New animated video on Electricity and Magnetism

[Eugene381]

I have just created a short animated video explaining all the concepts of electromagnetism. It is at:

http://youtu.be/XiHVe8U5PhU

I put a lot of of time and effort into making the animations, so please take a look at this, and please pass it along to anyone who you think might be interested. I think this is great both for educational and for entertainment value.

Thanks.

 

[Evo]

I have just created a short animated video explaining all the concepts of electromagnetism. It is at:

http://youtu.be/XiHVe8U5PhU

I put a lot of of time and effort into making the animations, so please take a look at this, and please pass it along to anyone who you think might be interested. I think this is great both for educational and for entertainment value.

Thanks.

I couldn't watch it, the music was too annoying.

 

[Eugene381]

Evo, in reply to your complaint, I have now also uploaded a version of the video without the background music. Personally, I think it is better with the music, but here is the new version with the music removed:

 

[Bobbywhy]

Eugene381, Welcome to Physics Forums!

Watched your youtube about electromagnetism silently the first time because other people were nearby. No sound was necessary since all important information was clearly written out in your easy-to-read captions. Animation was great. Technically it all seems exactly correct. I was a little confused during the last part when a "chain reaction" of electric and magnetic fields combined to make an e-m wave. But maybe that's just me who never heard it described that way! It IS educational and yes, even entertaining. Keep up the good work.

 

[Evo]

Wow. You guys sure know how to welcome new people to a forum.

In any case, no it is not spam. And this is pretty easy to confirm, since all you have to do is check the links, and see that they do, in fact, link to videos on the topic at hand as described.

Evo, in reply to your complaint, I have now also uploaded a version of the video without the background music. Personally, I think it is better with the music, but here is the new version with the music removed:

The music was too jerky and disco, a bit unnerving and demanded too much attention. Something more mellow and in the background would work.

 

[Drakkith]

The music was too jerky and disco, a bit unnerving and demanded too much attention. Something more mellow and in the background would work.

Unless you're like me and like more of the former when you're trying to study!

 

[bbbeard]

I have just created a short animated video explaining all the concepts of electromagnetism. It is at:

http://youtu.be/XiHVe8U5PhU

I put a lot of of time and effort into making the animations, so please take a look at this, and please pass it along to anyone who you think might be interested. I think this is great both for educational and for entertainment value.

Thanks.

A nice effort, and pretty good introductory tutorial. I only have small issues with it -- like the fact that by convention, current flows from positive end of the battery to the negative (even though the actual charge carriers, which are negative, flow in the opposite direction). Also, some of the animations could be misinterpreted, like the expanding circular arrows emanating from the single moving charge. The interlinked circular arrows representing the EM field are unusual and in that context I'm not sure what they are supposed to represent. The conventional depiction of a plane EM wave generally shows the electric field oscillating in one plane and the magnetic field in a perpendicular plane, so nothing is actually rotating, I think.

Here's the first depiction that popped up in Google:

But all in all, a great effort. Thanks!

BBB

 

[Eugene381]

I thought a long time about how to handle representing the direction of the current. If I used the conventional direction of flowing from positive to negative, I would actually be showing an erroneous picture of what physically happens. So, I decided to go with what is physically correct, as opposed to what is conventional.

As for the interlinking circles representing the EM wave, if you think about it, they are the same thing as the commonly drawn waveform which you posted. I drew it the way I did so that people could relate it to the material which had been presented in the video previously. Also, in my opinion, the way I drew it is a more intuitive way of thinking about it, with each changing electric/magnetic field in the chain inducing the next one.

 

[chrisbaird]

Eugen381, congratulations on a crisp and visually-appealing video that does not get the physics wrong. Such videos are unfortunately rarer than I would like. As to your comment in your original post that this video explains "all the concepts of electromagnetism", I would disagree. The concepts mentioned here are pretty introductory. For a heads up, I would be careful making a post whose main purpose is to link to website with something you made, as this may be interpreted as spam.

 

[Naty1]

A few comments:

Power is not the number of falling rocks times the height...that's related to ENERGY.

At time 1:46: "The total power is the voltage times the number of particles".

is incorrect. That's roughly related to energy but is not accurate even then.

I'm not watching any further.
A way to make your descri[ptions more precise is to compare each explanatory statement with the appropriate formula from a physics text of your choice. like W=qV = [it]V...and put those into words.

Good way to learn, however, because trying to describe what you think you know is always a valuable exercise. I never learned as thoroughly as when I tutored or taught.
Keep going.

