Author: Rhett Allain / Source: WIRED
The best questions are always the ones that don’t have a single clear answer. In my physics classes, I like to present students with problems that can promote a lively discussion—and to do that, they have to have multiple answers that could possibly make sense.
(And they shouldn’t involve lots of math, otherwise my students will just get hung up on the calculations.)Here is a version of one of these great questions; it’s truly a classic.
A human (person A below) has two baseballs. The human tosses the two balls at the same time but to two different people (persons B and C as labeled below). The trajectory of each ball is shown. Which ball arrives at the person first? Defend your answer.
Just to be clear, there is no air resistance on these balls—just the gravitational force is acting on them after they are “tossed.”
OK, now you need to think about your answer. Pick the best possible answer and share with your neighbors. Yes, actually get out of the house and go to your neighbor’s house and see what they think about this question. It’s going to be the beginning of a great conversation. Trust me.
Since I really want you to pick an answer, I am going to delay going over this problem. Instead, let me point out why this is such a great question for an introductory physics class.
- It’s a simple question to understand. You can present this situation to someone and they understand what’s going on—it’s not some super complicated thing. Really, you could just show the picture and then say “which one gets there first?”
- Everyone probably has an answer. Students might not be too certain of their answer but they won’t just say “I don’t have a clue”—they will all at least have a clue. Even better, the students will be able to give some justification for their answer. This means that they are going…
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