On 3/14/07, Robert G. Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On Wed, 14 Mar 2007, Peter St. John wrote: > What General Physics I teaches about wiring would not be adequate to work as > an electrician in home construction, but it's adequate to do the bench > experiments that illustrate the concepts. There are many purposes under the > sun. I'd take issue with this. It is ALMOST adequate to work on home electricity, at least if you have a good teacher. It is certainly adequate to cover the basic physics that underlies e.g. becoming a journeyman electrician ...
I didn't mean to suggest that Gen Physics 1 would not be a good start for Certified Electrical Contractors, although, come to think of it, most of them would be burdened by the calculus prerequesite, and the material on Special Relavivity. I just meant that isn't the purpose of the course and you aren't optimized for it, although I'm sure lots of physics majors become very useful electrical technicians, just as many become great programmers and some even become borderline acceptable mathematicians :-) I even try to tell them
why one puts a lamp switch on the HOT line going into the lamp, not the NEUTRAL line coming out of it, and why Ground Fault Breakers Are Good.
I had to think about that. The possibiltiy of something (say, a human being) inadvertently completing the circuit if the switch is on the downstream side, is an avoidable hazard, is that it? I'm sure that's a mistake I could have made if (Heaven Forbid) I wired something myself. I"m sure it's a mistake that a Journeyman Electrician would not make. I suspect you produce better electricians than did the course I took (at a different school, actually; I took it in the summer to save year-course slots during the school year). I'm totally in favor of universities teaching "practical" things, but it should be in the context of the desired outcome. Most engineering students get to build stuff, right? Carlitz taught me, mainly by example, the significance of doing arithmetic manually; it's good for most of us to get our hands dirty, in some sense, at some point, but you'd rather use the desktop calculator to do arithmetic, than me, and you'd rather use a certified electrical contractor to wire your house, than me, too :-) rgb Peter
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