/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.4053401]

Hey /sci/,

My little brother that is taking chemistry asked me to help him with his homework. When I looked at it, he was studying the Bohr model of the atom. I looked at his book, and they have a whole chapter dedicated to explaining the Bohr model.

I have to ask, why do schools teach outdated theories and models, such as the Bohr model of the atom? It frustrates me.

[Anonymous No.4053406]

i can agree with this

it's fucking retarded and it makes me want to go to each of my local high schools and burn all of the chemistry books

[Anonymous No.4053404]

shit thread topic.

its becuase they have to pass it through the government first if its a public school. at least thats what it is in england, becuase we have standards for education so new theories have to be studied thoroughly by the gov before they decide to teach it

[Anonymous No.4053408]

Agreed. Took me forever to realize that electrons don't orbit the nucleus like the planets around the sun. Totally fucked up my ability to understand basic quantum mechanics...

[Anonymous No.4053410]

>be a freshman in high school
>take "introduction to the physical sciences"
>plum pudding model
>plum pudding mode everywhere
>plum pudding on test, cumulative exam
>plum pudding answer for dozens of questions
>fuck the plum pudding model

Seriously. In hindsight it feels like all we did was look at these outdated models and for some reason, plum pudding sticks in my head.

Fast forward to now; learning quantum indeterminancy, and VSEPR. Fuck year.

[Lion !FvAwVR8cv6 No.4053407]

because science.

It's like asking why read Marx in political theory classes.

[Anonymous No.4053415]

>>4053407
You can't really compare a philosophy to a theory, because philosophies can't be disproven. Bohr's model, however, is flawed.

[Anonymous No.4053420]

Hey /sci/,

My little brother that is taking physics asked me to help him with his homework. When I looked at it, he was studying Newton's law of gravitation. I looked at his book, and they have a whole chapter dedicated to explaining Newton's law of gravitation.

I have to ask, why do schools teach outdated theories and models, such as Newton's theory of gravitation? It frustrates me.

[Anonymous No.4053421]

>>4053415
Of course philosophies can be disproven.

[Anonymous No.4053423]

For the same reason we teach children that division and subtraction exist.

It eases the learning curve.

[Anonymous No.4053424]

>>4053421
Can you disprove Communism? No. You can have an opinion about it, and you may think that it is fundamentally flawed, but it will never be wrong.

[Teacup !obkpuSWh5M No.4053425]

>>4053420
Newton's law holds, what are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.4053434]

>>4053423
And I bet you are one of those people who believe you can't teach a seven year old calculus.

[Anonymous No.4053442]

>>4053424
> implying communism is coherent in the first place
Well you're right, nonsense can't be disproven since it never makes a substantive statement in the first place.

[Anonymous No.4053444]

>>4053442
You said philosophies can be disproven. Communism, Confucianism, etc. can't be proven nor disproven. You can have an opinion for or against the matter but just because you think that doesn't mean you're right.

[Anonymous No.4053447]

>>4053434

I'm not stating the reason is valid.

I'm just stating the reason.

[Anonymous No.4053452]

because the modern model requires knowledge of quantum mechanics

[Anonymous No.4053459]

>>4053425
so does bohrs model of the atom in most situations

[Anonymous No.4053461]

they probably toss in some science history i guess...

[Anonymous No.4053477]

>>4053461
No. I read the book closely. They talked about the Bohr model as if it was a fact.

[Anonymous No.4053508]

>>4053505
depends on how tall the staircase is.

[Anonymous No.4053505]

Because you can't just jump straight from basic chemistry to asking kids to understand quantum mechanics, it's like stairs, you can't jump from the bottom to top, you need the steps inbetween.

[Anonymous No.4053506]

>>4053425

>2011
>newton

[Anonymous No.4053523]

>>4053508

It's physics, it's a BIG staircase.

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053528]

