So, I know that failing to roll a successful incoming roll from the bar is dancing or fanning.
Question: Is there similar terminology (or is it the same?) for rolls during bear off where one can only bear off one checker, or worse, none?
Thanks! Roll on my brothers and sisters!
Electrons do not "spin" like a top, just like electrons do not "orbit" the nucleus in any classical sense of the word. Intrinsic angular momentum does not rely on "spinning", and yet so many confusions and headaches in students come from the use of the term "spin".
Seems to me that the idea of chirality from chemistry could be a much better way to teach "spin". I think the average person can understand the concept of chirality (nonsuperimposible mirror images) because it is just there (inshallah) at the ends of our arms in the form of our hands. As you fill orbitals with electrons, they fill in pairs of L and R, and really don't like being in in L-L and R-R configurations. (and, in fact, cannot be, much like one cannot keep both hands warm with two left gloves, as theorized by Pauli in the famous Pauli glove exclusion principle... his ski slope experiments were hella cool. or cold, rather. (too far? sorry....))
Anyhoo, the chiral example is simple and clean and clear. "Spin" leads to confusion and misunderstanding.
And so I ask physics: why not teach "spin" in terms of chirality, as opposed to " actually like a spinning top"? (I get the usefulness in describing nuclear "precession" in NMR, but again... to the best of my understanding protons also do not spin.)