🚀 go-pugleaf

I am going to talk about capacitors at the next AAPT Summer Meeting (Spokane).
The abstract is shown below (next paragraph). I hope to meet some of you at
the conference and discuss the myth. As you know, my goal is to make the
authors of physics textbooks aware of the error they propagate by applying
the electrostatic model to capacitors in series. Can you help me? What I need
is a set of descriptions of experiments performed by students or teachers. It
is more convincing to talk about work done by other people; I want to show
that I am not alone. So far I had one confirmation that capacitors in series
were studied in a physics course. I would like to hear more about such
activities in order to describe them in the talk. All details and comments
connected with the topic will be appreciated.

              Please do not be indifferent, it is our physics.
      Complaining against textbooks is not enough, we should work with
   authors and help them to write better books. Authors are our partners.

      Ludwik Kowalski                  kowalski@apollo.montclair.edu

         ----------------------  ABSTRACT ---------------------
  In a book published nearly a century ago, J.J. Thomson showed a picture
  of two Leyden jars connected in series. He then presented an electrostatic
  model which he believed was a good mathematical description of what
  finally happened after the jars were connected to a source of constant
  voltage. According to his model, faithfully repeated in generations of
  physics textbooks, the equilibrated charges on capacitors in series are
  equal. But that assumption is contradicted by experiments to be described
  in this talk. Why is the common knowledge of practitioners ignored by
  textbook writers? Why do they keep promoting a model whose falsity can
  so easily be demonstrated? How should capacitors in series be introduced
  in elementary courses? The correct theory of capacitors in series,
  described by A.P. French (TPT, March, 1993), may be too sophisticated
  for such courses and an alternative model will be presented.
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