B
Bob Masta
- Jan 1, 1970
- 0
Bob, I understand your point but my point is that at the end of the day
this type of analogies have an adverse effect in the minds of those
people, the majority that is, who do not understand the purpose of
modelling. It has the potential to create ellusive connections in the
minds of people and eventually turn them into cranks.
Mike, this isn't about modelling, it's about conveying a very basic
and simple concept to people (kids) who haven't encountered it
before.
I insist this whole approach is wrong although well motivated. There
are discussions going on on this recently and the need to change the
whole approach to teaching physics.
If you don't give them an intuitive grasp, they may never "get it".
You can't bombard them with all the gritty details right at the
start, or they will throw up their hands and give up. Instead, you
approach it somewhat like science itself progresses, by continually
refining the details. Works for me!
The model you described is problematic, I think highly. It does not
demonstrate how 'information' travels faster than individual carriers.
Simply because there is no indication in your example what kind of
information is transmitted. The information cannot be the carrier
itself. If you try to actually transmit information, you will find out
that dynamics enter into the picture and analogies start failing. As an
example, ask a student to paint the incoming ball a color of his
choice. What color is the ball coming out the other way? If it's not
the same, the information was not transmitted faster than the speed of
individual carriers but exactly at the speed of those carriers, as you
will have to push in several balls until you get the collor one out.
I think you missed the point about information. Information in
this case is the presence of "current flow". Consider the stub
of pipe to be a section of wire in a larger circuit that lights a
lamp. If the lamp is lit you have a binary '1' and if not it's a '0'.
Once a student understands the marbles-in-the-pipe concept,
s/he can understand that the speed of each electron marble
is not what determines how fast the lamp comes on when
you throw the switch... the information of the switch being
thrown travels *way* faster than the individual carriers.
That's all, nothing deeper, no relativistic mechanics, just
a single, basic, gut-level understanding that they won't forget.
Best regards,
Bob Masta
dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom
D A Q A R T A
Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis
www.daqarta.com