Can you light a bulb with a battery and a wire?

[PlasmaBomb]

I can run one by the presence of my awesomeness.

Liek this?

 

[SunnyD]

I used to light LED's off a 9v battery, no wires needed.

 

[destrekor]

We did this kind of stuff in 6th, or 7th grade....

I wasn't in any kind of engineering program at all in college, and did a CCNA program in highschool. Never played with electrical circuits outside of middle school, at the latest.

I could have done that "puzzle" in one second.

Then again, I remember taking the classroom knowledge home, buying a box of cheap 1W lightbulbs, a box of AAs, some wire (which I then had to cut and strip), and proceeded to find ways to make it more and more complex.
Also found out how I could burn myself using only AAs and wire. Can't remember if that was when I wired some batteries in series or parallel. Oh yeah, series - I remember my finger was nice and red after touching the wire.

That's whats wrong with kids these days - they have little interest in taking home what they learned and having fun with it. That's how you force your brain to remember things, with entertainment.

I also remember a seventh grade science class, where we had a 40 or 60w lightbulb, screwed into a metal base that converted the turning of a crank into electricity. The base had two terminals. We made a human chain, one side of the chain touched one terminal, and I was on the far edge and touched the other terminal.
Yikes, that was the strangest sensations of my life. I was the first in line of the incoming electrons, it was to go through me to reach the other side, the completion of the circuit would provide electricity to the socket and light the bulb.

My bones in my wrist and arm felt like they were being vibrated.
It felt so weird.

It's possible to illuminate a bulb with NO wire and NO dry cell. AAA, AA, C, D parts are dry cells NOT batteries! The most common batteries used by the consumer are 6V lantern cells and of course the 9V rectangular battery.

This is my favorite type of battery.

 

[edro]

Hindsight is 20/20.

It is simple once you know the answer, but difficult when you are handled the problem with a camera in your face.
All of them would have gotten it if they had a few minutes to look at it.

Also, everyone in that video is probably smarter than anyone on this board.

Sorry, I play devil's advocate a lot...

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Hindsight is 20/20.

It is simple once you know the answer, but difficult when you are handled the problem with a camera in your face.
All of them would have gotten it if they had a few minutes to look at it.

Also, everyone in that video is probably smarter than anyone on this board.

Sorry, I play devil's advocate a lot...

I did it as a child in primary school when learning about circuits, I also did fun games like the one DrP mentioned.

Easy question is easy.

 

[Modelworks]

That's whats wrong with kids these days - they have little interest in taking home what they learned and having fun with it. That's how you force your brain to remember things, with entertainment.

We had a teacher in 5th grade that was also a ham radio operator and he would have us doing things like winding transformers by hand. He gave us each a spoil of wire, some masking tape and a spool to wind it on. I spent a week winding a layer of wire on the spoil, covering that layer with masking tape, then adding another layer, then when finished with the first set of wires, we got to wind another set. Then he explained how the electricity got from one set of wires to the other without the wires touching. It was way better than just reading about it.

He also taught us how to make a crystal radio out of a piece of wood, some wire, paper towel insert, coffee can and a diode. I was so surprised a radio could work with no power source connected to it. I think he was responsible for me going into engineering later.


To stay on the light bulb subject. They make very good loads for power supplies. If you have a pc power supply you want to test , grab a regular 110vac 60W bulb and connect it to the 12 or 5V lines. It will put a good load on the supply . Most people can get a light bulb where high power resistors are not common. filament type light bulbs don't care if it is ac or dc providing the power.

Bulbs are also good for putting in series with the wiring when you want to test something that you think might be damaged. If it is damaged the light bulb will take most of the load and glow bright vs the device shorting out.

 

[TuxDave]

Also, everyone in that video is probably smarter than anyone on this board.

Sorry, I play devil's advocate a lot...

Quite an overgeneralizing statement....

 

[JEDIYoda]

Correct.

Apparently they forgot that you need a complete circuit?

as opposed to a complete idiot???

 

[edro]

Quite an overgeneralizing statement....

