How can physics teachers help students develop consistent problem solving techniques for both simple
and complicated physics problems, such as those that encompass objects undergoing multiple forces
(mechanical or electrical) as individually portrayed in free-body diagrams and/or phenomenon
involving multiple objects, such as Doppler effect reflection applications in echoes and ultrasonic
cardiac monitoring for sound, or police radar for light? These problems can confuse novice physics
students, and to sort out problem parts, the suggestion is made here to guide the student to
personify self as the object in question, that is, to imagine oneself as the object undergoing
outside influences such as forces and then qualify and quantify those for the problem at hand. This
personification does NOT, as according to the three traditional definitions of the term (animism,
anthropomorphism and teleology), empower the object to act, but instead just to detect its
environment. By having stu…