Physics Education
Adaptive Optics (AO) is a new and rapidly expanding field of instrumentation, yet astronomers, vision scientists, and general AO practitioners are largely unfamiliar with the root technologies crucial to AO systems. The AO Summer School…
The "High school class for students with special abilities in physics" was founded in Nis, Serbia (http://tesla.pmf.ni.ac.rs/f_odeljenje/) in 2003. The basic aim of this project has been introducing a broadened curriculum of physics,…
"Bernoulli" levitation is the basis of many popular counter-intuitive physics demonstrations. However, few of these lend themselves to a quantitative description without recourse to computational fluid dynamics. Levitation of a flat plate…
Students in introductory physics courses struggle to understand virtual image formation by a plane mirror and the proper construction of ray diagrams. This difficulty, if not sufficiently addressed, results in further problems throughout…
Recently, a simple and very low-cost photogate has been shown by Horton (Phys. Teach. 48, 615, December 2010) as an efficient experimentation tool in physics education. The photogate connects to the microphone input of a personal computer…
In 1980 Leon Lederman started Saturday Morning Physics with a handful of volunteer physicists, around 300 students and all the physics teachers who tagged along. Today Fermilab offers over 30 programs annually with help from 250 staff…
The positron-electron pair annihilation in two photons is known for its numerous applications using PET scanners. The decay of Positronium (Ps) from a standard sealed source in more than two photons is less likely but can be observed with a…
The research documents the impact of a teaching experiment designed in order to make students consider not only the spectral composition of light but also its intensity when they interpret colour phenomena. The analysis of eight recorded…
Can exposure to fundamental ideas about the nature of matter help motivate children in math and science and support the development of their understanding of these ideas later? Physicists, designers, and museum educators at the University…
The IPPOG and U.S. Particle Physics Masterclasses took place worldwide in March 2011. For the first time, all masterclasses used real LHC data. Students in the U.S. Masterclasses (that included participants in several countries outside the…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our studies suggest this…
We have developed an undergraduate laboratory experiment to make independent measurements of the momentum and kinetic energy of relativistic electrons from a \beta -source. The momentum measurements are made with a magnetic spectrometer and…
Prior research has demonstrated how the realist perspectives of classical physics students can translate into specific beliefs about quantum phenomena when taking an introductory modern physics course. Student beliefs regarding the…
The proper choice of a measurement technique that minimizes systematic and random uncertainty is an essential part of experimental physics. These issues are difficult to teach in the introductory laboratory, though: because most experiments…
The paper presents instructive interdisciplinary applications of constrained mechanics calculus in economics on a level appropriate for the undergraduate physics education. The aim of the paper is: 1. to meet the demand for illustrative…
Interactivity, experimenting and performing laboratory practicals contribute much to the efficiency of natural science and engineering education. Computers represent a natural element for today's students, thus the use of computers in…
As we typically teach in an introductory mechanics course, choosing a "good" reference frame with convenient axes may present a major simplification to a problem. Additionally, knowing some conserved quantities provides an extremely…
Enhancing motivation and learning attitudes in an introductory physics course is an important but difficult task that can be achieved through class blogging. We incorporated into an introductory course a blog operated by upper-level physics…
Sound cards, which count as standard equipment in today's computers, can be turned into measurement tools, making experimentation very efficient and cheap. The chief difficulties to overcome are the lack of proper hardware interfacing and…
In a first course of general relativity it is usually quite difficult for students to grasp the concept of a geodesic. It is supposed to be straight (auto-parallel) and yet it 'looks' curved. In these situations it is very useful to have…