Category: Teaching

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Why you should always write down units

An artist's depiction of the Mars Orbiter actually orbiting Mars.

You’re probably calculating everything in MKS units (meters, kilograms and seconds) and I could probably guess what units you are using, but if you neglect to actually write down the units explicitly then

  1. You’re giving up a chance to catch algebra errors, and
  2. This could happen to you, causing international embarrassment.
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Read this before questioning me

Here’s a peer-reviewed argument that students should just shut up and listen – preferably in awe – to their professors.  So if you ever get the feeling that you’d like to disagree with me, just remember that it’s pedagogically unsound for you to do so.  Your proper attitude “should be one of humility before the science being studied.”

This reminds me of the bumper sticker pictured to the right.  When I first saw one of these, I immediately thought “Why?” and for years I thought these were meta-jokes.