Abstract
IN his presidential address given to the Essex Science Teachers' Association, Lord Rayleigh asks, and discusses, the question "Are Expensive Appliances Necessary?" In the physical laboratory a great deal can be learnt about Wheatstone's bridge by means of a wire stretched along a rough board, graduated with ink or pencil marks, with a piece of metal held in the hand to make contact with it at any point. From a purely teaching point of view this is as good, if not better than, a post-office box costing as many pounds as the other does pence. It is much less likely to muddle the beginner and will in all probability give him more insight into the physics of what he is doing. If the student has rigged it up for himself he will further get a sense of independence and achievement which he never gets by handling the elaborate constructions of the instrument maker. It is not uncommon to find people who regard an optical instrument not as an arrangement of reflecting and refracting surfaces, but as a construction of lacquered brass. The schoolboy first regards a telescope as a thing which 'pulls out'. All the essentials of the instrument can be better appreciated by sticking lenses with 'Plasticene' on a strip of wood. Helmholtz told Lord Rayleigh that as a boy he made his own telescope out of spectacle lenses and a cardboard tube. In instruments made by the instrument maker many essential parts are rightly hidden from view by protective devices, and the young student is deterred from meddling with them for fear of damaging valuable property.
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Simple Teaching Apparatus in Physics. Nature 154, 392 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154392b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154392b0