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Nov 2008

Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 452-512

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Easy Implementation of Internet-Based Whiteboard Physics Tutorials

Andrew Robinson

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 456 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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The requirement for a method of capturing problem solving on a whiteboard for later replay stems from my teaching load, which includes two classes of first-year university general physics, each with relatively large class sizes of approximately 80–100 students. Most university-level teachers value one-to-one interaction with the students and find working out problems on a board a useful teaching method. However, in most institutions of higher education, the staff-to-student ratio precludes giving every student this learning experience. The syllabus of the algebra-based physics course at the University of Saskatchewan (Physics 111) is relatively ambitious in terms of the content covered, given the physics and mathematics background knowledge of the average student. This means that the number of problems worked on in class is rather limited if a thorough discussion of the basic principles is required. Some form of tutorial that records the essence of working out a problem on a board, with both visual and audio elements and which can be replayed over the Internet, is desirable. Obviously, this loses the interactive question-and-answer element possible in a true tutorial where the student and teacher are both physically present, but it does have the significant advantage that the tutorial can be replayed as many times as the student deems it necessary, thus allowing the lesson to proceed at a pace dictated by the student. Moreover, these lessons only have to be prepared once, can be used many times over, and can be used in distance-learning courses. In this paper, I describe the necessary hardware and software required to do this, all of which is relatively affordable and requires little specialist IT knowledge to set up.
Show PACS
01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies
01.50.F- Audio and visual aids
01.50.ff Films; electronic video devices
01.50.H- Computers in education
FREE

Orbital Motion of Electrically Charged Spheres in Microgravity

Shubho Banerjee, Kevin Andring, Desmond Campbell, John Janeski, Daniel Keedy, Sean Quinn, and Brent Hoffmeister

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 460 | Cited 4 times

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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The similar mathematical forms of Coulomb's law and Newton's law of gravitation suggest that two uniformly charged spheres should be able to orbit each other just as two uniform spheres of mass are known to do. In this paper we describe an experiment that we performed to demonstrate such an orbit. This is the first published account of a successful orbit using electrostatic forces.
Show PACS
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.55.+b General physics
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
FREE

The Smallest Tweezers in the World

Alexandre Lewalle

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 467

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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A pair of fine tweezers and a steady hand may well be enough to pick up a grain of sand, but what would you use to hold something hundreds of times smaller still, the size of only one micron? The answer is to use a device that is not mechanical in nature but that relies instead on the tiny forces that light exerts on small particles: “optical tweezers.” In recent years, this technique has become central to nanotechnology for the manipulation of small particles, even individual molecules. It is also an ideal illustration of how classroom physics is applied to cutting-edge research, combining concepts such as the vector nature of momentum and force, Newton's laws, optics, the wave-particle duality of light, and thermodynamics. The physics behind optical tweezers has many layers of complexity, but it can be reduced to a basic principle: the conservation of momentum. This paper guides the reader through a much simplified demonstration of this “tweezing effect” using a question-answer approach, leaving the reader with the choice to treat each step as a problem exercise.
Show PACS
01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus

Soda Pop Fizz-ics

Tonya Coffey

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 473 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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This paper is a brief summary of an “open-ended” physics experiment that gave my students a glimpse of what real physics research is like. They found it to be both fun and challenging. The subject of the experiment is the well-known Diet Coke and Mentos reaction.1 A more detailed description of the experimental results has been published elsewhere.2
Show PACS
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
01.55.+b General physics

The Cornstarch Flamethrower

Tom Concannon

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 477

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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Doing physics “magic shows” for the general public or for local area schools is usually an integral part of any physics department's outreach program. These demonstration shows should not only teach fundamental physics principles with “standard” demonstrations (like the rocket cart) but should also include the “wow!” types of demonstrations for maximum audience impact. Presenters quickly discover the audience's thirst for spectacular demonstrations; if too few “wow!” demonstrations are performed, the presenter can lose the audience's attention, or, worse, the audience may get bored and leave. Some of the more exciting demonstrations include, for example, the Van de Graaff generator, a large Tesla coil, the bed of nails, liquid nitrogen experiments, imploding gas cans, breaking a glass container with sound waves, and igniting cornstarch powder. The focus of this paper is a suggested improvement to this last demonstration, to enhance the “dust explosion” effect for demonstration show purposes. At the end, I also describe a small-scale version for use in classrooms, where the physics and chemistry of dust explosions can be explored in more detail than possible in a demonstration show atmosphere.
Show PACS
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.40.Fk Research in physics education

