Electric Field: What is Wrong? Package Documents

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Main Document

Electric Field: What is Wrong? 

written by Anne Cox, Wolfgang Christian, and Francisco Esquembre

The EJS Electric Field: What is Wrong? Package is a collection of models for electrostatics with errors intentionally built into each model.  Users can move charges around and see the force, observe the electric field generated by charge configurations, and observe the motion of test particles in electric fields to try to identify the errors in the simulation. Users can inspect, modify and correct any simulation in the package by right-clicking within the plot and selecting "Open Ejs Model" from the pop-up menu item. The package also includes a brief overview of programming basics needed to correct the models.

The Electric Field: What is Wrong? Package was created using the Easy Java Simulations (Ejs) modeling tool.  It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive.  Double clicking the ejs_em_electric_wiw.jar file will launch the package if Java is installed.  Navigate within the package and click on a green triangle to run a particular simulation. Ejs is a part of the Open Source Physics Project and is designed to make it easier to access, modify, and generate computer models.  Additional Ejs models are available on ComPADRE.

Last Modified November 9, 2013

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Supplemental Documents (2)

Teaching Physics using Intentionally Incorrect Simulations 

Article (pdf) describing the use of intentionally incorrect simulations (What is Wrong?)  in electrostatics to teach physics and some computation. Journal article available from The Physics Teacher, Vol 49, Issue 5, Pages 273-279 http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3578417.

Published April 30, 2011
Last Modified April 21, 2011

This file is included in the full-text index.
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Coulomb Force What Is Wrong 

The Coulomb Force  model from the "What is wrong" package.

Last Modified January 3, 2016

This file has previous versions.

Source Code Documents (2)

Electric Field: What is Wrong? Source Code 

Source Code for the Electric Field: What is Wrong? package. The source code archive contains an XML representation of the Ejs model. Unzip this archive in your Ejs Workspace to compile and run this model using Ejs.

Released under a This material is released under the GNU General Public License Version 3.

Published April 14, 2010
Last Modified April 14, 2010

Restricted document Electric Field: What is Wrong? Solutions source code. 
This source code document is available to registered comPADRE users
In order to access this file, please Login to the Compadre Portal collection.

Source code of the solutions for the Electric Field: What is Wrong? package. The source code is password protected (contact the author). The source code archive contains an XML representation of the Ejs model. Unzip this archive in your Ejs Workspace to compile and run this model using Ejs.

  • .zip file (148 kb Compressed File)

Published April 14, 2010
Last Modified April 14, 2010

Restricted document You must Login to the Compadre network in order to access this file.