A Fan-tastic Alternative to Bulbs: Learning Circuits with Fans
-
Robert Ekey [1] ; Andrea Edwards [1] ; Roy McCullough [1] ; William Reitz [1] ; Brandon Mitchell [2]
-
[1] University of Mount Union
University of Mount Union
City of Alliance, Estados Unidos
-
[2] West Chester Universit
-
- Localización: The Physics Teacher, ISSN 0031-921X, Vol. 55, Nº. 1, 2017, págs. 13-15
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
-
Resumen
The incandescent bulb has been a useful tool for teaching basic electrical circuits, as brightness is related to the current or power flowing through a bulb. This has led to the development of qualitative pedagogical treatments for examining resistive combinations in simple circuits using bulbs and batteries, which were first introduced by James Evans1 and thoroughly expanded upon by McDermott and others.2–4 This paper argues that replacing bulbs with small computer fans leads to similar, if not greater, insight of experimental results that can be qualitatively observed using a variety of senses. The magnitude of current through a fan is related to the frequency of the rotating fan blades, which can be seen, heard, and felt by the students. Experiments using incandescent bulbs only utilize vision, which is not ideal as the human eyes’ perception of brightness is skewed because the response to light intensity is logarithmic rather than linear
