Friday 15 June 2018

NSW Physics Syllabus pages 32 - 39 Year 11 content

Finally this is the content taught on the year before the final year "Year 11".  I just think suvat is not the best as it misses the opportunity to teach subscripts and subsubscripts and more, and also uses up cognitive load in rote learning rather than functional recall. The use of a vector equation for friction is a problem but many sources on the internet muck up this fundamental thing.

This is acceptable as the symbols are placed as vector labels, N is a reserved symbol for normal force.  Some problems here though, with the scale and positioning of the vectors. Obviously mg sin(theta) should be smaller than mg, but also the negative value is problematic when combined with the sense of the vector. In a body diagram all vectors act from the COM which is the centre of rotation. You are allowed to translate the vectors for clarity of the diagram but you should use a dashed extension line through the COM. As drawn this shows a anticlockwise torque. Also strictly speaking you should not use redundant or non real forces on the body diagram. Using Australian convention only there should be a <==== double resultant vector where the mgsin(theta) on is drawn labeled  mg sin (theta) - mu N. All seems small change really, but... it is the clarity necessary for learning. Podcast

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