Session:
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Introductory Courses
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Paper Type:
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Contributed
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Title:
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Get Real! -- Appropriate Values for Introductory Electrostatics Problems
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Meeting:
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2016 Winter Meeting: New Orleans, Louisiana |
Location:
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N/A |
Date:
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Time:
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8:30AM
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Author:
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Robert A. Morse, St. Albans School, retired
202-537-0759, ramorse@rcn.com
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Co-Author(s):
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None
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Abstract:
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Novice physics students must work problems using unfamiliar quantities with unfamiliar magnitudes and unfamiliar units. Good practice should be to use physically reasonable values with magnitudes within students experience, when possible. Textbook mechanics problems usually meet this criterion, but in a sampling of about 20 introductory texts, this was not usually true in simple electrostatics problems, possibly because problem posers have little experience with reasonable charge values in an introductory laboratory. Electrostatic charge sensors (1) now available let students measure actual charge values in simple electrostatic experiments, so problem writers can in many cases use values consistent with observable charge magnitudes.
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Footnotes:
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1. Robert A. Morse,"Electrostatics with Computer-Interfaced Charge Sensors," Phys. Teach. 44, 498 (2006)
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Presentation:
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WM16_ED01_GetReal.pdf
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