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Thanks Brian. I know that simulators can be quite effective in learning to fly, particularly fly instruments. I wonder, though, if students have the same trust in concepts they struggle to piece together using simulators vs. the "real thing". Certainly they have their uses, (e.g. Interactive Physics scenarios) especially in tightening up relationships hinted at in lab investigations.
skip
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu [mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of Brian Whatcott
Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 11:46 AM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: Re: [Phys-l] The attack on science is political, not philosophical
This is in the nature of an anecdotal response to Skip's question which
may possibly shed a little light.
Late last century, I needed to model the observable effects of
using some test equipment on a Navy trainer (simulation).
The equipment in question was a time domain reflectometer,
and a frequency domain reflectometer, which were (are?) used
to check aircraft signal cables operating at high frequencies.
It was not difficult to code an arbitrary signal generator with the noisy
spectral response that the data was intended to represent, with a
peak or dip at a particular frequency intended to define the ltransit time
and hence cable length to a discontinuity.
The time domain reflectometer display was also suitably presented
(I thought), with steps representing impedance changes at the
required variable distance and value and reflections and junctions
and terminal impedance....
A Navy user was not impressed however - the time domain was far
too clean for his taste. So then with the appropriate injection of
quasi random noise, the customer was satisfied.
This tale is meant to show that a simulation can portray more clearly,
more simply, than the real thing.
But what gains in clarity, loses in reality. There is a balance.
Brian W