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May 2004

Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 260-320

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Energy and Work

Art Hobson

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 260 | Cited 4 times

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.40.-d Education
01.55.+b General physics
05.70.-a Thermodynamics

Physics Not Misfigured

Paul G. Hewitt

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 260

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.40.-d Education
01.55.+b General physics
45.40.Gj Ballistics (projectiles; rockets)

Editor's Note

Karl C. Mamola

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 261

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.40.-d Education
01.55.+b General physics
45.40.Gj Ballistics (projectiles; rockets)
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Thank You to Our 2003–2004 Referees

Karl C. Mamola

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 262

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.10.-m Announcements, news, and organizational activities
01.30.-y Physics literature and publications
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Oersted Medal Citation

Chris Chiaverina, AAPT Awards Committee, Chair

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 264

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.10.Cr Announcements, news, and awards
01.40.-d Education

Richtmyer Award Citation

Chris Chiaverina, AAPT Awards Committee, Chair

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 265

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.10.Cr Announcements, news, and awards
01.40.-d Education

Melba Newell Phillips Award Citation

Chris Chiaverina, AAPT Awards Committee, Chair

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 265

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.10.Cr Announcements, news, and awards
01.40.-d Education
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Radioactive Gasoline

Paul Hewitt

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 268

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
06.30.Bp Spatial dimensions (e.g., position, lengths, volume, angles, and displacements)
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Compact Fluorescent Lamp Observed Through a Diffraction Grating

L. M. Gratton, M. Perini, and V. Zanetti

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 270

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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This paper describes the use of a compact fluorescent lamp and a diffraction grating to introduce some basic concepts connected with the perception of colors. If a spherical compact fluorescent lamp is observed through a diffraction grating from a distance of 3 m or more, some interesting and perhaps unexpected features (Fig. 1) may be noticed: interesting, because of the many images having the shape of disks with different brilliant colors (corresponding to the wavelengths of emission lines in the discharge spectrum of the gas mixture in the lamp). There are unexpected features because when we get closer to the lamp it is possible to see that some of the different colored images become superimposed. Colors seen in the overlapping areas are quite different from those of the original disks. The appearance of these new colors has to do with how we perceive color.
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
42.66.Ne Color vision: color detection, adaptation, and discrimination
42.25.Fx Diffraction and scattering

Optical Properties of the Conics Derived from an Elementary Kinematic Consideration

C. Criado and N. Alamo

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 272

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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In a recent article appearing in this journal,1 the optical property of the ellipse is derived from energy conservation. In this paper we derive this property as well as the analogous for the other conics, i.e., hyperbola and parabola, from a very elemental kinematic consideration. The same argument can be used to prove the converse — that only the conics have these optical properties.
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42.15.Dp Wave fronts and ray tracing
02.40.-k Geometry, differential geometry, and topology

Reflections on Handedness

Alan J. DeWeerd and S. Eric Hill

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 275 | Cited 3 times

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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When introducing the optics of mirrors, an obvious place to start is comparing the appearance of objects to their images. Image distance and magnification are usually covered the most thoroughly, but the handedness of images in various shapes of mirrors has also been discussed in The Physics Teacher1–5 and elsewhere.6 However, there has not been a systematic treatment of handedness. We describe a general criterion in terms of axis inversions for whether or not handedness is preserved by a mirror. We consider how the rotation of mirrors affects the orientation of their images. We also make some suggestions for introducing these topics in introductory courses.
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42.79.Bh Lenses, prisms and mirrors
42.25.Gy Edge and boundary effects; reflection and refraction

A Fun General Education Physics Course: Physics of Sports

John Eric Goff

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 280

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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During a two-year visiting appointment at Oberlin College in Oberlin, OH, I offered a course called Physics of Sports for the fall 2000 semester and the fall 2001 semester. While preparing the course, I faced a challenge that confronts many physics teachers: How can I make a general education physics course fun for nonscience students? With only an algebra prerequisite for the course, the typical student did not have a particularly strong mathematical background. My goal was to not only teach those students a little physics, but also show them how physicists try to understand and describe the world of sports. I also wanted to make the course sufficiently enjoyable that the students had a positive experience in what may have been the last science course some of them ever took. After discussions with the students, I feel the course succeeded in fulfilling my goals.
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01.55.+b General physics
01.50.F- Audio and visual aids
01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation

