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Basic physics should be the most important class in school. amirite?
by Anonymous2 years ago
Your friends didn't understand that if they weren't seat belted they'd fly through the windshield?
by Anonymous2 years ago
I think OP was driving back in the 80s where there were actually a lot of people not using seatbelts :D
by Anonymous2 years ago
I was (well, 90s actually), but that is besides the point as I know a lot of people to this day who just treat a seatbelt as something you put on if you see a cop.
Basic physics tells us that our meatbags do not respond well to sudden acceleration or deceleration.
by Anonymous2 years ago
That's not a problem of lack of science knowledge, that's a problem of stupidity.
by Anonymous2 years ago
stupidity can often be mitigated by education
by Anonymous2 years ago
Doesmt have to be physics tho
by Anonymous2 years ago
Physics class wouldn't fix this, many who don't want to wear a seat belt can tell some story about someone who would've died if they had worn a seat belt, completely ignoring that in most cases you'd be worse off without a seat belt.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Physics isnt going to teach them about the damage deceleration will do to ther human body. Took physics and AP physics and nothing we learned would help make people put seatbelts on.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Yup, I took AP Physics B and C, and I was going to make the same point.
OTOH, it did reinforce to me the importance of tread on your tires so that friction could maintain centripetal acceleration.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Spatial awareness and basic physics is super key in any construction, factory, driving jobs. Things above you can fall straight down, something extended over half way over the ledge will fall, dont accel or brake too fast, you'll skid, lean your body against the slope when working on a roof, always have good grip when working at heights; watch for material!
by Anonymous2 years ago
Sad
by Anonymous2 years ago
F=ma would have fixed that.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Actually the flying is conservation of momentum.
F=ma explains the ouch at the other end.
by Anonymous2 years ago
An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I don't know how having sex with their mothers would have fixed that situation, but I'm in.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Who
by Anonymous2 years ago
Force = Mass * Acceleration, this means that when i run into a wall i deccelerate by however fast i was running (decceleration and acceleration is basically the same thing) so in order to pass your mothers force when rolling into a wall id have to run like 60km/h
by Anonymous2 years ago
Do you normally run into walls at such a fast pace?
by Anonymous2 years ago
yes
by Anonymous2 years ago
Ouch
by Anonymous2 years ago
The basic assumption is that if people are taught something, they learn and apply the knowledge. This isn't true. We were all taught, and all know, fast food isn't good for us. Most people still eat fast food. I took physics, but I wore a seatbelt long before that.
by Anonymous2 years ago
My senior year about 1/3 of the kids in my English class could hardly read the only language they know.
by Anonymous2 years ago
And a significant percentage of those people will look down on anyone who doesn't speak English well.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Physicist here. In my opinion people should learn how to think, pose questions, search for sources. Physics would come after.
Philosophy, economics, life skills and communication should be better taught at school and be the focus of the first years of learning after basic English, another language and math. Life skills are things like emergency responses (what to do in case of a deep cut etc), cooking and self care.
Physics, math, chemistry, English should come after and be the focus later on when students are more mature.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Sounds like what you really want is a "common sense" class.
by Anonymous2 years ago
It's amazing how many people lack common sense. It's kinda scary.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Used to be a physics major : I disagree. While physics is great, if we HAD to pick a single class to make children take? Financial literacy
by Anonymous2 years ago
That + economics
by Anonymous2 years ago
"To call econ a dismal science adherents exaggerate; the dismal's fine, it's 'science' that they patently prevaricate."
by Anonymous2 years ago
What the hell is even that
by Anonymous2 years ago
Yep, it's pretty absurd that kids graduate without knowing how to do their taxes, manage money, or even how our basic economic system functions. We'd save a lot of grief in our society if this was mandatory in school. Of course a conspiracy theorist would say the reason it isn't taught is because too many people people would start asking too many questions in regards to how the government manages and spends their tax dollars.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Unpopular, not sure what you quite mean by basic, but in year 10 science (It's a general class here, sciences only split off in year 11) when I went to school we were learning v=s/t and were only really beginning to learn about forces. Not going to help many people get a feel for the universe. If you mean anything more than that, good luck.
by Anonymous2 years ago
First off I disagree that it should be the "most important" one, but secondly - even if it was, so what?
