Water can think, maybe electricity can too ? "Forcing decissions by applieing pressure on pipes/circuitry/models" / "Pressure can think theory" :)

I bet I've used most of them this year.

John

I thought those were numerals. Sorry, my misteak. ;-)

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

I doubt that first graders have any better feeling for pressure and flow than they have for voltage and current.

It's not at all hard to explain electricity in terms of electricity.

John

Or the brain seems able to do no more than minimize its energy state.

the

this:

RoHS compliant, too! Amazing!

Michael

But for low Reynolds numbers (< 2100 or so) you're good. Turbulence builds beyond that

Michael

It's still viscous, and pressure still drops as flow squared.

Not very ohmic.

John

No, that's true. The model breaks down in a number of other aspects as well - my favorite has always been, what happens when the pipe breaks? All of the water spills out onto the ground. When a wire breaks, all the charge is stuck there, like a stoppage in the pipe; to "spill out onto the ground" would require a short, so in that respect they're exact opposites.

But it _does_, in my not-so-humble opinion, impart the concept that flow, pressure, and resistance _are_ related. I don't think they quote Ohm's Law until they go to electricity, which at that point, is a natural segue.

Next thing you know, voila! A new newbie is born! ;-)

Cheers! Rich

It depends on how you build your model.

Imagine the "battery" equivalent is a pressure pump that is standing in a water reservoir. The reservoir represents the circuit ground. Your wiring is the pipes and other bits driven by the pump, all suspended above the reservoir. If a pipe bursts, then the water spills out and back into the reservoir -- a short to ground.

A break in a wire is equivalent to cutting and capping a pipe (interrupted path).

Many of the effects of the actual properties of water flow can be modelled by suitably complex electrical circuits, just as we embellish simple equivalent circuits with parasitic elements for stray inductance and capacitance to more closely match real-world circumstances.

Imagine trying to teach a first course in electricity by starting with gigahertz AC circuits at kilovolt potentials. Immediately all the complications of stray capacitance, inductance, even geometry become major issues clouding the picture.

So start with simple electrostatics. Little men standing between metal plates, reaching down and plucking electrons off one plate and flinging them at the other. Kids are more likely to relate to that than to plumbing; it's more accurate, too.

John

Fortunately, even after s.e.d people used "most" of the numbers, still there are plenty numbers left.

Sure, but all the good ones have been used.

John

But that's the good thing about numbers. The more you use them the easier they become.