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Nov 2011

Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 467-527

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Bloogle instruction booklets

John Hubisz

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 467

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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus

Beach “corrugabugle”

Terry Toepker

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 467

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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus

Correction: James A. Einsporn and Andrew F. Zhou, “The ‘Green Lab’: Power Consumption by Commercial Light Bulbs,” Phys. Teach. 49, 365 (Sept. 2011).

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 467

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99.10.Ln Retraction
01.50.-i Educational aids
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NORMAL FORCE AND WEIGHT

Paul Hewitt

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 468

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01.50.-i Educational aids
45.20.da Forces and torques
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Atwood's Heavy Chain

Paul Beeken

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 470 | Cited 1 time

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While perusing various websites in search of a more challenging lab for my students, I came across a number of ideas where replacing the string in an Atwood's machine1 with a simple ball chain like the kind found in lamp pulls created an interesting system to investigate. The replacement of the string produced a nice nonuniform acceleration, but one that my AP® students found difficult to analyze given their current math background. As the year progressed, we began to explore the importance of work and its utility in making predictions on systems that did not lend themselves to easy analysis using Newtonian mechanics. The effort made it apparent that the heavy rope Atwood's machine would make a perfect system for investigation using the lessons gained from work and energy.
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01.50.-i Educational aids
45.20.D- Newtonian mechanics

Socioeconomic factors affecting minority physics taking in U.S. high schools

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 472

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In the September issue, we saw that a lower proportion of Hispanics and blacks take physics in U.S. high schools than do whites and Asians. Last month, we examined physics offerings and students by socioeconomic profile of the high school as reported by the principal. We saw that there were more physics classes and more physics students at better-off high schools. These increased offerings allow the teachers who teach physics to focus more on physics. We combined race and ethnicity data from the National Center for Education Statistics with data from our principals to examine the percent of each race and ethnicity attending schools by our socioeconomic profile of the school. Less than one-third of white and Asian public high school students attend a school that our principals classify as “worse off.” Less than one-fourth of black and Hispanic students attend a school that our principals classify as “better off.” The difference is stark. When combined with the percent of physics classes and physics students at each type of school, we have some insight into explaining the variation in physics taking by race and ethnicity.
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01.40.ek Secondary school
01.75.+m Science and society

Galilean Tracks in the Physics Lab

Walter Hellman

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 474

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Variations of Galileo's famous track experiments in acceleration are commonly performed in high school and college.1 The purpose of this article is to present a sequence of three low-tech basic kinematics experiments using Galilean tracks that can be set up extremely quickly and yet generally yield excellent results. A low-cost construction method for the tracks is also given.
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01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.40.ek Secondary school
45.40.Gj Ballistics (projectiles; rockets)

Physics for Animation Artists

David Chai and Alejandro L. Garcia

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 478

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Animation has become enormously popular in feature films, television, and video games. Art departments and film schools at universities as well as animation programs at high schools have expanded in recent years to meet the growing demands for animation artists. Professional animators identify the technological facet as the most rapidly advancing (and now indispensable) component of their industry. Art students are keenly aware of these trends and understand that their future careers require them to have a broader exposure to science than in the past. Unfortunately, at present there is little overlap between art and science in the typical high school or college curriculum. This article describes our experience in bridging this gap at San Jose State University, with the hope that readers will find ideas that can be used in their own schools.
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01.50.ht Instructional computer use
01.40.ek Secondary school
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Using NASA Science News Articles to Enhance Learning in the Classroom

Vandana Singh

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 482

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In this author's experience, students of introductory physics and physical science courses are often under-confident of their ability to master physics concepts, many of them believing they simply cannot “get physics,” however hard they might work at it. In addition, they have an impression that physics is not only dry and boring but also static (they do, after all, spend much of their time on the discoveries of Galileo and Newton in physics class). Since they are unlikely to read popular science articles in the media, they tend to be unaware of cutting-edge research in the physical sciences that might, for good or ill, transform their lives. This paper describes an innovative use of articles from NASA's Science News website, and similar Internet resources that can potentially address the issue of student confidence while increasing science literacy and interest. The approach is inspired by the work of educational psychologist Carol Dweck and her research on “fixed” versus “growth” mindsets. I believe it is necessary for instructors to understand her work if we are to increase student comprehension, interest, and curiosity in the physical sciences.
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01.50.ht Instructional computer use
89.20.Hh World Wide Web, Internet
01.40.-d Education

The Mayer-Joule Principle: The Foundation of the First Law of Thermodynamics

Ronald Newburgh and Harvey S. Leff

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 484 | Cited 3 times

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To most students today the mechanical equivalent of heat, called the Mayer-Joule principle, is simply a way to convert from calories to joules and vice versa. However, in linking work and heat—once thought to be disjointed concepts—it goes far beyond unit conversion. Heat had eluded understanding for two centuries after Galileo Galilei constructed an early thermometer. Independently, Julius Robert Mayer and James Prescott Joule found the connection between heat and work, the Mayer-Joule principle.
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01.50.-i Educational aids
01.65.+g History of science
05.70.-a Thermodynamics