Okay guys, let's talk about the hydrogen atom! Since solving the stationary Schrödinger equation with the Coulomb potential,<div class="math">\frac1{2m}\left(\frac{1}{r^2} \frac{\partial}{\partial r} \left( r^2 \frac{\partial\psi}{\partial r} \right) + \frac{1}{r^2 \sin \vartheta} \frac{\partial}{\partial \vartheta} \left(\sin\vartheta \frac{\partial\psi}{\partial \vartheta} \right) + \frac{1}{r^2 \sin^2\vartheta} \frac{\partial^2 \psi}{\partial \varphi^2}\right)-\frac1{4\pi}\frac1r\psi = E\psi</div>is too difficult for school, I'll give you the solution and then we can start talking about it!<div class="math">
\psi_{n\ell m}(r,\vartheta,\varphi)
=
\sqrt{{\left(\frac{2}{n a_0}\right)}^3\frac{(n-\ell-1)!}{2n((n+\ell)!)}} e^{- \frac{r}{n a_0}} \left(\frac{2r}{n a_0}\right)^\ell \frac{e^\frac{2r}{n a_0} \left(\frac{2r}{n a_0}\right)^{-{(2\ell+1)}}}{(n-\ell-1)!} \frac{{\mathrm d}^{n-\ell-1}}{{\mathrm d}\left(\frac{2r}{n a_0}\right)^{n-\ell-1}} \left(e^{-\frac{2r}{n a_0}}\left(\frac{2r}{n a_0}\right)^{l+n}\right)
\cdot \, \frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi}} \sqrt{\frac{2 \ell +1}{2}\cdot\frac{(\ell -m)!}{(\ell +m)!}}\,\, \frac{(-1)^m}{2^\ell \, \ell!} \left(1-(\cos\vartheta)^2\right)^\frac{m}{2} \frac{\mathrm d^{\ell+m}}{\mathrm d (\cos\vartheta)^{\ell+m}} \left(\left((\cos\vartheta)^2-1\right)^\ell\right) e^{im\varphi}
</div>
tl;dr: OP is an idiot and doesn't know shit.

[Anonymous No.4053535]

>>4053528
How do you get a backwards 6?

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053539]

>>4053535
<div class="math">9</div>

[Anonymous No.4053540]

>>4053535
with the latex command \mirror{6}

[Bruised No.4053543]

>>4053528
>Implying finding solutions to (second order) differential equations is hard.

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053548]

>>4053543
Einstein equations, Navier stokes, QED, ...

[Anonymous No.4053553]

<span class="math">\mirror{6}[\math]/r<span class="math">\mirror(6)[\math] means what?[/spoiler][/spoiler]

[Anonymous No.4053555]

>>4053528
>is too difficult for school
it's not. many chinese schools now offer the entire calculus lineup in early years of high school. partial derivatives/newtonian mechanics aren't that hard.

[Anonymous No.4053559]

\delta

[Anonymous No.4053562]

>>4053553
wat

[Anonymous No.4053564]

>>4053528
bitch please

the mathematics behind it aren't essential. it's the fundamental concepts of QM that should be reinforced.

[Bruised No.4053566]

>>4053548
Still not hard, even when we have 10 simultaneous differential equations in EFE it's child's play.

Quantum field theories are only tricky because you have to wrestle with shitty perturbation theory.

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053571]

>>4053564
The fundamental concepts of quantum mechanics are Hilbert spaces, operator algebra, probability densities and so on. Have fun reinforcing that to 15 year olds.

[Anonymous No.4053576]

>>4053528
>he praises the common education system that we were all fucked with
>he thinks that determined and focused high school students aren't intellectually capable for high level mathematics

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053579]

>>4053566
>Fundamental misunderstanding of nonlinear equations
Check
>Doesn't know about non-perturbative (Q)FT
Check
>"Quantum field theories are only tricky because of perturbation"
Damn perturbation theory and Feynman diagrams

[Anonymous No.4053585]

>>4053571
the brain is largely done with development at or around that age. i don't see anything wrong with covering any of those topics if the students are focused enough. hell, if only i had the opportunity...

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053589]

>>4053585
But that's not something you can teach to everyone. Giving interested students the opportunity to learn those things on their own (or in a small group with other interested ones) in school is a good idea (that is already done in many school where I come from), but there have to be teachers for that. (And students.)

[mtp !EKFQOBEsKo No.4053597]

>ITT

[Bruised No.4053603]

>>4053579
>Thinks we can actually get decent results from non-perturbative methods in QFT.

What's not child's play about solving EFE? Boundary conditions, symmetry, pleasant coordinate system - done. It's the same with Navier–Stokes.

[Anonymous No.4053609]

>>4053603
>fluid mechanics

[Anonymous No.4053610]

>>4053603
Children don't play quantum mechanics, so, by definition, it's not child's play.

[Josef crossed out the Atlantic !!nUf2NflSAyw No.4053625]

>>4053603
Except there is no easy coordinate system for the wing of an airplane, a non-homogeneous gas cloud and what not, and numerics are often highly unstable.

[Anonymous No.4053631]

Bohr's model kinda makes sense, at least for the hydrogen atom, and it's much simpler than the current model, thus avoiding making people afraid of chemistry. Besides, history of science is important too, as seeing how others did things wrong helps you doing things right.