I have always believed, since I made it up last night, that the
concept of torque was first discovered by Tom=E1s de Torquemada, and
thus named after him. It turns out this is not the case, and the
nomenclature is simply serendipitous. My favored account is simply
ahistorical.
This means that I cannot introduce the concept in first year physics
classes talking about thumbscrews.
Or does it?
I remember a clever classmate who read about Lamarckian Evolution in
his high school biology textbook, where it was introduced to be
refuted (it was, obviously, also my high school biology textbook). He
insisted that the process of handing down acquired traits was part of
evolution; that is, a giraffe who stretches his neck out on a rock so
that he can reach just a little bit higher will have children whose
necks are just a little bit longer than their peers, even without
stretching them on rocks.
He remembered reading it in his high school biology textbook, and so
it must be true. Right?
So, I could introduce torque in my physics course with a three
sequence cartoon of everybody's favorite Grand Inquisitor routinely
torturing someone on the rack, and as he was cranking it up, he could
get the idea, complete with thought balloon and an excited expression,
"Hey! Hey! Hef! r-cross-F! I can torture freshmen until Kingdom Come!"
Then, even though the last panel is crossed out with a big red X, some
percentage of bright people will believe that rotational dynamics is
based upon the genocidal excesses of the late and post-Reconquista
eras of the Iberian Peninsula.
It is also ahistorical because the Spanish Inquisition neither used
thumbscrews or the rack: these tortures were considered far too
progressive by the Papacy.
Hanging people upside down and flushing gallons of water up their
noses had saved souls for a thousand years, and would save souls for
another thousand to come.
-F
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