Evolution, physics, and education.

Evolution is a universal phenomenon of nature, bio, and non-bio. Evolution belongs in physics and general education. This step clarifies and enhances the transmission and retention of knowledge. Teaching and learning are the mental activity of grasping a new subject as something familiar, like an older and wider body of knowledge. The new subject is evolution, and the older and wider is physics. The older is accepted because it is based on morphing images available for observation and testing during a human lifetime (e.g., dendrites of river basins, lightning, snowflakes). Physical images can be predicted, tested, confirmed, and condensed into principles with the power to predict directionality and future evolution. The teaching of this method is illustrated with examples from animal locomotion and vehicle configuration, speed, and path.

Duke Scholars

Author Adrian Bejan Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materia ...