow evaluations, and appropri-
ately questions the value of a specific
e d i t o r
approach that just might not be
working.
However, I am troubled by the
author’s lack of objectivity about
physics-education research and the
outcomes of reform efforts as a
whole. For example, he notes that in
a recent article by our group,1 student
understanding of the learning process
of physics deteriorates “after taking
reform or traditional classes.” In this
statement he refers to the subset of
results that matches his already-
formed ideas and ignores the rest of
our results.
There is a general lesson for
physics-education researchers here.
Exaggerated claims of success, limit-
ed assessments that overstate the
importance of multiple-choice diag-
nostics, and unsubstantiated state-
ments about research in physics
education can do real harm.
However, while this is a problem, it is
no reason for the greater physics
community to ignore the many mean-
ingful and important results that qual-
ity physics-education research has
accomplished.
1. E. F. Redish, J. M. Saul, and R.
N. Steinberg, “Student expecta-
tions in introductory physics,”
Am. J. Phys. 66, 212-224
(March 1998).
Richard N. Steinberg
Physics Education Research
Group
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-4111
Mottmann Replies
Dr. Kolitch is a dedicated and gift-
ed educator. I hope neither he, nor
anyone else, feels that I want to deni-
grate those who are attempting to
improve physics education—such
was never my intention. My
Letters to the Editor
“Cautionary Tale” was to point out
that hard work, enthusiasm, and good
intentions have not guaranteed suc-
cess. I especially agree with Kolitch’s
comments about simply buying com-
puters and expecting dramatic results.
But this is one of my main concerns:
far too many faculty and administra-
tors believe that every new technolo-
gy will be our salvation.
My basic questions remain: How
deep an understanding of physics can
we realistically expect students to
acquire in an introductory course? Is
there any independent verification
showing that some new pedagogical
technique provides dramatic results
without an inordinate commitment of
time? My belief is that much yet
remains to be explored and learned.
My best wishes to Dr. Kolitch and all
the other dedicated explorers.
John Mottmann
Physics Department
California Polytechnic State
University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Errata in Long-Distance Free
Fall
As pointed out by several readers,
my calculation in “Long-Distance
Free Fall” (Phys. Teach., March
1999, p. 166) contains an error. I
incorrectly used the velocity at
Earth’s surface instead of the instan-
taneous velocity to calculate the time
it takes an object to fall a large dis-
tance from rest. I regret the error. The
correct velocity is
v =
2G
M

1 1


–


r a
(1)
where a is the height from which the
object is dropped.
The dimensionless form of the
time is
 =
N
(N
–)
1
N 3/2 
 
N–2
+



+ arcsin

(2)
2 2 N Noon he fell, from Noon to dewy
where  =

2GM



R3
t and a = NR (R is
Letters to the Editor
Earth’s radius). For the nine-day fall
considered in the note,  = 1363 and
the numerical solution is N = 91.00.
The corresponding height is a =
5.806  108 m or 1.508 times the
mean Earth-Moon distance. In the
large-N limit, the approximate solu-
tion to Eq. (2) is
1



 
8GM 2 3
a =

2 t (3)

