Re: Online Labs

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

They used waxed paper tape and spark generators.  Before that, they used
rather low freq. tuning forks with an ink pen at the end of one of the tines.

bc who has a coupaluv the old (turn of cent.!) Berkeley Atwood machines
using tuning fork timers, and sometimes thinks the new equipment "gets
in the way of" lab learning.

P.s. who also thinks not having enuff time to use a meter stick and
pencil and paper may be another symptom of the bottom line.

P.p.s Using a sonic ranger for the coffee filter demo. is justified.
Bernard thinks computers, etc. are only justified when the experiment is
very difficult, impractical, or impossible with out.  e.g. in the 50's I
spent an hour with an adjustable single channel analyzer determing a
gamma spectrum.  Now it's a few minutes and with much higher resolution.
 Anothe:r Moessbauer experiment would be difficult with out computer
operation (understatement).  However, muon lifetime measurement is
easily done with out an MCA, etc.

Tina Fanetti wrote:
>   <The paper by
> Heather Brasell showed that labs with motion detectors can be extreme=
> ly
> beneficial in helping students learn kinematics. <<
>
> First, can I have reference?
>
> What about in that time before when there were not motion detectors a=
> nd fancy equipment?  How did students learn then?
>
> tina
>
> Tina Fanetti
> Physics Instructor
> Western Iowa Technical Community College
> 4647 Stone Ave
> Sioux City IA 51102
> 712-274-8733 ext 1429