 

[Eugene381]

A few comments:

Power is not the number of falling rocks times the height...that's related to ENERGY.

At time 1:46: "The total power is the voltage times the number of particles".

is incorrect. That's roughly related to energy but is not accurate even then.

I'm not watching any further.
A way to make your descri[ptions more precise is to compare each explanatory statement with the appropriate formula from a physics text of your choice. like W=qV = [it]V...and put those into words.

Good way to learn, however, because trying to describe what you think you know is always a valuable exercise. I never learned as thoroughly as when I tutored or taught.
Keep going.

By "number of falling rocks", I was referring to the number of falling rocks per unit of time, which is what the animation illustrates. Similarly, by number of charged particles, I was referring to the number of charged particles per unit time, which is what the animation illustrates. Hence, when you multiply by voltage, you get power.

And even if this was not self evident to anyone from the animation, I also explicitly stated earlier that the voltage is the energy of each charged particle. Hence, they would know that if you multiply the voltage by the number of particles, they would get energy and not power.

 

[Eugene381]

And I also stated in the video that the "current" is the "number of particle". Hence another indication that by "number of particles", I am referring to the rate of the flow of the particles.

 

[Eugene381]

And even if this was not self evident to anyone from the animation, I also explicitly stated earlier that the voltage is the energy of each charged particle. Hence, they would know that if you multiply the voltage by the number of particles, they would get energy and not power.

I just rewatched this section, I would like to also point out that each time I make my statement about power, the corresponding explanation about energy is repeated just a few seconds earlier, and the text is still present on the screen. So I really don't see why any reasonable person would misunderstand this.

 

[Bobbywhy]

Eugene381, Here is an observation: Myself, Evo, bbbeard, chrisbaird, and Naty1 each made a few “constructive criticisms” of your animated video. One usually considers these to be valuable as “suggestions for improvement”. Clearly they are NOT attacks on the author of the work that require strong defense. Your posts numbered 3, 8, 11, 12, and 13 all defend your work as is. If you are unwilling to accept advice from folks far more qualified than yourself and possibly adjust or modify your work, and if you think it is already so great then why did you ask us to “take a look”?

 

[Eugene381]

I don't have any objections to constructive criticism from others. And I hope others don't have any objections to me explaining why I chose to do certain scenes the way I did. A lot of the comments that people are posting are things I had thought about as I was doing the animation, and I realized ahead of time that some people were probably going to complain about these specific points. Though, I also realized that other people would also complain (or be more confused) if I did it using the alternative approach.

On a side note, I don't view someone saying that they got less than two minutes into the video, and then refused to watch any further, as a form of "constructive criticism".

 

[Naty1]

Eugene:

I don't view someone saying that they got less than two minutes into the video, and then refused to watch any further, as a form of "constructive criticism".

I wanted to make it clear that with such confusing illustrations in the first two minutes, which need YOUR attention, not mine, I did not want to take time for further comments...

but I did not say: "It's just plain hopeless, give up"...I posted this encouragement which you seem to have ignored.

Good way to learn, however, because trying to describe what you think you know is always a valuable exercise. I never learned as thoroughly as when I tutored or taught.
Keep going.

Eugene:

I was referring to the number of falling rocks per unit of time, which is what the animation illustrates...

if so, then say that in your presentation... the existing display gets power and energy mixed up and that is often a source of confusion for beginners...even when clearly and carefully presented.

The first rule for any presenter, or teacher, is "adapt to your audience ".

good luck.

PS: Had you adapted, I would have been happy to see more of your presentation. I thought enough to come back and check now.

 

[Eugene381]

When I was making the video, I originally intended to state that it was the "rocks per unit time", "electrons per unit time", etc. However, I found that the sentences became cumbersome, and I was concerned that this would make it more difficult for people to follow if they did not have a scientific background, and were not accustomed to hearing phrases like these. I think that using common plain language was preferable, even if it was more vague.

While I will agree with you that someone will not necessarily get an understanding of power versus energy from the video, I at the same time don't think I give an erroneous presentation of it either.

The distinction between power and energy is a topic who's scope extends well beyond electro-magnetism, and I think that clarifying this distinction didn't need to be a primary mission for the video. After all, you said yourself that people are still often confused even when this is explained carefully. So, I think that trying to make sure everyone has this concept straight in their head would take time and clarity away from the other topics being presented.

 

[Eugene381]

I would like to mention that I have now posted this on several other internet forums dedicated to this topic, and while people did make critiques of various other parts of the video, not a single other person mentioned anything about the power vs energy issue.