This started with an awesome quote from Neil deGrasse Tyson.
I figured this would make a nice poster for the wall outside my office. Here is what I put together.
Yes, I will use this to recruit physics majors. And yes, I checked. Tyson did indeed get a B.A. in Physics - his Ph.D. is in Astrophysics (at least according to Wikipedia).
But the real question: does a degree (or even a course) in physics help you to learn how to think? I guess we could start by looking at other courses. If you have a course where the goal is to memorize dates or explanations or a particular person's views on a topic, this might be learning what to think. Note: I don't think these types of courses are necessarily bad, they do serve some purpose. Know what Aristotle thought about motion is important and useful in developing your own ideas.
So, doesn't an intro physics course teach you what to think also? Doesn't it say "hey, THIS is the momentum principle....THIS is the model for the gravitational force"? Yes, it does. However, I think it does something else. It is set up so that you can't just memorize somethings to solve problems. Trust me. There have been many people to try and memorize a whole bunch of problems in physics in order to pass a test. It just doesn't work. Why?
The reason you can't memorize your way through physics is that there are too many problems. There are too many small aspects in a problem that can make it completely different. For example, take this problem.
You could use forces and kinematics to solve this problem. Or, if you are thinking ahead, you can use the work-energy principle since it deals with displacements. Ok, what about this problem:
In some ways, this seems similar to the first example. It has a block, it has a plane an there is even friction. However, for this problem, you can't use work-energy or kinematics. This problem only deals with forces on an object at equilibrium. The point is: if you try to memorize the solution to "block on a plane" problem, you won't succeed. Well, what if you want to memorize the "forces on an object in equilibrium problem"? Yes, you could do that. But in order to really understand when to apply this type of problem, you know what you have to do? You have to understand forces and equilibrium.
Just by the very nature of the problems in physics, it is difficult to take this "know what to think" strategy. Understanding the actual ideas and knowing how to apply them is, in a sense, knowing how to think.
