Weather permitting, the first day of class is an outdoor walk and talk about natural philosophy and science. The walk and talk develops the western concepts of space, time, and matter, and the concept of measuring these qualities. One approach is a historical, Aristotlean "no equipment" walk and talk. Another is one focusing on space, time, and matter without the historical components. Either approach can be taken by the instructor.
Everything else is pure energy.
Why?
Aristotle is acknowledged to be the founding father of natural science in Western culture. Aristotle introduced the idea of doing experiments in order to understand the natural world. For Aristotle, natural science was the same as natural philosophy. Science was a branch of philosophy.
Aristotle is said to have taught while walking around outside at the Lyceum, leading to the students referring to themselves as belonging to the peripatetic school. Aristotle walked and taught what he considered branches of philosophy including natural philosophy.
Peripatetic: To walk around (peri) the patio garden (patetic).
Space consists of three dimensions. Three dimensions means three directions. Think of the directions as forward-backward, right-left, up-down. Backward, left, and down are not three new directions. Backward, left, and down are simply the opposite of forward, right, and up. If forward, right, and up are positive directions, then backward, left, and down are negative directions.
Time has only one direction, forward. Time, as we experience time, cannot be stopped or reversed, not with current knowledge and technology.
Matter is the amount of stuff in an object. Matter has no direction. Only when matter moves through space can one speak about a direction. The direction is the result of movement, not a property of the matter.
Steps and beats: an introduction to thinking about space, time, and measurement.
To walk requires making steps. Steps move one through space. Steps also take time. One cannot move from one place in space to another in zero time. Movement requires changing one's location in space and time. Space and time are intertwined. Time itself is often measured as a movement through a distance on older dial-style clocks with moving hands. Today's digital watches and timers no longer show us the movement, but time is still deeply connected to space.
We can speak of the number of steps covered per beat. Per refers to division. Steps ÷ beats is a measure of space per unit time. Steps per beat can also be called a speed. In this class speed and velocity are treated as being the same.
There is a difficulty with steps and beats. Each person will measure a different number of steps for a given distance in space. Each person will also measure a different number of beats.
Motion requires the qualities space and time. The words speed and velocity both refer to motion. Other concepts may combine other qualities. Density is only possible with space and matter. Momentum will require matter, space, and time - all three qualities.
Some measures will differ in their exponent. Space squared is called area. Space squared, area, appears in the formula for pressure. Space cubed is called volume. Space cubed, volume, appears in the density formula. Time squared appears in acceleration and energy calculations. Time squared is actually an area measure of time.
Some measures differ in the scale on which the quality acts. The atomic scale vibration of atoms in solids is responsible for what is called the temperature of the solid. Temperature is related to motion, which is change in space and time. The units of temperature, however, do not appear to be units of speed.
Some measures are simply new vocabulary applied to the three qualities. Wavelength is a specific distance measured along a wave. Frequency is a rate at which something repeats measured in repeats per unit time. Angles are measures of rotation in space.
While energy can be expressed by combining units that measure space, time, and matter, energy is not space, nor time, nor matter. Energy is perhaps the hardest to describe. Among other complications is that in physical science there are different forms of energy. There are special terms to describe these different types of energy. The energy that a moving object possesses is called kinetic energy. The energy possessed by hot objects is called thermal energy. The sun produces solar energy. Gasoline and kerosine contain chemical energy.
Instructional notes on the peripatetic/Aristotlean start option: Using this option the instructor intentionally has no papers, no pens, no watch on for this course. The instructor is limited to that which a theoretical Aristotle might have had access to on a walk around the garden patio. The natural world is the science classroom. Science is not a laboratory, science is a way of thinking about the physical world.
Another option is to focus on space, time, and matter, introducing these concepts along with the three dimensions of space, one of time, and arguably none for mass. This approach would also include examples of space, time, and matter.