01820nam a22002297a 450000500170000000800410001702200140005803700200007208200120009210000160010424500560012026000720017630000190024849000980026750500630036552009560042865000380138465000470142265000360146965000470150585600380155220231109102104.0231106b           ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  a0031-921X  bRIEBPL Library   a530.071  aAlon Drory   a Motivating the Biot-Savart Law b(Journal Article)  aWashington , DCbAmerican Association of Physics TeacherscMay 2023  a 368–370  p.  a American Association of Physics Teachers ,American Institute of Physics, Volume 61, Number 5  a***______{For Hard Copy, Please visit Library.}________***  aAbstract-

Introducing students to a new law is pedagogically challenging. One can just declare it as fact, but it is easier on (at least some) students if we can derive it when possible, or, if not, at least motivate it somehow. The Biot-Savart law is particularly challenging in this respect, because it is only derivable from more advanced formulations (such as Maxwell’s equations), which are in their turn merely stipulated (this is the approach of Feynman et al., for example1). The other possibility is simply to declare its empirical truth, without details (see, for example, Griffiths2).

Ultimately, any new law or relation is founded on experimental results, but we should still strive to use the simplest possible empirical input, that which can be assimilated and accepted most easily. For example, when teaching electricity in introductory courses, Coulomb’s law is taken as the fundamental empirical relation, rather than...

Topics  aElectromagnetism, Electrostatics,  a Fundamental constants, Maxwell equations,  a History of science, Students,   aTeaching methods and strategies, Abstracts  uhttps://doi.org/10.1119/5.0084454