Chris: But that is an ideal that energy is a something. And it’s that something can move from here to there. Where energy is not a something, it's the ability to make something or do something, but it's not the something that can actually go from here to here and transform and change from here to here. It's not, the way you, you can go through the, we know that there is, chemicals that move as a result of this, and we speak of, due to respiration and blah blah blah, but the thing energy itself is not a thing at all.
Sara: So then are you saying that energy itself is formless?
Chris: Yes. That is what I'm saying. Energy itself is formless. It makes - it does make things move, but what is it? It is, in itself, [???]. Woo oo! This is, I mean, it is what makes things do what it does, but there's nothing, we cannot represent and say, oh here's this little bit of energy going to this little bit of energy, because that's saying it is actually a bit, and it's actually, [mouth motions].
It seems like Chris is trying to say that energy is ineffable - almost inexpressible.
There is an intervening few minutes in which they talk about the energy in glucose, and the photoelectric effect. Chris continues to strongly defend the distinction between energy and "particles." Arny says, "It's not matter, but does that mean it's nothing?" and Chris says "It's woowoo." (Big prize to LESLIE for helping me understand that she was saying "woowoo," not "mubu," though we both liked mubu.) Tell me what you think.
Why does it make a difference whether it's particles? How does that make it a thing? I don't think being made of particles makes it a thing. In fact, energy in a way is more thing-like than photons, because it is conserved and photons are not.
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Can't there be two kinds of things? Rather than "it's not the thing, it's what causes changes in things," why can't it be "it's the thing of one type that causes changes in the things of another type"?
To me the ontology feels different when I think about "phonon" and "photon" and "soliton" -- like, there's an "energyton" out there that I can follow that I know science has agreed is real. It probably has a finite speed, perhaps size and shape. It can't be like money where I use the atm and $ magically disappears from my bank account and appears in my wallet without anything traveling in between.
ReplyDelete(I have an analogy, so bear with me:) Imagine I think of energy as the height of a tablecloth on the table.-- there's a lump in the tablecloth __∩___&____ (the ∩ is a lump, the & is a roast turkey). I can pull on the tablecloth so that the lump is on the other side of the turkey ______&_∩__ even though the lump didn't go under or through the turkey. That's b/c the lump isn't the thing -- the *tablecloth* is the thing. The lump just is a way of talking about the tablecloth. But thinking of energy as a particle might mean I can't think of it as the height of a tablecloth. Know what I mean?
So that's question 1.
As for question two, it seems like the teacher might not be thinking metaphorically -- but rather "it's not matter, it causes changes in matter"? Not sure - I wasn't in the class to hear the conversation.
I think this kind of discussion is really rich - and I've had similar ones with colleagues about force - is force the shared interaction or the effect from outside objects on a system of interest? and what are the implications of these two ways of thinking about it? I think this level of discussion is unnecessarily confusing to bring up in the classroom - BUT if students bring it up themselves, then it's pretty rich. If they aren't ready to think about it, or curious about thinking this way, then this is a pretty easy way to disengage them. Thinking about how this happens on its own, and if it impacts future conversations in the group is interesting though.
ReplyDeleteLeslie, I think I'm going to need to have you explain this in person, and then I will post, if I find that I think anything.
ReplyDeleteI also like that, in this conversation while they're laughing about "woo woo" being in the dictionary, Stamatis comes by and asks them about the cups and they kind of instinctively move to a yellow cup. Arty says "Are we yellow? I still think we're going full-tilt. I think we're green." They move it back to green. So they identify this as a productive conversation, on-task, rather than a side conversation.
ReplyDeleteAnd I like that they're identifying that energy is kind of "woo woo" and I agree with Chris that this makes it seem like it should be un-quantifiable and un-thing-like. I also agree with Hunter that this is not a necessary consequence ("woo woo" things can still be things) - but this is a metaphorical way of talking that can feel weird unless it's explicit.
I had a very productive discussion with Chris on the bus today about woo-woo. I wish we had videotaped it, because she found some of the things I had to say very satisfying - at least that's what she told me. And I learned what woo-woo is, a little bit. Chris and her bus-seat-mate (don't know her first name; last name = Bean) also were certain that they did not have a sense of where this was going, so I engaged them on that too. I can try in person to recreate what we talked about.
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