Just because something it seen as important it doesn't mean people will acknowledge it, understand it, learn about it and actually follow through with things. If your friends didn't understand it even though you lost many by it, I'm not sure if changing the importance in school would have sn impact on it.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I think your friends were just not very smart
by Anonymous2 years ago
I graduated with a computer science degree in 2003, never took any physics course ever and I always wear my seat belt
by Anonymous2 years ago
Your friends lacked basic common sense, mentally challenged children know to wear a seatbelt without being told.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Personal finance and personal health over physics
by Anonymous2 years ago
if seatbelts is what you care about why not make a seatbelt class mandatory. every one has an innate sense of how inertia works, people don't not wear seatbelts bc they don't know the mathematics behind it.
by Anonymous2 years ago
It is insane that physics is taught so late, if at all, in public education. In my school is was taught only after competing geology and chemistry. I'm guessing it's because of our societies cultural fear of math.
I also feel the same about statistics. Even very smart, very educated people that I know don't understand how people use numbers to mislead or even lie to them, leading to troubling opinions not backed up by data in any meaningful way. It's extra frustrating because the math for basic statistics is pre-algrebra level.
Our school systems hate applied math.
by Anonymous2 years ago
the brain is needed
by Anonymous2 years ago
Math, above all else
by Anonymous2 years ago
People are somehow so surprised when physics does the physics thing
by Anonymous2 years ago
I agree with this also basic logic where you're taught common logical pitfalls like the gambles fallacy, bias, etc
by Anonymous2 years ago
Couldn't agree more with this. You would be surprised by how many people don't have any idea on basic physics concepts that surround us everyday. And they just keep living without thinking about it for even a second: riding on the train, using an elevator, accelerating/braking their cars…
Zero interest, zero curiosity… frustrating. ¡Oh! ¡But don't tell them about TikTok! They surely know EVERY bit of it.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I'm against making anything a law, including seatbelts and mandatory physics. That said, I wear my seatbelt and loved physics class.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Physics was always my favourite class.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Depends on what you define as basic. Of course people should know stuff about how energy works and how it transfers, but most of the calculations are just unnecessary.
People should know they could fly out the windshield, when they dont use their seatbelt, but they dont need to be able to calculate the velocity they have when they hit the ground.
People need to know how to behave around electricity and open wires, they dont need to calculate with how much, simply saying, electricity they get a ticket to the next hospital or morgue.
by Anonymous2 years ago
The G.O.A.T. (Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test) would be great if most high schools adopted it. It's not like we live in a wasteland
by Anonymous2 years ago
Why would you go against natural selection?
by Anonymous2 years ago
Good point, but they can cause collateral damage when doing basic things like driving a car.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Philosophy
by Anonymous2 years ago
It amazes me, how amazed people are when you make observations based on school physics. It's not rocket science! I guess it's a start though.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Make Americans learn geography and history. Its sad to watch people struggle to name 5 countries
by Anonymous2 years ago
We do. People aren't paying attention, there's a difference.
by Anonymous2 years ago
While it's definitely depressing that's not really the useful part of geography.
Sure it ranges from basic general knowledge to a cool party trick depending on how many you can name but it's all very surface.
It's much more important to learn about the economic and social effects of geography. Why is Sudan poor but France rich?
Same with history, it's much more important to be able to apply trends and analyse sources than wrote memorisation.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I'd just scrap it and go to something like test apptitude and desire. Send them to a trade school for 12 years and make them a fkin 18 yro expert than a general education of nothing.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Tell that to all the idiots who ask, even here, "why do we learn math and science in school? I don't even use Pythagoras theorem in my life. We should learn only about filing taxes and filling forms hurr durr".
by Anonymous2 years ago
Most people only use basic math in their lives if any and you can do it all on your phone's calculator. So, they aren't wrong
by Anonymous2 years ago
I don't think physics is gonna convince people to wear seatbelts or do other reckless things. Without physics everyone knows what gravity is yet people still jump/fall from high places KNOWING they're gonna go downwards. Why do you think people should know physics over basic philosophy?
by Anonymous2 years ago
NO basic English and Maths is the abs priority.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Most people actually have a basic understanding of physics. They just don't understand why things work and react the way they do.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I am a physics major and I disagree. Of the sciences I would say chemistry is far more important for the general population in understanding how the universe works
by Anonymous2 years ago
I'd go with philosophy. Most people seem to have no clue on how to form a valid argument, or dismiss obvious fallacies.
by Anonymous2 years ago
You're looking for common sense which unfortunately most people don't have.
