The micro-computer in the undergraduate physics laboratory - system, hardware, student reaction,

EVALUATION

A system of ten computers has been used for 2 years in a general physics laboratory. This article lists the experiments in which standard laboratory equipment is replaced by on-line use of the computers. The durability of the computers and student reaction to the system are evaluated.

The computers were programmed to give the students only those readings which would have been provided by the standard laboratory equipment that had been replaced. In the first semester (mechanics, heat, sound) the computers have replaced timers, photogates, sound generators, and thermometers. In the second semester (electricity and magnetism, optics) analog-to-digital converters were used as volt­meters. The computers were used in all experiments for giving instructions, for simple calculations, and for least-square fitting. Printed copies of data sheets or other material could be obtained by dumping the monitor screen to the printer. For each experiment the student could select from a menu of screens which contained important remarks, instructions and diagrams from the lab manual, or other information. (Previously, some of this material had been placed on the board at the beginning of the lab.) The screen material could be accessed at any time. This feature enabled the students to review the instructions at their own pace.

The screen editor, DOODLE!, proved very convenient for programming the on-screen diagrams. DOODLE! enables a programmer to place both text and graphics on a high resolution screen. Furthermore, it provides utilities for efficient storage of screen information on disk in machine code, and for interfacing the C-64 to various printers.

More elaborate programs have been prepared to provide on-line calculation of results. To avoid a "cookbook" approach and to allow for student initiative these programs have not been used in the labs. However, they proved very valuable in checking the operation of apparatus and in instructing the teaching assistants. These programs were particularly useful in showing the spread of errors to be expected in some experiments.

The students (predominantly sophomore engineering majors) dealt with the computers as a matter of course. Even on the first day, there were only minor student difficulties in loading programs from the disk and following the simple instructions for running the photo timers. About a quarter of the students noticed that the computer simulations of some experiments could be used for doing their own calculations. Very few students accepted the invitation to add the few lines of BASIC programming necessary to do their calculations on line. About the same number showed more than a passing interest in the sensors, their mode of connection, and the programs which ran them.

The students seemed universally glad to be using computers and took for granted that computers should be able to do the things required in this laboratory. There was some real disappointment in the lab sections not using the computers and when the computers were assigned to the other sections at mid-semester. These observations of the instructors were confirmed by a survey given to the students at the end of the second semester. The responses to questions such as: "Do you recommend introduction of a computer system in all general physics laboratories?" and "Did you prefer the labs in which you had computers?" were about 70 %, 25 %, and 5 % favorable, neutral, and unfavorable, respectively. The experiments in which the computers were used on line were rated highest by the students.

The computer used on this level made little difference in the work required to operate the labs but gave the lab supervisor the means to get consistent background and instructions to individual students. Thus the lab supervisor had better control over the different laboratory sections and the teaching assistants.

The computer used on the level described had the following beneficial effects. Somewhat heightened student interest in the laboratory was generated and students were made aware of the computer as an aid in experimental science. Previous experience which most students had had with computers was utilized. Another dimension of flexibility for students to exercise their initiative in the laboratory was added. In some experiments (for example, the velocity of sound in an air tube) the experimental setup with the computer was superior to the old method. The computer equipment usually costs less than the traditional equipment and could provide some instruments and measurements not generally found in the introductory laboratory.

Some disadvantages were also noted. As in any standard experiment prepackaged instructions tend to develop a "cookbook" mentality in the students. It was a distinct disappointment that very few students (5 % - 10 %) added the few lines of BASIC programming necessary to do their calculations on line and that only about the same number showed more than a passing interest in the sensors and their mode of connection.

Student reaction can be summarized as follows: (1) slightly greater interest in the experiments and (2) enthusiasm and appreciation for the use of computers in laboratory situations. However, this enthusiasm only rarely manifested itself in independent expansion of the experiments.

 

MOBILE MESSAGES

 

Forget all that phone ringing in pocket in restaurant nonsense... mobile data is the way ahead. Unobtrusive sending of data like mobile E-mails will take over the market.

J. Mainwaring

 

Mobile phones have become big business. Once an expensive tool given out mainly to business executives, they have now moved into the consumer arena. This is illustrated by the "bargain basement" deals currently being offered by network operators desperate to flog their services coupled with their almost ubiquitous, and increasingly annoying, presence.

They are annoying because they are anti-social, and as they get cheaper there will inevitably be more of them to annoy us. Wherever people congregate, you can be sure there will be someone with a mobile phone just waiting to go off: a voice booming "Hello... We're just ten minutes from the station now.... – has interrupted many a pleasant train journey's reading over the last few years.”