which shows the appropriate t2 ~ a3
in agreement with Kepler’s third law.
Joseph Gallant
Kent State University
Warren, OH 44483-1998
Comments on Long-Distance
Free Fall
• It is clear that the author’s Fig. 1
cannot be the correct relation
between initial height and travel time,
because the trajectory can be pictured
as a limiting case of part of an elliptic
orbit of very large eccentricity. The
starting point is the apogee of the
orbit, and the distance of fall (since it
is very large compared to Earth’s
radius) is almost equal to the major the statement of the problem, “It was
axis of the ellipse. We know from this nasty fall that gave Vulcan his
Kepler’s third law that the period of limp!
the orbit is proportional to the 3/2
power of the major axis; thus the dis- 1. A. P. French, Newtonian
tance of fall, which corresponds to Mechanics (New York: W. W.
about one-half period, must vary Norton, 1971), p. 111.
approximately as the 2/3 power of the
time of fall. My own analysis of the A. P. French
problem gives the distance of the Massachusetts Institute of
nine-day fall as about 5.8  105 km. Technology
I had a personal interest in this Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
problem, because nearly 30 years
ago, in writing my book Newtonian
Mechanics, I used some other lines
from Book I of Paradise Lost as the
• A. John Mallinckrodt of California
State Polytechnic University sent the
correct solution and added “It is dis-
basis for calculating the height of couraging to note that this same topic
Heaven.1 Milton describes the arose in these very pages barely one
ancient Greek myth in which Vulcan, year ago in an article by Stewart1 and
the blacksmith god (though Milton that I wrote and had published what
called him Mulciber) is thrown out of amounts to this same letter shortly
thereafter.2 At least this incident
Heaven by Jove: “...from Morn/To
allows me to provide a previously
Eve,/A Summer’s day; and with the omitted citation3 to a related work by
setting Sun/Dropt from the Zenith an author whose gentle and private
like a falling Star....” As I remark in scoldings about matters related to lit-
Vol. 37, May 1999 THE PHYSICS TEACHER 261
erature searches and careful review-
ing I value.”
1. M. B. Stewart, “Falling and
orbiting,” Phys. Teach. 36, 122
(Feb. 1998).
2. A. J. Mallinckrodt, “Falling
into the Sun,” Phys. Teach. 36,
324 (Sept. 1998).
3. R. H. Romer and D. H. Towne,
“Problem: Bouncing the Earth
into the Sun” and “Solution,”
Am. J. Phys. 56, 39 and 94
(1998).
A. John Mallinckrodt
California State Polytechnic
University
• The correct solution was also point-
ed out by Walter S. Jaronski of
Radford University, Radford, Vir-
ginia; by David Groh, Morningside
College, Sioux City, Iowa; and
Frederick Slee, University of Puget
Sound, Tacoma, Washington.
262 THE PHYSICS TEACHER Vol. 37, May 1999
• Editor’s Note: The editor and ref-
eree failed to catch the mistakes in
this paper. We are now being gnawed
on by Lucifer at the bottom of the
ninth ring of Inferno,1 having taken
only 21 minutes to fall from grace at
Earth’s surface (T = 1/4 2
R/g
).
1. Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto
XXXIV.
Corrections to Atwood
Machine Note
It has been brought to our atten-
tion by Professor Martin Tiersten
(City University of New York) that
we have a couple of mistakes in our
paper, “The Atwood Machine: Two
Special Cases,” [Phys. Teach. 37, 83-
85 (1999)]. We note the following
corrections:
Equation (5) should read
d2x 2gx


=


dt2 L + R
Note that the factor of two should be
in the numerator, instead of the
denominator, and that the denomina-
tor should be the length of the entire
rope, not just the distance from the
floor to the center of the pulley. The
solution to the equation of motion
should then read
x(t) = Aet
2gL ) + Be 1
2
/(+R g
L  )
/(+R
(6)
so that the solution is dependent on
the scale of the problem through the
factor of 2g/(L+R). In addition, we
should note that for high speeds of
the rope, the rope will begin to lose
contact with the pulley. We are
indebted to Professor Tiersten for
pointing out that with “a smooth
guard rail,” the corrected versions of
Eqs. (5) and (6) remain valid for the
range of initial conditions intended.
We sincerely apologize for these
careless algebra and conceptual mis-
(5) takes, and wish to thank Professor
Tiersten for taking the time to read
our paper with such care.
Joseph O. West
Rose-Hulman
Institute of Technology
Terre Haute, IN 47803
Going Up and Coming Down
Regarding “Figuring Physics” in
the March issue of The Physics
Teacher, there is an interesting neces-
sary constraint on the launch veloci-
ties of the two balls: the launch
velocity of the top ball must always
be less than that of the low ball. The
top ball must reach its peak at an ear-
lier time than the low ball does so that
its final velocity exceeds its initial
velocity—as it must because of its
downward net displacement. The
only way for it to reach an earlier
peak is to have lower initial velocity
compared with the low ball.
David L. Taylor
Rosati-Kain High School
St. Louis, MO 63108-2701
Letters to the Editor