A question from a Wabash freshman led to a research project and publication in a professional journal for the student and Professor of Physics Dennis Krause.
“Can a String’s Tension Exert a Torque on a Pulley?” by Krause and Yifei Sun ’13 was published in the April 2011 issue of The Physics Teacher.
“Yifei was a freshman in my Physics 111 course when he raised a question about an analysis we were using,
one that is used in many introductory textbooks,” Krause explains. “In all my years of teaching, no one had ever asked this question. It showed that the idea and the way we were teaching it were inconsistent.
“That question turned into a small research project. Yifei did much of the work, prepared the figures, and kept the project moving along to completion.”
The paper Krause and Sun submitted to The Physics Teacher was initially rejected. Then it was Krause’s turn to ask the questions. He explained the results and detailed the project to the referee who evaluates the papers and who, in turn, recommended that the journal publish the article.
“It was a lesson in persistence,” Krause says.
And also a test of a teacher’s willingness to respect a student’s curiosity.
“Back in my high school, sometimes teachers weren’t interested in students’ questions,” says Sun. “But I knew Professor Krause would be. He’s a theoretical physicist; he’s always willing to discuss my questions.”
