I have not forgotten basic acceleration mechanics. I have not lost my mind. Not only was it backed up on disc, but I even found it. It turns out that I have been getting my problems right, not wrong. I agonized over one simple problem, wondering why my answer wasn't the one in the book. Finally in desperation I sent word to not one, but TWO of my Friendly Scientists, and they re-did the problems for me. My answers were right both times. And in the case of the one I was agonizing over, the book's answer was wrong. What an odd situation! This is not the first time I have been hung up over a wrong answer printed in my book. I trust the book, but it betrays me! It helps to have friends to check things for you, and I am hugely grateful to these helpful science guys. (They know who they are.)

I went to the bookstore anyway, and though they were out of the Schaum's series for classical physics, I bought another one specially for high school physics which is a collection of problems and their work-throughs. This should save wear and tear on my Friendly Scientists, whose time and attention are precious resources I cannot afford to waste or use frivolously.

One of my problems, as one of the Scientists has pointed out, is that I use so many different textbooks. This confuses me. Each one has a different order in which it presents its classical physics subjects. And many of them use different letters to designate the basic quantities that are to be worked with, like distance, acceleration, or velocity. Some of them use calculus, and thus I cannot yet work with them. Others are so simple that they don't have enough problems to work through.

I need books with lots of problems in them, because the only way I really learn anything is to work doggedly and determinedly on one after another after another after another. Most of the time I forget the problem as soon as I have solved it, so that in a week I can go back to it and solve it again as if I had never seen it before. But after a few repeats, problems get used up, so that I have to find new ones to work on. That's one reason I have so many books. The textbooks, unlike the review books, have that annoying feature of only showing the answers to the odd-numbered ones. I can't always check them myself. Where is that artificial intelligence when I need it?

Soon I'll be learning about circular motion, levers, wheels, cranks, tension, and torque. That will probably make me suitably cranky and tense, and probably torque me off. But I sure love solving them problems.

Posted at 3:13 am | link