Smoke Ring Physics

Elisha Huggins

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 488

Online Publication Date: Oct 2011

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The behavior of smoke rings, tornados, and quantized vortex rings in superfluid helium has many features in common. These features can be described by the same mathematics we use when introducing Ampère's law in an introductory physics course. We discuss these common features.
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus

About the International System of Units (SI) Part I. Introduction and Bibliography

Gordon J. Aubrecht, II, Anthony P. French, and Mario Iona

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 493

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Since much of SI is based on physics and mathematics, physics teachers have the background to teach SI. We present this review and summary in a series of SI notes in order to help teachers answer many questions about the SI that often are, or should be, asked (for example, in workshops for teachers). SI should not be considered a jargon to set science apart from everyday life but as a tool to make everyday measurements in all fields easier and more informative. It will be assumed that the reader has some general background knowledge of SI.1 A review and update of SI is timely now because the official United States SI document has just been updated.2
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01.50.-i Educational aids
01.30.Tt Bibliographies

The Three-Pole Electromagnet

Thomas B. Greenslade, Jr.

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 496

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A standard piece of demonstration apparatus in the second half of the 19th century was the horizontal electromagnet. Figure 1 shows a pair of them from the 1860 era in my personal museum. The coils were wound on mandrels about 7 mm in diameter, which were then removed after the turns were glued together. With no core, or a brass rod as a core, it will support only a few ferrous objects from each end. With a ferrous metal core, strands of small iron objects (washers or paper clips) can be supported. It is hard to imagine how amazing this demonstration must have been to students when they first saw it in the 1840s. Perhaps our students today can recreate this amazement when given a single-turn, hollow-core solenoid, an iron rod that can fit into the core, a power supply, and a supply of paper clips—with no prior hints as to what will happen.
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01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
07.55.-w Magnetic instruments and components
01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus

A Conspectus on U.S. Energy

Howard C. Hayden

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 497 | Cited 1 time

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An athlete sitting on a bicycle seat can produce about 100 watts of useful power on a long-term basis. After 10 hours, the athlete produces 1000 watt-hours, or one kilowatt-hour (kWh). While some people balk at the notion of having to pay (say) 8.5 cents rather than their present 8 cents for that kilowatt-hour, what would they have to pay the athlete for 10 hours of hard labor? And what would it cost for that kWh if we had to do nothing more than feed the athlete?
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01.50.-i Educational aids
88.05.-b Energy analysis

Measuring Lift with the Wright Airfoils

Richard M. Heavers and Arianne Soleymanloo

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 502 | Cited 1 time

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In this laboratory or demonstration exercise, we mount a small airfoil with its long axis vertical at one end of a nearly frictionless rotating platform.1 Air from a leaf blower2 produces a sidewise lift force L on the airfoil and a drag force D in the direction of the air flow (Fig. 1). The rotating platform is kept in equilibrium by adding weights (the measured values of L) to the lower end of a string passing over a pulley and connected to the other end of the rotating platform (Fig. 2). Our homemade airfoils are similar to those tested by the Wright brothers in 1901. From our lift plots in Fig. 3, we can draw the same conclusions as the Wrights about the influence of an airfoil's curvature and shape on lift.
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
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Vibration Analysis and the Accelerometer

Paul Hammer

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 505

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Have you ever put your hand on an electric motor or motor-driven electric appliance and felt it vibrate? Ever wonder why it vibrates? What is there about the operation of the motor, or the object to which it is attached, that causes the vibrations? Is there anything “regular” about the vibrations, or are they the result of random causes? In this paper, I will introduce a laboratory approach that may be followed to begin to understand the vibration characteristics of a rotating device—in this case, an electric box fan. This approach involves collecting data with an accelerometer and analyzing the data with software that performs a fast Fourier transform analysis.
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01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
06.30.Gv Velocity, acceleration, and rotation
46.40.-f Vibrations and mechanical waves
84.50.+d Electric motors

Wiimote Experiments: 3-D Inclined Plane Problem for Reinforcing the Vector Concept

Alae Kawam and Minjoon Kouh

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 508 | Cited 4 times

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In an introductory physics course where students first learn about vectors, they oftentimes struggle with the concept of vector addition and decomposition. For example, the classic physics problem involving a mass on an inclined plane requires the decomposition of the force of gravity into two directions that are parallel and perpendicular to the ramp. It takes time and effort for the students to become proficient with such a vector decomposition process. Here, we present simple lab experiments to help students learn and practice the vector concepts, by working with a familiar low-cost accelerometer, the Wii Remote (“Wiimote”).
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01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
01.50.ht Instructional computer use
06.30.Gv Velocity, acceleration, and rotation
02.10.Ud Linear algebra

