Re: brightness vrs. power

["Richard W. Tarara" <rtarara@SAINTMARYS.EDU>]

Here Leigh is just plain wrong, a fact to which I'm sure most of you can
attest.  Maybe at Simon Fraser the critical thinking and math abilities are
of Lake Wobegon standards, but for much of the rest of the world, my
assessment is accurate.  I have plenty of opportunities to assess the math
abilities of these students (and do so) and consequently I hold by my
statements.  I will still maintain that there is enough pedagogical gain
with these students in treating light bulbs as resistors to ignore Leigh's
warnings.  When a student comes back and says--"but you know those light
bulbs really didn't obey Ohm's Law" then I'll get concerned.  ;-)

Rick

----- Original Message -----
From: "Leigh Palmer" <palmer@SFU.CA>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2000 12:42 PM
Subject: Re: brightness vrs. power


> I think Rick Tarara's deprecation of his nonscience students* is an
> example of mistaken judgment. In the olden days a large fraction of
> the very brightest students went into the sciences in university. At
> that time the relative number of these very brightest (and numerate)
> students in nonscience disciplines was small. That is no longer the
> case. All students deserve the truth when we know it, and if we give
> them lies in the form of "simplifications" without caveats they will
> justly judge us badly for doing so.
>
> I think my experiment has made my point. I am not eager to carry on
> in this thread.
>
> Leigh
>
> *"I don't say that the brightness is DIRECTLY proportional to the
> current, and BELIEVE ME, with this group, no one assumes such a
> thing--for 90% such a mathematical relationship would never occur
> to them."