Danger! High Voltage!

The soundtrack for this post is provided by Electric Six

I am beginning to form a suspicion.

No more than a suspicion at the moment, but I admit the feeling is growing that I was perhaps incorrect to state – in my Physics Practical exam – that we had been provided with an output voltage of 4000V.

Why, you may ask innocently? Well, when I stop and ponder my result, it does start to sound like an awfully large number of volts. Those signs, for example: “Warning! High Voltage! Danger of Death!”. They refer to figures like 4000V, don’t they? It seems a little… excessive… for Edexcel to insist we work with such a number. How about another number? Such as, oh I dunno, 4V?

There’s another piece of evidence with suggests to my mind that perhaps that is closer to the truth: the large 4 on the setting of the power supply.

Hmm… 4, and 4000. There’s a link there, isn’t there? Why yes, of course! The second is merely one thousand times larger than the first. Almost as if, if I may dare to be so bold, a unit may have gone awry. For the non-Physicists amongst you, consider than a metre is made out of one thousand millimetres. Aha!

Hopefully, some nice examiner will merely dock a point for a unit somewhere, rather than chuckle and then burn the paper

Don’t worry, I don’t actually think it went too badly, folks just the usual twists and turns which accompany the now-slain beast of the Physics Practical. Fire in the disco!

(P.S. Physics teachers are not allowed to read this post without commenting. Sorry.)

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8 Comments on :
Danger! High Voltage!

  1. Lucy says:


    You have broken one of the GC commandments – ‘Thou must not speak of exams after they have been undertaken’

  2. Lucy says:

    Annnd you have no eyeroll! Dom, you’re a failure

  3. Red Dalek says:

    I do, I do! *fixed for you*

    As I just said on WLM, "I wouldn’t leave out the symbol of vicious dismissal"

  4. Mr Kanj says:

    Schoolboy error there Dom. I think you need to pay more attention in lessons to stop you making newbie Units mistakes! And with regards to the synoptic paper, be afraid…be very afraid!
    Also, I think your sponsorship of my whiteboard might need renewing since your last ad was amended homophobically by one of the little darlings in 9S. Hence i was forced to remove it.

  5. Andy Kings says:

    Bahahahaha.

    Why don’t my staff read my blog?

  6. doctor dee says:

    All 69 of them Kingsy?

  7. Andy Kings says:

    Whoever you are, you’re catching on

    With a z though, please

  8. Miss Higgs-Boson says:

    hehe, well you are one in a long line of students who have fallen into the trap of thinking that a practical exam would let students use 4000V I am sure… or perhaps not but I hope that has adequately appeased any regret about your little numerical glitch! p.s sorry about the late reply, it was only today that scientists ahve finally started to believe I exist (mainly because I bribed them with brownies!)… Good luck in the exams.

    Miss Higgs-Boson

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