Online with Integers

Jonathan W. Siegel and P. B. Siegel

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 510

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Integers are sometimes used in physics problems to simplify the mathematics so the arithmetic does not distract students from the physics concepts. This is particularly important in exams where students should not have to spend a lot of time using their calculators. Common uses of integers in physics problems include integer solutions to a2+b2 = c2 for right triangles,1 and integer solutions to 1/z = 1/x+1/y. The latter equation is relevant for resistors in parallel, capacitors in series, and geometrical optics.2 In this article we point out another way in which integers can enhance a physics course: integers in online problems. We first describe what we mean by integer online problems and how we set them up. Then we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of their use.
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01.50.ht Instructional computer use
01.50.Qb Laboratory course design, organization, and evaluation

Challenges in Using Analogies

Shih-Yin Lin and Chandralekha Singh

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 512 | Cited 1 time

Online Publication Date: Oct 2011

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Learning physics requires understanding the applicability of fundamental principles in a variety of contexts that share deep features.1–7 One way to help students learn physics is via analogical reasoning. Students can be taught to make an analogy between situations that are more familiar or easier to understand and another situation where the same physics principle is involved but that is more difficult to handle. Here, we examine introductory physics students' ability to use analogies in solving problems involving Newton's second law. Students enrolled in an algebra-based introductory physics course were given a solved problem involving tension in a rope and were then asked to solve another problem for which the physics is very similar but involved a frictional force. They were asked to point out the similarities between the two problems and then use the analogy to solve the friction problem.
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01.50.-i Educational aids
46.55.+d Tribology and mechanical contacts
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Looking for radio waves with a simple radio wave detector

Norihiro Sugimoto (Stray Cats)

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 514

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I created a simple device that can detect radio waves in a classroom. In physics classes I tell students that we live in a sea of radio waves. They come from TV, radio, and cell phone signals as well as other sources. Students don't realize this because those electromagnetic waves are invisible. So, I wondered if I could come up with a way to detect the waves and help students to understand them better. Electromagnetic wave meters, which measure intensity of radio waves quantitatively, are commercially available. However, to students most of these are black boxes, and at the introductory level it is more effective to detect radio waves in a simpler way. This paper describes my device and how I have used it in my classes.
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01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
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A remarkable vector addition exercise

Wojciech Dindorf

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 517

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.50.-i Educational aids
02.10.Ud Linear algebra
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2t or NOT 2t?

Boris Korsunsky, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 518

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01.50.fh Posters, cartoons, art, etc.
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Fermi Questions

Larry Weinstein, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 518

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01.50.-i Educational aids
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Energy conservation

Diane Riendeau, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 520

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01.50.ff Films; electronic video devices
01.50.ht Instructional computer use
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“Don't Lecture Me”

Patricia Blanton, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 523

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Often I will listen to public radio on long drives when I am alone. Recently I happened to catch a program called “Don't Lecture Me” and it really caught my attention for several reasons. First, the speakers were all notable leaders in Physics Education Research such as Joe Redish, David Hestenes, and Eric Mazur. (See this month's WebSights column.) These folks are among many who have devoted their energies to understanding how students learn physics and how teachers can design classroom instruction and interactions to best meet the needs of learners. Second, on this particular trip, I had just observed a teacher whose class was very teacher-centered as the teacher lectured most of the class period. As we discussed this later, she expressed concern that she had to cover the material and didn't feel that she could do it without lecturing.
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01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies
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Magnetic demonstration of weightlessness: A spark of student creativity

Heladio Ayala, Josip Slisko, and Adrian Corona

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 524

Online Publication Date: Oct 2011

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multimedia

Abstract Unavailable
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
81.70.Ha Testing in microgravity environments

Royal Crescent

Jay Pasachoff

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 525

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.50.My Demonstration experiments and apparatus
06.60.-c Laboratory procedures
01.50.Pa Laboratory experiments and apparatus
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Notable figures in Physics Education Research interviewed for Tomorrow's Classroom series on Public Radio, americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/tomorrows-college/lectures/

Dan MacIsaac, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 526

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies
01.40.Fk Research in physics education

Association of American Universities (AAU) initiative to improve the quality of STEM teaching and learning, www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/09/15/qt#270450

Dan MacIsaac, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 526

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies
01.40.Ha Learning theory and science teaching
01.40.Fk Research in physics education

“The Flipped Classroom” and Khan Academy video-lecture-based educational reform discussed by The Economist magazine, MSNBC, Salman Khan, and Frank Noschese

Dan MacIsaac, Column Editor

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 526

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01.40.gb Teaching methods and strategies
01.50.ff Films; electronic video devices
01.50.ht Instructional computer use
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The Grand Design: Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

Robert Liposchak

The Physics Teacher -- November 2011 -- Volume 49, Issue 8, pp. 527

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Abstract Unavailable
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01.30.M- Textbooks
04.20.-q Classical general relativity
01.50.-i Educational aids
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