Two extracts from paper in Contemporary Physics, Vol. 4 No.3 pp206-220.   F63b00 .

(Illustrating the emphasis given to Design and an Ecological Approach)

  
 

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Practical Class Work at the Cavendish Laboratory: A New Approach

 

by   H. V. BECK

Department of Physics, University of Cambridge

 

 

1. INTRODUCTION

Analysis of the contents of a physics practical class in terms of the aims and other desiderata is essential when an experiment or group of experiments is to be designed or overhauled(1).

In the past three years, this approach has been adopted in a second year electricity practical class and has resulted in a new outlook on the experiments themselves and on the structure and organization of the class as a whole. This paper reports on the design of a group of six experiments which, in their basic physics aspects, are intended as an introduction to alternating current and transient electricity.

2. FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE DESIGN

If a piece of apparatus is designed in an objective manner, the designer must be clear about all the relevant factors and must decide the relative emphasis for each. In one piece of apparatus, a low cost may be more important than, for example, reliability or ease of operation; in another, technical excellence or adaptability to a variety of tasks may take precedence over all other considerations. So too with design of experiments. Should the main purpose of the experiment be to give experience in the handling of apparatus or should it seek to underline a basic physical law? Should one aim be to impart measurement techniques and, if so, to what extent should the emphasis be on principles as distinct from practice? Questions such as these should be considered before design proceeds.

 

 

2.2. An ecological approach to measurement techniques

In designing the experiments, aims 2 (a) and 5 were combined to form what may be called an ecological approach to measurement techniques. Ecology in a natural sense is concerned with the balance of living organisms with their surroundings. An ecological study reveals the relationships between different species and throws more light on the factors which distinguish one from another and which determines their development or retrogression than would a study of each species separately.

The measurement techniques used by experimental physicists are usually taught in isolation from each other . . . . .

 
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