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Re: [Phys-l] two kinds of electrical charge ????????



I would go a little further - My gut is telling me that if you queried
the majority of physics faculty about a "one-component model" of
electric charge, they would respond that they have no idea what you are
talking about. I can't in my wildest imagination believe that students
entering my General Physics class have ever heard of such a concept.
They all "know" that there are two types of charges: negative electrons
and positive protons. A scarce few might mention positive and negative
quarks with fractional charges.

I think we are in one of those classic situations on the list where
everyone is saying the same thing but talking past each other.

Bob at PC

-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-
bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Schnick
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2007 12:42 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] two kinds of electrical charge ????????

On Tuesday, July 31, 2007 7:10 PM, John Denker wrote

... the students come in perfectly happy
with a one-component model ... so why go to the trouble of beating
it out of them, when for 250 years the math and the physics have
said that the one-component model was fundamentally correct?

I think that most students enter introductory college/university
physics
courses believing that there are two kinds of charge. I don't have
hard
evidence to support this statement. If it is true, it doesn't
necessarily
mean that they believe in a two-component model. Still, I am not so
sure
that students "come in perfectly happy with a one-component model."
On
what evidence do you base your statement that they do?

The statement that "they have nothing to do with addition and
subtraction"
at
<http://www.triumf.info/public/about/physics_101-3.php>
and the discussion of "two kinds of charge" at

<http://www.wl.k12.in.us/hs/depts/sci/physics/p2u11/p2u11CASTLE_U2_Readi
ng
3.pdf>
suggest that some kids in North America are being exposed to a two-
component model.



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