In what ways are the two similar or different? Do the similarities and the differences help describe the challenges of physics?
Within this metaphor, physics starts by first creating the dots (through experiments) and carefully assessing the reliability of their existence, and accuracy of positioning.
From the viewpoint of theoretical physics, one may be more interested in obtaining a beautiful picture than faithfully reproducing every gory, irrelevant detail.
Dr Olausssen’s reply has a beautifully succinct answer. Please permit me to add some remarks. A children’s connect the dots puzzle usually outlines the drawing of something known, such as an animal or an accordion. Often if not always the top of the page has a word or phrase such as “elephant” or “accordion” which describes the drawing that will emerge on connecting the dots in the puzzle below. The dots themselves are labeled with numbers to be connected in numerical sequence or letters to be joined in alphabetical order.
Connecting the dots in a connect the dots puzzle engages the person doing the connecting because the precise image that will emerge is at the outset unknown, how the image emerges even considering the word hints at the top of the page engages the curiosity, detecting and connecting the dots is a problem solving challenge, and then there is the delight at seeing how connecting the dots reveals the drawing of something the impression of which is obscure before the dots are connected.
In physics, the dots may be experiments as Dr. Olaussen thoughtfully points out, and they may also be observations (such as astronomical measurements for example) or concepts themselves if the connecting of dots is in theoretical physics as another example. In a children’s connect the dots puzzle the pattern is concealed by removing the connections between dots, but at the start there exists a pattern. In physics, the existence of a pattern is not necessarily a given; sometimes a pattern in physics is not only obscure but completely unknown at the start of the connecting the dots exercise. Even more difficult, the physicist must sometimes determines if an experiment, observation or concept is a connectable concept at all, whether it connects to other experiments, observations and concepts. In physics, there is no set of prescribed connected experiments, observations and concepts collected together for the physicist in the way the dots are arrayed in a connect the dots puzzle. From a vast array of possibilities, the physicist must guess and find what if any experiments, observations and concepts might connect. In physics the existence of a connection between experimental results, observations and concepts may be a breakthrough itself, whereas in a children’s connect the dots puzzle the connectability of the dots is a given. In physics, the connectability of the experimental, observational and conceptual dots may be a puzzle, and that puzzle is absent from the children’s connect the dots puzzle. In that sense, one may think of physics as a higher level more abstract version of a children’s connect the dots puzzle.
These observations raise this question. Can connect the dots puzzles be pedagogically used in teaching physics?
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