The Fascinet (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} fascinet) wrote,@ 2008-01-24 08:15:00 |
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Another cherished illusion crushed!
I have always believed, since I made it up last night, that the concept of torque was first discovered by Tomás de Torquemada, and thus named after him. It turns out this is not the case, and the nomenclature is simply serendipitous. My favored account is simply ahistorical.
This means that I cannot introduce the concept in first year physics classes talking about thumbscrews.
Or does it?
I remember a clever classmate who read about Lamarckian Evolution in his high school biology textbook, where it was introduced to be refuted (it was, obviously, also my high school biology textbook). He insisted that the process of handing down acquired traits was part of evolution; that is, a giraffe who stretches his neck out on a rock so that he can reach just a little bit higher will have children whose necks are just a little bit longer than their peers, even without stretching them on rocks.
He remembered reading it in his high school biology textbook, and so it must be true. Right?
So, I could introduce torque in my physics course with a three sequence cartoon of everybody's favorite Grand Inquisitor routinely torturing someone on the rack, and as he was cranking it up, he could get the idea, complete with thought balloon and an excited expression: "Hey! Hef! Hef! r-cross-F! I can torture freshmen until Kingdom Come!" Then, even though the last panel is crossed out with a big red X, some percentage of bright people will believe that rotational dynamics is based upon the genocidal excesses of the late and post-Reconquista eras of the Iberian Peninsula.
It is also ahistorical because the Spanish Inquisition neither used thumbscrews or the rack: these tortures were considered far too progressive by the Papacy.
Hanging people upside down and flushing gallons of water up their noses had saved souls for a thousand years, and would save souls for another thousand to come.
I have always believed, since I made it up last night, that the concept of torque was first discovered by Tomás de Torquemada, and thus named after him. It turns out this is not the case, and the nomenclature is simply serendipitous. My favored account is simply ahistorical.
This means that I cannot introduce the concept in first year physics classes talking about thumbscrews.
Or does it?
I remember a clever classmate who read about Lamarckian Evolution in his high school biology textbook, where it was introduced to be refuted (it was, obviously, also my high school biology textbook). He insisted that the process of handing down acquired traits was part of evolution; that is, a giraffe who stretches his neck out on a rock so that he can reach just a little bit higher will have children whose necks are just a little bit longer than their peers, even without stretching them on rocks.
He remembered reading it in his high school biology textbook, and so it must be true. Right?
So, I could introduce torque in my physics course with a three sequence cartoon of everybody's favorite Grand Inquisitor routinely torturing someone on the rack, and as he was cranking it up, he could get the idea, complete with thought balloon and an excited expression: "Hey! Hef! Hef! r-cross-F! I can torture freshmen until Kingdom Come!" Then, even though the last panel is crossed out with a big red X, some percentage of bright people will believe that rotational dynamics is based upon the genocidal excesses of the late and post-Reconquista eras of the Iberian Peninsula.
It is also ahistorical because the Spanish Inquisition neither used thumbscrews or the rack: these tortures were considered far too progressive by the Papacy.
Hanging people upside down and flushing gallons of water up their noses had saved souls for a thousand years, and would save souls for another thousand to come.