Physics is a hard class because it relies so much on Math and a lot of people hate doing math, so adding another Math class would certainly make people hate it.
Most of the time people know the dangers of what they're doing but feel the risk is very low so they go through with it anyway.
by Anonymous2 years ago
If they didn't get the seatbelt thing, what makes you think would get physics?
by Anonymous2 years ago
No personal finance is more important, they should've learned the seatbelt stuff when getting their license
by Anonymous2 years ago
I don't need to use the kinematic equations to know what happens if I crash without a seat belt. The people that don't wear them figure they'll never be in a crash.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Knowing the numerical value of the force exerted on your body after traveling a certain speed and coming to an abrupt halt was not going to save your friends. Physics is used to create the seat belt in the first place, knowing how much strength the material needs to be able to withstand before reaching its breaking point. Simply wearing the seat beat is just common sense and IS taught to anyone that wants to drive a car and is the responsibility of the driver to enforce when others are in the car. In fact, it is an enforced law.
by Anonymous2 years ago
What would the basics be tho? I remember when I was in school, the basic was calcuating how much you weigh on mars or what force you need to use to break wood.
I would say it would be better to learn usefull physics.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I would say in that case logic and probability would help more lmao
by Anonymous2 years ago
Absolutely agree. It wasn't even taught as a formal required class at my high school. We had to elect to take it and it is so critically important!
Though, as someone who studied physics in college, there are arguments to be made regarding seatbelts once you know the physics involved. At low speed, seatbelts absolutely reduce injuries. At high speed, they can also be the reason you died in the crash as the car crushed you. Sometimes, momentum is your friend and you would be better off going through the windshield than being in the crushed tin can.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I don't think understanding why seatbelts work is a matter of physics. The evidence as to why you should wear one is all over the place and people still ignore it. People who didn't pay attention in physics probably can understand why crashing and not wearing one results in you flying out the windshield. Some philosophy type course should be the most important. I'm not saying 16 year olds need to read Plato and Kant, rather get the basics for assessing knowledge, bias and ethics. Why something is true or false, good or bad and why you should care. At least prompting people to think a little deeper about things. I've found most people don't.
by Anonymous2 years ago
I barely passed basic algebra. If they did that, I'd still be in school 50 years later.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Plot twist:
The most important class in school isn't even there...it's finance.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Math is the most important one. Not physics.
by Anonymous2 years ago
This is just amazing to me. I'm in my 40s and I can only think of two people I've known who died in a car crash, and one of them was driving drunk.
by Anonymous2 years ago
If someone is to stupid to wear a seatbelt based on the commonly available information they are going to be way to stupid to learn even the most basic physics.
by Anonymous2 years ago
To understand physics you need to understand maths
by Anonymous2 years ago
I think teaching the foundations of logic would be the most sensible thing to teach, and they don't even touch it in public schools. It's disconcerting to see how many people don't seem to be able to tell an invalid logical argument from a valid one.
by Anonymous2 years ago
they should have a class called common sense and street knowledge
by Anonymous2 years ago
Teaching the laws of the federal & state level that you can be arrested by doing in multiple grades instead of a general crash course of us gov senior yr in HS when no one cares is much more important imo.
by Anonymous2 years ago
Personally I i believe we should yeet every 10 year old off a 20 story building to really get them to understand terminal velocity. That'll teach em!
by Anonymous2 years ago
This would just ruin failarmy....
by Anonymous2 years ago
Ethics
by Anonymous2 years ago
I've got it; We have a normal physics class and another one named "Dark Physics" where it shows physics in real-world crash scenarios and other things that are horrifying.
Knowing high school's mentality, it would be treated like a joke at first from the name until more kids actually take the class and become shocked to learn it.
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