But there is a solution: mobile data. As well as being inherently non-intrusive, devices that send and receive data will have the added advantage of allowing the transmission of complete documents, as well as providing Web browsing capabilities.

So far, the only reasonably affordable technology that can be used to send messages to people while they are on the move are pagers. With vibrating "silent mode" alert features, these devices are non-intrusive, but are at the moment only able to receive short messages.

The next step is the development of data systems that operate over the existing mobile phone networks. The hope for many suppliers is that, while still allowing voice calls, data will offer the next mobile "killer applications".

Any mobile phone manufacturer worth its salt is doing something in this area.

Of course, Europe's universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) - an open standard that will allow data rates to mobile phones of 2Mbit/s to be achieved - is scheduled to come into service early next century. But various operators and manufacturers are looking to satisfy the huge demand for mobile data services and devices expected in the mean time.

Already Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia and other handset manufacturers have brought out GSM phones with e-mail and smart messaging features. While other devices, such as The Technology Partnership's and STNC Enterprises' Web-walker, are currently being developed that will allow people to browse the Web.

Meanwhile, Symbionics is working on DECT-based technology to allow wideband wireless data transmission at rates of up to 552kbit/s. There are several reasons for making use of the digital cordless standard, according to Henk Koopmans, sales and marketing director.

"DECT is very popular in the market-place," he says. "It started as an office-based system, but it very quickly moved out of that market. Already, 28 cities have over 100,000 base stations between them."

Koopmans expects this market to grow, especially in the UK, so that DECT base stations will exist almost anywhere where large numbers of people work, socialise or travel.

DECT being a cordless telephone rather than a full-blown cellular telephone technology is also cheaper than GSM to deploy and operate. Symbionics "Data Over DECT" chipsets "could cost as little as £50 per unit".

Finally, Symbionics believes that DECT is a better technology for sending data than GSM.

"DECT was made for high speed data," says Koopmans. "GSM was simply not designed for that purpose."

ALL sorts of applications exist for Data Over DECT, according to Symbionics business manager Nick Koiza. Not only can the chipset be used to develop a data rich mobile phone, but it could also feature in remote sensing systems, wireless LAN applications, as well as in mobile point of sale systems, so that your credit card need not have to leave your sight when paying the bill in a restaurant. "When you start thinking about it, there's actually a lot of use for this kind of technology," says Koiza.

The company will be announcing a number of licensing deals for their technology over the next few weeks. Watch this space.

SCANNING THE PAST

John A. Fleming and the Fleming Valve

 

Sixty-five years ago, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) awarded its Medal of Honor to the British scientist and inventor John A. Fleming as recognition for his significant contributions to telecommunications science and engineering. As a well-known pioneer in wireless communication and applied electronics, he enjoyed a long career as a researcher, inventor, and educator. He participated in early long-distance wireless experiments with G. Marconi and was a prolific author of books and technical papers. Fleming is remembered especially for his pioneering experiments with the "Fleming valve", a diode vacuum tube that he employed as a detector of wireless signals in the early years of the twentieth century. As an immediate precursor of the vacuum-tube amplifier, the Fleming valve was a strategic innovation in the history of electronics

The son of a congregational minister, Fleming was born in Lancaster, England, in 1849. He received a degree in science from University College, London, in 1870, and then was a teacher until 1877, when he enrolled at St. John's College of Cambridge University. He attended lectures by J. C. Maxwell and also did research at the Cavendish Laboratory. Fleming developed a precision resistance bridge instrument given the nickname "Fleming's banjo" and used it to compare resistance standards. He received the doctorate degree in 1879 and continued at Cambridge as a laboratory demonstrator until 1881, when he accepted a teaching position at Nottingham. He did some consulting work for the Edison Electric Company on incandescent lamps. In 1885, he joined the faculty of University College, London, where he spent the rest of his professional career.

