Hanging an Airplane: A Case Study in Static Equilibrium

• Autores: Deborah Katz
• Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 47, Nº. 8, 2009, págs. 516-521
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Our classrooms are filled with engineering majors who take a semester-long course in static equilibrium. Many students find this class too challenging and drop their engineering major. In our introductory physics class, we often breeze through static equilibrium; to physicists equilibrium is just a special case of Newton's second law. While it is difficult to find more time in the syllabus for any one topic, a hands-on case study may help students to develop their physical intuition about static equilibrium and may help them to succeed in their subsequent classes. This article describes a hands-on case study that you may wish to use in your classroom. (You may also wish to check a case study involving a boat published in this journal in the 1990s.1) The hands-on case study presented here can be easily modified to work at the high school or introductory college level. There are three major components: I) planning, II) doing, and III) calculating.