On Thu, 7 Mar 2002, Jim Elwell wrote: > ... have them figure out how long a Twinkie will "power" a car, > or how long a battery would "feed" a human, or how much the natural gas > a house uses in a month would if it were peanut butter. > Using such crazy comparisons helps them grasp that energy is > energy in whatever form.
Those are *good* examples, Jim (Elwell), not crazy. I would omit the preliminary chore of having the students apply conversion factors, but rather quote immediately the values of J/kg or J/g and the mass of each specimen as an energy source. Students in all other countries and future US students would not have the burden of non-SI source data, and have to make conversions from ifp. Gene.