Teaching Special Relativity Using Physlets®

Mario Belloni, Wolfgang Christian, and Melissa H. Dancy

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 284 | Cited 3 times

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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In a recent paper in this journal1 we presented work on the creation and use of Physlet-based2 exercises to teach physical and wave optics. Since then we have developed ready-to-run exercises for introductory physics3,4 and have developed Physlet-based exercises for more advanced topics such as quantum mechanics. In this paper we describe the materials we have created to aid in the teaching and learning of introductory special relativity. There are many reasons to focus on special relativity. Special relativity is the first topic presented in the modern physics section of introductory physics courses and in the sophomore-level modern physics course. It is full of (apparent) paradoxes, and like quantum mechanics, is one of the intriguing theories that continues to captivate students' interest in physics. In addition, because special relativity focuses on abstract concepts, the visualization that Physlet-based material provides is especially valuable.
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01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation
01.50.ht Instructional computer use
03.30.+p Special relativity

Reprise of a “Dense and Tense Story”

Carl E. Mungan

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 292

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Consider the following problem.1 Two uniform cubes have sides of length L. Cube 1 has volume mass density ρ1, while cube 2 has density ρ2 > ρ1. Their average density, ρ = (ρ1 + ρ2)∕2, is equal to that of an incompressible fluid filling a beaker. The two cubes are glued together and fully immersed in the fluid with the lighter cube 1 positioned directly above cube 2, such that the interface between them is at depth H. Suppose that the glue has a density equal to that of the fluid, so that the combination of blocks and glue is overall neutrally buoyant in the fluid. Denote by F the maximum tensile force that the glue can withstand before tearing apart. Under what conditions will the cubes break apart (resulting in cube 1 rising to the surface and cube 2 sinking to the bottom)?
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01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation
47.85.Dh Hydrodynamics, hydraulics, hydrostatics

Just What Did Archimedes Say About Buoyancy?

Erlend H. Graf

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 296 | Cited 3 times

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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“A body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up with a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.” So goes a venerable textbook1 statement of the hydrostatic principle that bears Archimedes' name. Archimedes' principle is often proved for the special case of a right-circular cylinder or rectangular solid by considering the difference in hydrostatic forces between the (flat, horizontal) upper and lower surfaces, and then generalized by the even more venerable “it can be shown…” that the principle is in fact true for bodies of arbitrary shape.
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01.65.+g History of science
47.85.Dh Hydrodynamics, hydraulics, hydrostatics
01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation

Cloud Formation

Mark Talmage Graham

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 301 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Cloud formation is crucial to the heritage of modern physics, and there is a rich literature on this important topic.1 In 1927, Charles T.R. Wilson was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for applications of the cloud chamber.2 Wilson was inspired to study cloud formation after working at a meteorological observatory on top of the highest mountain in Scotland, Ben Nevis, and testified near the end of his life, “The whole of my scientific work undoubtedly developed from the experiments I was led to make by what I saw during my fortnight on Ben Nevis in September 1894.”3 To form clouds, Wilson used the sudden expansion of humid air.4 Any structure the cloud may have is spoiled by turbulence in the sudden expansion, but in 1912 Wilson got ion tracks to show up by using strobe photography of the chamber immediately upon expansion.5 In the interim, Millikan's study in 1909 of the formation of cloud droplets around individual ions was the first in which the electron charge was isolated. This study led to his famous oil drop experiment.6 To Millikan, as to Wilson, meteorology and physics were professionally indistinct. With his meteorological physics expertise, in WWI Millikan commanded perhaps the first meteorological observation and forecasting team essential to military operation in history.7 But even during peacetime meteorology is so much of a concern to everyone that a regular news segment is dedicated to it. Weather is the universal conversation topic, and life on land could not exist as we know it without clouds. One wonders then, why cloud formation is never covered in physics texts.
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
92.60.Nv Cloud physics and chemistry
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A Big Sunbird

