I¹ve been killing time on Yahoo Answers for the past few weeks, and I¹ve
been using an online tool I learned of from one of my students last year to
eliminate the grind of solving equations by hand.
I think doing the dirty work with something like QuickMath (see http://www.quickmath.com) or MAPLE or a calculator with symbolic
manipulation abilities helps one focus on the physics instead of algebra.
I think students get the wrong idea right away when most of their effort
goes into solving equations instead of thinking about physical principles
and writing down correct equations based upon them.
³Charged Partical and Magnetic Field?
In Figure below, a charged particle moves into a region of uniform magnetic
field , goes through half a circle, and then exits that region. The particle
is either a proton or an electron (you must decide which). It spends 143 ns
in the region. (a) What is the magnitude of ? (b) If the particle is sent
back through the magnetic field (along the same initial path) but with 3.72
times its previous kinetic energy, how much time does it spend in the field
during this trip?²
QuickMath can easily solve the following set of simple equations that come
directly from physics fundamentals --
Isn¹t it better to eliminate the algebra from this point on and just let the
robot do the work? Or is there a reason to solve these equations by hand
(other than ³the student won¹t always be at a computer² or ³QuickMath is
down again², etc.)?
For a long time I¹ve been curious why I haven¹t seen textbooks with an
appendix on calculator use. Are there any out there? Many students I
encounter don¹t even take advantage of simple features like memories to save
retyping. But they all seem to have very elaborate calculators in hand. A
few years back I worked with a class where all the students had TI89¹s that
were required in their math courses. We worked on using the simultaneous
equation solvers in those with some success (and also some frustration with
typos and omitted parentheses and commas and the like). I¹ll admit there are
Œtechnoglitches¹ to deal with.
I¹m interested in opinions on either side of this issue.