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A Law of Physics in the Classroom: The Case of Ohm’s Law

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Abstract

Difficulties in learning Ohm’s Law suggest a need to refocus it from the law for a part of the circuit to the law for the whole circuit. Such a revision may improve understanding of Ohm’s Law and its practical applications. This suggestion comes from an analysis of the history of the law’s discovery and its teaching. The historical materials this paper provides can also help teacher to improve students’ insights into the nature of science.

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Notes

  1. Unless specified otherwise, ‘conductor’ means in this paper a body transferring electricity rather than a property to do so. This term has a wider use than ‘resistor’ that came from electronics.

  2. Whether teachers like this or not, students increasingly view Internet as an easily accessible resource of scientific information. To make teachers aware of this, I mentioned in this paper a few websites which provide information related to Ohm’s Law, and which students may refer to when discussing the subject in the classroom. See, for instance, the following materials on circuits with a single resistance and batteries without resistance: http://www.cadvision.com/blanchas/education/www/ohm/1stye.htm

  3. See also the popular Internet websitehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm's_law

  4. One may object to this that all resistances can be reduced to one to be used with Eq. 1. However such a consideration would ignore the specific roles of resistance of various parts of the circuit, such as meters, wires, and a power source. In particular, it will not explain warming up of the power source.

  5. While some textbooks make this distinction clear (Weidner and Sells 1965, p. 737; Sears and Zemansky 1970, p. 391), others correctly describe the role of Ohm’s Law for a part of the circuit but eliminate the law for the whole circuit (Harvard Project Physics 1975, p. 4/55).

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Acknowledgements

The author thanks the administration of the Deutsches Museum Library for support that allowed him to study Ohm’s manuscripts, Dr. Jürgen Teichmann for valuable discussions and various help, my wife Berta for help with drawings, and the reviewers for useful comments and suggestions.

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    Nahum Kipnis

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Kipnis, N. A Law of Physics in the Classroom: The Case of Ohm’s Law. Sci & Educ 18, 349–382 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-008-9142-x

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