Gordy,
I know this has been done to death but here is my 2 cents worth on the physics in fly casting discussion.
First - how much physics should an instructor know? I'm not on the examining committee so I can't answer that question but I do know that most instructors already know more than they realize.
Anyone who can correctly answer the question on the CI written test regarding rod bend vs distance cast already has an understanding of F=ma and Hooke's law of elasticity (i.e. the more force I apply to the rod the deeper it bends). Throw in a knowledge of the 5 essentials, some simple leverage (i.e. I move my hand a little bit and the rod tip moves a lot), gravity (things fall down), air resistance (it slows things down) and my personal feeling is that this is probably enough for the non-physics minded instructor and more than enough to overwhelm most beginners.
I've said before that I think the saying, "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it", applies to the fly casting physics discussion. Much of the stuff we think of as geeky isn't new but it seems each generation of fly casting instructors goes through the pain of reasoning it out all over again while the idioms such as "line follows rod tip" remain. One of the reasons this happens is because the "geeks" quickly get into differential equations and an alien vocabulary rife with three letter acronyms that the rest of the instructor community quickly learns to ignore.
But let us not forget that without the geeks we would be fishing with willow branches and horse hair lines. While some might argue that this would certainly simplify teaching I like to think that the improvements are worth the complication.
Cheers!
Walter
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