I don't think so. Reality is always harder to model perfectly so the "unrealistic" problems are actually more approachable. When you compute the terminal veloci

I don't think so. Reality is always harder to model perfectly so the "unrealistic" problems are actually more approachable. When you compute the terminal velocity of a falling object, I assume that the first attempt assumes a vacuum, no fluid resistance, no relativistic effects, etc. (edit: and then there's the coriolis force, the azimuthal force, radiation pressure, electromagnetic forces, etc.) Posing problems that sidestep how nature might actually behave allows the educator to isolate concepts for the student and improve proficiency (before adding higher order perturbations).