Silicon, Circuits, and the Digital Revolution
| Spring Break Adventure |
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Borrowed from Chapter
6 of The Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones:
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Indiana Jones finds that spies, submarines, and
Mexican revolutionaries make for one wild spring break in this fast-paced,
exciting story.
Indy and his friend, Nancy Stratemeyer, whose father created
the Nancy Drew mystery series, visit the fascinating laboratory of inventor
Thomas Edison. The two must contend with dangerous German spies
as they struggle to keep Edison's top secret invention out of the hands
of hostile enemy agents...
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...To keep him from getting into any more trouble, Indy
is sent to visit his aunt in New Mexico. While there, he is kidnapped
by Pancho Villa and swept up into the Mexican Revolution. Chaotic,
free-wheeling border towns, a "Wild Bunch" style train robbery and a colorful
barroom encounter with a young George Patton make for thrilling
entertainment in this action-packed movie.
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| This is an fictional scenario based on movie
characters. ©1999 Lucasfilm Ltd. |
Young Indy and Nancy are meeting the famous inventor in his lab in West
Orange, NJ ca 1916. Thomas A. has just confided to the two about the alkaline
cell he recently developed for storing electrical energy in the form of chemicals....
"It's bound to be a success! Youngsters like you are not going to be content
listening to my new phonographs at home -- surely you'll want to listen to them
on the go. But there's just one difficulty..."
"Truth be told I doubt if listening to recorded music will ever muster
much attention," predicted Indy.
"I'm interested in your problem, if you don't mind," Nancy interjected.
"Well it's just plain hard to tell when the cell is used up, or just tired
of sitting on the shelf. If I had a simple way of telling, well heck, I could
probably garner a few more patents!"
Indy's gaze fell away into his characteristic trance-like state of deep reflection.
Meanwhile Nancy rummaged through her pack.
"I wonder if this might help? My father found these images on a wall in
an ancient Egyptian pyramid and gave me a copy to see if I might figure out
what they were about. It looks like they could be electrical testers of some
sort. Perhaps you can figure out how they might work as battery testers?"
Suddenly a smile slid onto Indy's face. "Hmmm... I wonder how the Egyptians
knew about electricity? I smell another adventure!"
Questions:
- Identify which modern day alkaline cell or battery is tested by each of
the above devices.
- Employ your knowledge of simple electrical circuits to explain how each
device works.
That is, how does each device test the cell/battery for which it was designed?
- Write a thorough explanation that would satisfy Indy. He might especially
enjoy hearing how it relates to the recent Play-Doh lab exercise. Also, since
Indy is a visually-oriented learner, he might appreciate any circuit schematics
you might care to offer...
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Comments, suggestions, or requests to ghw@udel.edu.
"http://www.physics.udel.edu/~watson/scen103/colloq2000/problems/springbreak.html"
Last updated March 13, 2000.
© George Watson, Univ. of Delaware, 2000.
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