Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Contest
Welcome to the third annual "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" contest. You are each
invited to submit to me by email a short answer to the question: which one of
the electric flux or electric flow (potential) is more like Dr. Jekyll and
which is more like Mr. Hyde? Why? I will post all of your solutions to the
course website on the morning of Monday, 2012-10-15.
Your submissions will be "peer-reviewed" by yourselves, under the
criteria of physical insight, persuasiveness, cleverness, and humour. Each
student can cast one vote to me by email, and the winner will be announced
during class on Friday, 2012-10-19. First-place prize will be 20 bonus HW
points, second place 15, and honorable mention of 10 points to all
participants.
2012 Winner:
I do not care for the comparison of Flow and Flux to Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are in fact separate states of the same
being; the person is merely the superposition of the two that is “forced” into
one of the two possible states upon observation (or was already in that
particular state just unknown until observation, depending upon whether one
holds a realist or orthodox view of quantum mechanics). By comparison, Flow
and Flux are geospatial properties that are determined by a common entity (the
E-field).
As a thought exercise, I would relate Flow most closely to
Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll feared Mr. Hyde's potential, and as we all know Flux
fears the potential within Flow when Flow is not bound to a closed path. Flux
intends to keep Flow at bay by maintaining a surface with a closed path, and
defining a surface which Flux can dominate while keeping the work from Flow at
zero. However, Dr. Jekyll felt uncomfortable containing the properties of
Mr. Hyde and plotted to occasionally let him out. But the work and potential
from Mr. Hyde when not contained to a closed boundary defined by the good
doctor frightened Dr. Jekyll.
Lastly, as many may not know, Dr. Jekyll was an ancestor to one Dr. Brown, who
harnessed the family's Flux into a capacitor which made time travel
possible. As Griffiths likes to say, QED.
2011 Entries:
Entry #1 1st place
Entry #2 2nd place
Entry #3 Honorable mention
Entry #4 3rd place
2010 Winning response:
From Wikipedia: "This idea represents a concept in Western culture, that of
the inner conflict of humanity's sense of good and evil. In particular the
story has been interpreted as an examination of the duality of human nature
(that good and evil exists in all), and that the failure to accept this
tension (to accept the evil or shadow side) results in the evil being
projected onto others. If someone banishes all evil to the unconscious mind
in an attempt to be wholly and completely good, it can result in the
development of a Mr Hyde-type aspect to that person's character. This failure
to accept the tension of duality is related to Christian theology, where
Satan's fall from Heaven is due to his refusal to accept that he is a created
being (that he has a dual nature) and is not God."
Conclusion: the flux is Satan (evil). Also, evil can be projected, and since
flux is a vector, it can also be projected. :)
Christopher Crawford