J. Güémez, R. Valiente, C. Fiolhais, and M. Fiolhais

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 307 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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The drinking bird is a toy that is suitable for demonstrations in the classroom. Since it is able to produce work for long periods, this device resembles a perpetuum mobile, but of course it is not.1 (With 30 cm3 of water, a drinking bird can operate for three to four days in summer.) The origin of its motion lies on a temperature gradient established between the lower part of the apparatus (the body) and its upper part (the head), by allowing water to evaporate off the head, which is kept wet.
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.55.+b General physics
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THE CROSS-SECTIONAL AREA OF OBJECTS IN A HAT BOX [Phys. Teach. 8, Dec. 1970)]

Frank A. Smith, Jr.

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 310

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
24.00.00 Nuclear reactions: general
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Double Closure

Boris Korsunsky

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 312

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.40.Fk Research in physics education

Refraction in Action

Boris Korsunsky

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 312

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.40.Fk Research in physics education

The Bulletproof Sandwich

Boris Korsunsky

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 312

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.40.Fk Research in physics education
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“Suspend” Your Students' Interests

Jeffrey M. Wetherhold

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 313

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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For the past 19 years, Jeffrey M. Wetherhold has been teaching physics at Parkland High School in a suburb of Allentown, PA. He is a PTRA (Physics Teaching Resource Agent) and enjoys collecting toys that he can use in his physics classroom. Jeff's advice to new teachers is to become immersed in physics by getting involved in AAPT and NSTA functions, starting or joining a local physics teachers group, and reading science books religiously. He also recommends finding a good mentor or mentors in your school and being patient if your classroom facilities are less than adequate. Many, if not most, of the best physics teachers started out with very little. It takes time and patience to develop a good program.
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01.40.Fk Research in physics education
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Physical Sciences Resource Center, http:∕∕www.psrc-online.org∕

Andrew Graham

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 316

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Xx Publications in electronic media

Physics Central, http:∕∕www.physicscentral.com∕

Andrew Graham

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 316

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Xx Publications in electronic media

National Science Digital Library, http:∕∕nsdl.org∕

Andrew Graham

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 316

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.30.Xx Publications in electronic media

Science Snacks Online, http:∕∕www.exploratorium.edu∕snacks∕index.html

Andrew Graham

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 316

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Xx Publications in electronic media

Martindale's “The Reference Desk,” http:∕∕www.martindalecenter.com

Andrew Graham

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 316

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.30.Xx Publications in electronic media
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The Physics of Baseball, 2nd ed.: Robert K. Adair

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 317

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

Physics and the Art of Dance: Understanding Movement: Kenneth Laws

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 317

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

The Physics of Golf: Theodore P. Jorgenson

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 317

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

The Physics of Hockey: Alain Haché

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 317

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

The Physics of Skiing: Skiing at the Triple Point: David Lind and Scott P. Sanders

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 318

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

The Physics of Sports: Angelo Armenti Jr.

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 318

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

Physics of Sports: Selected Reprints: Cliff Fröhlich

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 318

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

The Dynamics of Sports: Why That's the Way the Ball Bounces, 3rd ed.: David F. Griffing

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 318

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

Sport Science: Physical Laws and Optimum Performance: Peter J. Brancazio

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 318

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics

The Physics and Technology of Tennis: Howard Brody, Rod Cross & Crawford Lindsey

John L. Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 318

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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01.30.Vv Book reviews
01.55.+b General physics
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Motivating Students with Online Quizzes

Ludwik Kowalski

The Physics Teacher -- May 2004 -- Volume 42, Issue 5, pp. 320

Online Publication Date: Apr 2004

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.40.G- Curricula and evaluation
01.50.ht Instructional computer use
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