One of Fleming's early investigations was concerning the "Edison effect," where he studied the unilateral conductivity of a carbon-filament lamp with a metal plate connected to an external circuit. In December 1889, he presented a paper on this work to the Royal Society of London entitled "On Electric Discharge Between Electrodes at. Different Temperatures in Air and High Vacua." He also conducted extensive research on alternating-current transformers, which led to his publication of a two-volume work. The Alternate Current Transformer, in 1889 and 1892. He published a number of joint papers with J. Dewar dying the 1890's related to the electric and magnetic properties of materials at low temperatures. Fleming was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1892.

hi April 1898, Fleming was permitted to examine Marconi's wireless apparatus at the time it was being used to send messages for about 14 miles from the Isle of Wight. In late March 1899, Marconi demonstrated communication between England and France across the English Channel, an achievement that Fleming characterized as "one of those sensational feats which at once aroused the daily press to lively comment on the matter." Fleming participated in these experiments and reported the results in a letter published by The Times of London. He stated that "messages, signals, congratulations, and jokes were freely exchanged between the operators" situated on opposite sides of the channel. Later the same year, Fleming gave a lecture at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Dover, during which wireless messages were sent and received from France. In 1900, Marconi invited Fleming to help design a more powerful wireless transmitter for an attempt to send signals across the Atlantic Ocean. The transmitter, which Fleming called the "first electric wave power station," was installed on the coast of Cornwell, and signals from it were reported to have been detected at a receiver in Newfoundland on December 12,1901.

The application of the Fleming valve to wireless communication grew out of experiments carried out by Fleming during 1904, when he found that a high-vacuum thermionic diode would rectify high-frequency currents. He reported his observations in a 1905 paper published by the Royal Society of London and entitled "On the Conversion of Electric Oscillations into Continuous Currents by Means of a Vacuum Valve." He concluded that "an ideal and perfect rectifier for electric oscillations may, therefore, be found by enclosing a hot carbon filament and a perfectly cold metal anode in a very perfect vacuum." He suggested that the device would provide an effective means to test the performance of a wireless transmitter and determine "what changes conduce to an improvement of reduction in the efficiency of the transmitting device." Fleming also devised a wave meter that he called a "cymometer," which used the glow of a Geissler tube to indicate resonance and give a reading of wavelength on a calibrated scale. His classic book The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy and Telephony was published in 1906, and another book entitled The Propagation of Electric Currents in Telephone and Telegraph Conductors was published by Fleming in 1911.

Fleming retired from University College in 1926 and received the Faraday Medal of the British Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1928. He was knighted in 1929 and elected president of the Television Society of London in 1930. He died in 1945 at age 95.

James E. Brittai

Библиографический список

 

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2. Речицкая Е.Е. Немного об автомобилях (на английском языке).- М.: Военное изд-во Министерства обороны СССР, 1972.

3. Дубровская С.Г., Дубина Л.Б. и др. Английский язык для инженерных специальностей вузов.- М.: Высш. шк., 1985.

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6. Пумпянский А.Л. Грамматические закономерности научной и технической литературы. Англо-русские эквиваленты.- Калинин, 1982.

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8. Engineering Development Internation // Magazin.- London, 1996.- Vol. 2.

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Содержание

Введение                                                                                                      3

1. Способы образования терминов                                                          4

2. Упражнения на терминообразование                                                  8

2.1. Префиксы                                                                                           8

2.2. Суффиксы                                                                                        12

2.3. Сложные термины                                                                          18

2.4. Терминологические словосочетания                                             19

2.5. Терминологическая конверсия                                                      20

2.6. Аббревиация                                                                                   20

2.7. Акронимы                                                                                       21

3. Тексты для перевода на правила терминообразования                  22

4. Общие закономерности грамматического строя английской научно-технической литературы                                                                       35

4.1. Порядок слов в предложении                                                        35

4.2. Употребление имени существительного                                        36

4.3. Особые случаи образования множественного числа существительных 36

4.4. Употребление сказуемого в различных временах                        37

4.4.1. Неличные формы глагола                                                                    39

4.4.2. Употребление причастия                                                                      40

4.4.3. Герундий                                                                                      42

4.4.4. Сослагательное наклонение                                                        42

4.4.5. Условное предложение                                                                43

5. Особенности перевода самостоятельных частей речи                              44

5.1. Перевод причастия                                                                         44

5.2. Перевод герундия                                                                           46

5.3. Перевод инфинитива                                                                      49

5.3.1. Объектный инфинитивный оборот                                                 51

5.3.2. Субъектный инфинитивный оборот                                            52        

6. Упражнения на закрепление                                                             53

7. Особенности перевода многозначных слов                                     60

8. Тексты для перевода по темам                                                          71

8.1. Вычислительная техника                                                                71

8.2. Транспортные виды                                                                        89

8.3. Развитие рынка и банков                                                                     94

8.4. Экология                                                                                    104

8.5. Мобильные системы связи                                                             107

8.6. Роботы                                                                                             115

8.7. Развитие электроники                                                                              125

Библиографический список                                                                   139

 

 

Редактор Т.А. Жирнова

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