Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem

This exercise can be given to a group of students with basic knowledge of mathematics and physics at the beginning of a lesson. We can imagine that there will be some students that will solve the exercise using the “common sense” solution recalling basic notions of physics and some students that wil...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Anna Bossi, Anna Zolin
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Milano University Press 2015-06-01
Series:Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health
Online Access:http://ebph.it/article/view/11289
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849704631902404608
author Anna Bossi
Anna Zolin
author_facet Anna Bossi
Anna Zolin
author_sort Anna Bossi
collection DOAJ
description This exercise can be given to a group of students with basic knowledge of mathematics and physics at the beginning of a lesson. We can imagine that there will be some students that will solve the exercise using the “common sense” solution recalling basic notions of physics and some students that will solve the exercise recalling basic notion of physics and computing a mean velocity using the arithmetic mean, the most common mean. At the end of the exercise, the teacher will compare the two solutions and will present the harmonic mean as the fastest solution for the students that solved the problem using the “common sense” solution and as the correct mean to be used for the students that solved the exercise computing a mean velocity
format Article
id doaj-art-62db9b44c3ea4323afec6fa05307afa3
institution DOAJ
issn 2282-0930
language English
publishDate 2015-06-01
publisher Milano University Press
record_format Article
series Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health
spelling doaj-art-62db9b44c3ea4323afec6fa05307afa32025-08-20T03:16:42ZengMilano University PressEpidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health2282-09302015-06-0112210.2427/1128910449Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s ProblemAnna Bossi0Anna Zolin1Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of MilanDepartment of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, University of MilanThis exercise can be given to a group of students with basic knowledge of mathematics and physics at the beginning of a lesson. We can imagine that there will be some students that will solve the exercise using the “common sense” solution recalling basic notions of physics and some students that will solve the exercise recalling basic notion of physics and computing a mean velocity using the arithmetic mean, the most common mean. At the end of the exercise, the teacher will compare the two solutions and will present the harmonic mean as the fastest solution for the students that solved the problem using the “common sense” solution and as the correct mean to be used for the students that solved the exercise computing a mean velocityhttp://ebph.it/article/view/11289
spellingShingle Anna Bossi
Anna Zolin
Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem
Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Public Health
title Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem
title_full Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem
title_fullStr Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem
title_full_unstemmed Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem
title_short Introducing the Harmonic Mean Solving a Tourist’s Problem
title_sort introducing the harmonic mean solving a tourist s problem
url http://ebph.it/article/view/11289
work_keys_str_mv AT annabossi introducingtheharmonicmeansolvingatouristsproblem
AT annazolin introducingtheharmonicmeansolvingatouristsproblem