Talk:Circuit Idea

Welcome to Circuit Idea discussion page
Hi everybody! Here, I would like to start the discussion about the new wikibook Circuit Idea. I hope that you will expose your viewpoint at the present content and implementation and will suggest how to improve them. Circuit-fantasist 18:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

An incredible happening in my teacher's life
December 30, 2007

The story that I have told here is the most incredible happening in my teacher's life. I have been teaching circuitry for more than 20 years. I have been having good, responsive, clever, curious, capable and even talented students that have been helping and inspiring me in my pursuit of revealing the truth about circuits through these years. But, as a rule, my best students loose interest in the subject after passing the examination. I have received sporadically emails from some of them at that when they need some help.



That's why, imagine how much I was amazed when Cyril whom I was teaching basic circuitry two years ago, came on one of my consultation hours and showed willingness for discussing circuit phenomena. In the beginning, I supposed that Cyril has just to pass some examination or he has failed to take an examination or he has to make a project... But imagine how much I was amazed when I knew that Cyril wanted just to understand circuits! He brought out a few textbooks, showed to me obscure circuit diagrams of various oscillators and told me that he had not understood anything from these explanations. He just wanted to know why, when and how oscillations arise, where currents flow, why the inductor and capacitor of an LC tank discharge completely, what make energy circulate between the two component of the LC circuit, what transistors and op-amps do in oscillating circuits, how an RC oscillator oscillates although it does not actually contain any oscillating circuit, etc. Then I started reading the vague texts and, as a result, I realized that I also do not understand them. I knew but I didn't realize the basic ideas behind these great phenomena.

It happened half a month ago; since that time I have no peace. I stopped writing temporarily the introductory methodological stories of Circuit idea and began thinking about oscillation phenomena. During my consultation hours Cyril and I discuss these famous circuits. Usually, our "brainstorming sessions" last two hours. I record them on a solid-state recorder; then I write down them on a paper and finally I use the valuable thoughts in creating circuit stories. So, I would like to dedicate the exciting introductory story about the philosophy of oscillations in this world to Cyril who has inspired me to start and then to keep this series of stories.

Joining students to Circuit idea
March, 2008

In the beginning of March, 2008 I decided to join my students to Circuit idea. I started this initiative "in sport" but it turned out so successful and exciting that now I am entirely absorbed in this new web undertaking. I have told how it has begun in the discussion of the first completely finished page that my students and I have dedicated to the famous Ohm's experiment.

After I saw the rapturous reactions of my students I realized the potentialities of this approach and began enlarging this educational experiment. For this purpose, I have created separate pages of all the ten student groups (64a, 65a, 66a, 67a, 68a, 64b, 65b, 66b, 67b and 68b). In these group pages, my students and I, all together, have been placing what we have done in the laboratory and the lecture hall - photos, drawings, texts, etc. During labs and lectures I record our conversations and discussions by a small solid-state recorder and make snaps by a digital camera; some students do the same. The photos show drafts on the whiteboard, screen shots, laboratory setups, the very students (and sometimes, their teacher:), etc. On returning at home I download the records and pictures to my computer and begin processing them. In order to help students, I outline briefly the structure of the future modules in the student and talk pages; then I place all the raw materials (pictures) in the pages. I add also links to useful resources and some provoking questions. Then I leave students to go on developing the stories; I only intervene in their works from time to time to edit and refine them. Finally, I expand student works by adding more explanations and use these materials to create the according modules. You can see how I have placed (on the right) links in the list of started circuit stories pointing to the corresponding student pages. You can imagine how powerful this approach is where students and their teacher, all together, work on the same common project! They add, edit and continuously refine it; they learn how to present what they have done to other, how to contribute a wiki project, how to communicate with people, etc. Furthermore, any web visitors (including other students and their teachers) through the world can join and enrich this open project! It is just wonderful! I have started a concrete page where to tell how I have joined students from Technical University of Sofia to Wikibooks. Also, I have prepared a link to a more general story about joining students; we might discuss this idea in the talk page. If you are a teacher, student or you just like education, join our web initiative! Here are links to my student groups:

Group 64a • Group 65a • Group 66a • Group 67a • Group 68a • Group 64b • Group 65b • Group 66b • Group 67b • Group 68b

Return after a long absence...
August 12, 2020

I started Circuit Idea in 2007 with great enthusiasm and expected the same from Wikibooks readers. My idea was, all of us together, in hot debates and discussions, to build a "philosophy" of circuitry... but it did not happen.

That is why, in 2012, I joined the scientific network ResearchGate where I continued to reveal the fundamental ideas behind circuits but in a form of questions and answers. For several years, I asked a total of 124 questions and 3432 comments. They helped me reach new insights into circuit phenomena. Unfortunately, few contributors were interested in such a "philosophical" approach, which came as a surprise to me. After all, these were scientists, theorists, for whom such an approach should be significant and interesting? Gradually I started to get frustrated and lose the desire to do this...

I started looking for a more suitable field to promote my ideas. In 2014, I came across interesting questions and answers in StackExchange, which made me join this network. But I was very surprised by the rude relations and the open pragmatism of the contributors there... and that made me give up and stay in ResearchGate. I kept asking more and more questions... and even finally answering them myself... until at one point I gave up... and went back to StackExchange...

For a year now, I have been collaborating intensively in StackExchange and I have got to know it very well. What is attractive about it are the interesting, often naive questions that mostly young people ask. In some inexplicable way, they provoke my thinking and make me reach new insights. I made many interesting illustrations of circuits with visualized electrical quantities (my favorite way of presentation). But I do not find support from my colleagues and this deters me. The relationship between us is terrible - instead of helping each other, we envy each other. Downvoting is common. Also, it is common practice not to respond to comments below the answers. If there are any comments, usually they are negative. There are no words of praise and encouragement. Discussions do not take place, and they are suppressed by the moderators. And at the heart of it all is anonymity...

In these terrible working conditions, I began to feel that much of my efforts were going to waste. And then I remembered that I had to finish my "lifework" - Circuit Idea... and I came back here again... 13 years after the beginning...Circuit-fantasist (discuss • contribs) 09:40, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Starting a new initiative
Through my participation in ResearchGate and StackExchange, I was able to accumulate many new circuit stories in the form of questions, answers and comments. Now I am starting to incorporate them into Circuit Idea as links to relevant resources. My idea is to gradually rework them into Circuit Idea stories. I just started with the ResearchGate question, "Can we make an attenuator act as an amplifier?" In this way, I want to do something like a bridge between these three big forums. --Circuit-fantasist (discuss • contribs) 17:22, 21 August 2020 (UTC)