On 1/26/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Which set of
chemistry teachings did you have in mind?
For example, I discovered a few days ago, talking to some friends of
mine studying Chemistry at uni, that diatomic oxygen is, in fact, not
double bonded, as my Chemistry teachers said it was.
I can understand the reason for the simplification, but they should at
least say they are simplifying things.
Anything that isn't the full quantum-mechanical electron orbitals
analysis of the chemical structure is oversimplification, but "works"
for 99.9% of the chemistry that anyone ever does.
We still teach people Newtonian physics first, then Relativity if you
reach college and take science major / engineering major level physics
courses. Almost nobody remembers the fully relativistic versions of
the equations of motion, because you essentially have to be a particle
physicist or high energy physicist or cosmologist for it to matter.
The simplifications aren't wrong. And it's not wrong to teach them to
people. It's wrong to not tell people that there is a more precise
underlying theory, but I don't generally run into physics or chemistry
teachers at any level who don't make that distinction.
--
-george william herbert
george.herbert(a)gmail.com