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Re: understand understanding, simple explanations, etc.





On Tue, 10 Feb 1998, Leigh Palmer wrote an excellent scenario about how to
present a discussion of the colors of the rainbow. I'll add two things.

A prism can be mounted securely on a ball bearing and spun while in the
light of a projector, to demonstrate not only minimum deviation, but the
blurring of some colors more than others, just as happens in the rainbow.
This makes the sky brigter on one side of the rainbow than the other, a
phenomena easily observed, and which even shows in photographs. (Quick,
can your conceptual understanding of the rainbow predict this observation
whnich anyone can see with their eyes? Can it predict which part of the
sky is brighter due to mixture of all colors scattered from the droplets?
Can it predict why the relative sky brigtness is different near the
secondary bow than the primary one?)

Another thing we should "teach" is the habit of careful observation of
details in the world around us, and a habit of inquiry into the reasons
behind them.

-- Donald

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Dr. Donald E. Simanek Office: 717-893-2079
Professor of Physics FAX: 717-893-2048
Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA. 17745
dsimanek@eagle.lhup.edu http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek
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