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Re: [Phys-l] battery redux and again (part deux)



The Physics Education Technology group at the University of Colorado
shows agreement with the opinion expressed below. Fire up the
Battery-Resistor Circuit at
http://phet.colorado.edu/web-pages/simulations-base.html
and click on "Show Inside Battery" to see what I mean.
Jeff Schnick

--On Thursday, March 01, 2007 1:53 PM, John Denker wrote:
Now a philosophical and pedagogical point: If the argument
is going to depend on a force unknown to physics -- certainly
unknown to me and probably unknown to the students -- where
do we draw the line? Where is the line between caricature
and travesty?

In particular, wouldn't it be pedagogically better to go with
all-out farce, so that the students /know/ it's a farce,
rather than foisting on them something that looks like
physics but isn't? For example, I would be tempted to
"explain" that the Fairy Godmother comes down and puts some
charge in her Easter basket, carries it to the other
terminal, and dumps it out.