Graphs as a Problem-Solving Tool in 1-D Kinematics

Dwain M. Desbien

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 483

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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In this age of the microcomputer-based lab (MBL), students are quite accustomed to looking at graphs of position, velocity, and acceleration versus time.1 A number of textbooks argue convincingly that the slope of the velocity graph gives the acceleration, the area under the velocity graph yields the displacement, and the area under the acceleration gives the change in velocity.2 I also use dimensional analysis to help make the arguments. While students are very often encouraged to sketch graphs of motion to help build a better understanding,3 too little emphasis is placed on the fact that such graphs can be used to actually solve problems. This paper shows two examples of how to use sketches of velocity and acceleration graphs to solve 1-D motion problems.
Show PACS
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
01.50.H- Computers in education

Fourier Analysis of Musical Intervals

Michael C. LoPresto

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 486 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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Use of a microphone attached to a computer to capture musical sounds and software to display their waveforms and harmonic spectra has become somewhat commonplace.1 A recent article in The Physics Teacher aptly demonstrated the use of MacScope2 in just such a manner as a way to teach Fourier analysis.3 A logical continuation of this project is to use MacScope not just to analyze the Fourier composition of musical tones but also musical intervals.
Show PACS
01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
01.50.H- Computers in education
FREE

Podcasting a Physics Lecture

James E. R. McDonald

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 490

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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The technology of podcasting, or creating audio or video files that can be subscribed to over the Internet, has grown in popularity over the past few years. Many educators have already begun realizing the potential of delivering such customized content, but most efforts have focused on lecture-style humanities courses or multimedia arts courses. At the University of Hartford, I have made audio recordings of physics lectures available as podcasts for four semesters. Despite the fact that physics is math-intensive and inherently visual, the students have found the podcasts to be very useful.
Show PACS
01.30.Bb Publications of lectures (advanced institutes, summer schools, etc.)
01.30.Xx Publications in electronic media
01.50.H- Computers in education

Physics Exam Problems Reconsidered: Using Logger Pro to Evaluate Student Understanding of Physics

Marina Milner-Bolotin and Rachel Moll

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 494 | Cited 2 times

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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In the past few decades, the physics teaching community has witnessed a surge in creative and often effective ways of using technology to improve physics instruction.1–3 Most of these findings suggest how technology can help instructors create interactive learning environments and how interactivity influences the effectiveness of physics learning.4 However, every physics teacher knows that in order for any teaching method to be effective, the exams have to test the skills and concepts addressed by the teacher. Exam content and style sends the clearest message to students about what skills and content are valued by instructors. The mismatch between what we intend to teach and what we effectively test in exams is of great concern to many science teachers. These were our motives for creating data-rich questions to be used in the exams in a large undergraduate first-year physics course at the University of British Columbia. These data-rich questions were developed to support the use of an innovative teaching pedagogy called Interactive Lecture Experiments.3
Show PACS
01.40.Fk Research in physics education
01.40.gf Theory of testing and techniques

A Simple Demonstration for the Static Ladder Problem

Mario Belloni

The Physics Teacher -- November 2008 -- Volume 46, Issue 8, pp. 503 | Cited 3 times

Online Publication Date: Oct 2008

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In the teaching of statics, the ladder problem is a standard two-dimensional exercise. If students can understand how to set up this problem, they can solve almost any other two-dimensional problem. Solving this or any other statics problem requires identifying the forces (such that ΣF = 0) and where they act, and determining the length of the moment arm and the angle between the moment arm and the force (such that Στ = 0). In teaching the ladder problem we begin with a simple diagram of the leaning ladder and ask the students to identify the forces on the ladder and where they act. Students will readily identify three forces: the ladder's weight (mg), the normal force of the ground on the ladder, N, and the force of the wall on the ladder, Fwall, as shown in Fig. 1.
Show PACS
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.55.+b General physics
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