Do we have any Harvard or MIT grads on the board?
I know measuring intelligence is tough, but it's a pretty safe bet that most Harvard / MIT grads are smarter than most of the people on this board.

 

[TecHNooB]

Do we have any Harvard or MIT grads on the board?
I know measuring intelligence is tough, but it's a pretty safe bet that most Harvard / MIT grads are smarter than most of the people on this board.

I think eLiu is currently attending grad school at MIT. Hence his defense of MIT.

 

[Rubycon]

I used to light LED's off a 9v battery, no wires needed.

Yes and without a current limiting resistor they will pop fast.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

If I can't, I should be fired.

 

[sdifox]

shit I knew how to do this before I went to kindergarten.













Mind you I did grow up in a electronics parts mid level distributor/retail store

 

[TuxDave]

Do we have any Harvard or MIT grads on the board?
I know measuring intelligence is tough, but it's a pretty safe bet that most Harvard / MIT grads are smarter than most of the people on this board.

"most" is different from "all".

 

[IronWing]

shit I knew how to do this before I went to kindergarten.


Mind you I did grow up in a electronics parts mid level distributor/retail store

5 year old: "Hey sdifox, that's my house over there! Where do you live?"

sdifox: "I live in an electronics parts mid level distributor/retail store."

5 year old: "Wow!"

Later:
"sdifox lives in a parts bin!"

 

[bfdd]

wtf? That's not MIT for the most part: the person who got it RIGHT is from MIT. For the others, wrong buildings, wrong colors, wrong cap & gown, wrong "im better than you" douchebag at the podium, wrong everything.

The students who couldn't do it are from HARVARD. The architecture is characteristic of their campus. The cap & gown is theirs:
http://sswift.net/photo_album.html (ctrl-f for "harvard graduation")

Fuck the jackasses who made that video.

The person who got it right (the black kid) is probably from MIT. The clothing is correct & the building in the background is our Green Building:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/MIT-Green-Building.jpg

Also the whole premise of this is stupid. Without knowing whether the students were required to take an E&M course or some sort of basic EE class, why would you expect them to have any clue about what a circuit is? (Because it was clear from the video that several of them were not electrical engineers... and since they were from Harvard, none of them were any kind of engineer!)

I mean I'm sure I could find plenty of graduates who don't how a wing generates lift. I'd bet that most would say something along the lines of "air travels farther/faster over the top surface" + Bernoulli's Eqn... which is completely wrong. Or graduates who couldn't tell you what chemical reaction produces salt. Or graduates who don't can't answer questions about simple genetics. Basically, grads of field X who don't know basic concepts from field Y. Big fucking surprise.

It's not that hard to ask someone to make a very simple version of something they've probably used a hundred times, a flashlight. Anyone who has replaced the batteries in a flashlight should be able to do what the black kid did at the end.

 

[sdifox]

5 year old: "Hey sdifox, that's my house over there! Where do you live?"

sdifox: "I live in an electronics parts mid level distributor/retail store."

5 year old: "Wow!"

Later:
"sdifox lives in a parts bin!"

How did you know I played in the warehouse?

<old fart> back in the days, CRTs used to be packed in wooden crates and straw as packing material!</old fart>

 

[canis]

wtf? That's not MIT for the most part: the person who got it RIGHT is from MIT. For the others, wrong buildings, wrong colors, wrong cap & gown, wrong "im better than you" douchebag at the podium, wrong everything.

The students who couldn't do it are from HARVARD. The architecture is characteristic of their campus. The cap & gown is theirs:
http://sswift.net/photo_album.html (ctrl-f for "harvard graduation")

Fuck the jackasses who made that video.

The person who got it right (the black kid) is probably from MIT. The clothing is correct & the building in the background is our Green Building:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/MIT-Green-Building.jpg

Also the whole premise of this is stupid. Without knowing whether the students were required to take an E&M course or some sort of basic EE class, why would you expect them to have any clue about what a circuit is? (Because it was clear from the video that several of them were not electrical engineers... and since they were from Harvard, none of them were any kind of engineer!)

