Comment by hansvm
10 hours ago
One of my favourite examples of this pedagogically is how kinetic energy is quadratic with velocity. It's easy to tie into things people think they understand, like braking distance. Our intuitions are wrong even in shockingly simple problems.
Agree, but kinetic energy being mv^2/2 rather than mv can be pretty intuitive in the right context:
> Would you father get hit with:
> * a 1 kg object moving at 1 m/s or
> * a 1 g object moving at 1 km/s?
This. A tesla model Y going 60mph has almost 2 times the kinetic energy (75MJ) of the same car going 45mph (40MJ)
Your stupid brain thinks, oh I am just 10ish over the limit.