Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Energy



On Fri, 21 Sep 2001, Rick Tarara wrote:

I'll go even farther. Is it really so terrible if students coming out of an
Introductory AND Terminal physics course have a 'fluid flow' vision of
energy? Such a vision will work well enough for them in their everyday
lives and is (hopefully) a _more_ accurate and useful model than they
probably had before taking the course.


Good point. In my own field (electronics,) students need to be extremely
familiar with the concept of impedance matching, and also with the concept
of propagation of signals across a circuit over time. Both involve the
concept of EM energy flow. Yet I've encountered high-school science
teachers who state point blank that electromagnetic energy does not move.
They say that amperes are a flow of a stuff, but that watts are just an
abstract concept.

In my experience, the problem is not localized to a few teachers. It is
all through the books as well. Students are never informed that "watts"
are a flow of EM energy. They see "coulombs per second" as a fluid-like
flow, but they aren't shown that "joules per second" is similar. They'll
only encounter the idea when they take an undergrad fields/waves course.

This illustrates that, at least in some fields, NOT teaching about energy
flow might cripple your students.

An easily understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex
incomprehensible truth. - Thumb's Postulates


((((((((((((((((((((( ( ( ( ( (O) ) ) ) ) )))))))))))))))))))))
William J. Beaty SCIENCE HOBBYIST website
billb@eskimo.com http://www.amasci.com
EE/programmer/sci-exhibits science projects, tesla, weird science
Seattle, WA 206-789-0775 freenrg-L taoshum-L vortex-L webhead-L