I mean I'm sure I could find plenty of graduates who don't how a wing generates lift. I'd bet that most would say something along the lines of "air travels farther/faster over the top surface" + Bernoulli's Eqn... which is completely wrong. Or graduates who couldn't tell you what chemical reaction produces salt. Or graduates who don't can't answer questions about simple genetics. Basically, grads of field X who don't know basic concepts from field Y. Big fucking surprise.

Are you saying the podium dude who says "We are the premier engineering and science institution in the world" is not from MIT?

A girl in the vid says "I'm not a electrical engineer, I'm a mechanical engineer."

One wire no current girl seems to be confident in her answer.

This appears to be from a documentary. Anyone know the source?

 

[alkemyst]

What's funny is the dudes saying it's easy and how they even had light bulb labs.

This is sort of the theme of that video. Everyone thinks they can do it/have done it.

In reality it's alot of dudes reading about it and just thinking it's easy.

I am sure many of the above think they can throw a flying side kick and take down most dudes.

 

[canis]

Hindsight is 20/20.

It is simple once you know the answer, but difficult when you are handled the problem with a camera in your face.
All of them would have gotten it if they had a few minutes to look at it.

Also, everyone in that video is probably smarter than anyone on this board.

Sorry, I play devil's advocate a lot...

My cat thinks Hawking is smarter than Einstein.

 

[canis]

..

 

[MarkXIX]

plus asking 'just graduates' which may have had a big night prior...

Being MIT grads, I am sure (at least hope) they'd figure this out if given time. Most of our grads in the last 10 years or so...I am not sure.

I went back to college in 2000 (I am almost 40). The amount of cheating was insane...in many of my classes I talked to the professor about doing it a different way because of what I just stumbled on hearing things.

One of my best was doing a CPU simulation in ASP/VBScipt instead of C++.

It's sad that college has become just an extension of high school. We should never have allowed that. Most really have no place going beyond high school.

Don't get me started on the joke that is modern college education. Its little more than a way for people to make money and conduct marketing of their team mascots to fund commercial enterprise. Never mind the highway robbery that is the text book market either.

 

[Golgatha]

Heh, ok I guess I'm one of them that's wrong about how a wing generates lift. I need to go back to whoever told me the wrong answer and punish them.

HCl + NaOH = NaCl + H2O?

Much more fun to react Chlorine gas with metalic sodium directly.

 

[Fayd]

wtf? That's not MIT for the most part: the person who got it RIGHT is from MIT. For the others, wrong buildings, wrong colors, wrong cap & gown, wrong "im better than you" douchebag at the podium, wrong everything.

The students who couldn't do it are from HARVARD. The architecture is characteristic of their campus. The cap & gown is theirs:
http://sswift.net/photo_album.html (ctrl-f for "harvard graduation")

Fuck the jackasses who made that video.

The person who got it right (the black kid) is probably from MIT. The clothing is correct & the building in the background is our Green Building:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/MIT-Green-Building.jpg

Also the whole premise of this is stupid. Without knowing whether the students were required to take an E&M course or some sort of basic EE class, why would you expect them to have any clue about what a circuit is? (Because it was clear from the video that several of them were not electrical engineers... and since they were from Harvard, none of them were any kind of engineer!)

I mean I'm sure I could find plenty of graduates who don't how a wing generates lift. I'd bet that most would say something along the lines of "air travels farther/faster over the top surface" + Bernoulli's Eqn... which is completely wrong. Or graduates who couldn't tell you what chemical reaction produces salt. Or graduates who don't can't answer questions about simple genetics. Basically, grads of field X who don't know basic concepts from field Y. Big fucking surprise.

probably because i learned about circuits and batteries in 4th grade.

 

[flexy]

why would you expect them to have any clue about what a circuit is? (Because it was clear from the video that several of them were not electrical engineers...

Because you need to be a engineer to do this?

I am neither an "engineer" nor did i ever visit MIT or Harvard..but as others here i did stuff like that way before i even went to kindergarten. Also, later on in school...stuff like that was taught in 3rd or 4th grade...

Your education system is seriously f****d up....