Doug_S.2 comments on Two More Things to Unlearn from School - Less Wrong

54 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 12 July 2007 05:45PM

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Comment author: Doug_S.2 12 July 2007 07:21:08PM 2 points [-]

My father is a college professor and he's going to be teaching an introduction to engineering course to future electrical engineering students. He's planning on making the students learn basic electromagnetic theory by forcing them to try to perform their own experiments with a pile of stuff that would have existed around 1900 or so.

"Today's assignment: In 1820, Hans Christian Ă˜rsted discovered a relationship between electricity and magnetism. Replicate his experiment and demonstrate that a relationship exists."

Hopefully, some student will eventually connect a wire up to a battery and put a compass near the wire, causing the compass needle to deflect. (The compass is included in the collection of stuff the students will be given.)