Resumen de Friction and the Intuition-Outcome Disparity

Peter Kalajian, Maria Makarova

• Humans have evolved to follow their intuition, but as any high school physics teacher knows, relying on intuition often leads students to predict outcomes that are at odds with evidence. Over the years, we have attempted to make this intuition-outcome disparity a central theme running throughout our physics classes, with limited success. Part of the problem is making a very clear and direct link between intuition and evidence. Typically, we ask students to make predictions before they make measurements, but often the predictions are little more than non-intuitive guesses. What we needed was an investigation where students actually do have an intuitive prediction based on their life experience. This year, we think we have finally found a way to drive home the intuition-outcome disparity through an investigation into the factors that affect frictional force.