When explaining ideas, it is important to say what the ideas are not. It is essential to explain what is wrong, which ideas do not work.

 

I was talking to a science teacher, and he said that he started telling his students about phlogiston in discussing heat. He said that this is what students intuitively think, and he has to talk about this discredited idea in order to be able to explain modern correct ideas about heat.

 

When discussing F = ma, one can mention Aristotle’s idea that force is proportional to velocity, because this is what people naturally think.