Related papers: Interpreting Recoil For Undergraduate Students
Despite its apparent simplicity, Newtonian Mechanics contains conceptual subtleties that may cause some confusion to the deep-thinking student. These subtleties concern fundamental issues such as, e.g., the number of independent laws needed…
In the first part of the article, we will outline the paradoxical picture that arises when attempting to calculate the recoil force of the water leakage from a hole at the bottom of a water tank. We will present three different options for…
In a companion paper, we discuss students' ability to take advantage of what they learn from a solved problem and transfer their learning to solve a quiz problem that has different surface features but the same underlying physics…
Under certain conditions usually fulfilled in classical mechanics, the principle of conservation of linear momentum and Newton's third law are equivalent. However, the demonstration of this fact is usually incomplete in textbooks. We shall…
We investigated the common difficulties that students have with concepts related to rotational and rolling motion covered in the introductory physics courses. We compared the performance of calculus- and algebra-based introductory physics…
We describe an extracurricular learning path on waves focused on energy transfer. The advantages of introducing mechanical waves by using the Shive wave machine and laboratory activities are presented. Laboratories are realized by inquiry,…
This activity was created within the framework of the "Space for Education" project, which aims at experiencing physical principles on the basis of topics related to space travel. This work enables the students to understand how a rocket…
In our daily lives, we observe objects sinking, floating, or rising when immersed in a fluid. The Archimedes principle, which explains an object's behavior when immersed in a fluid, is important in fluid mechanics; however, it is a…
The concepts of the Coriolis and the centrifugal force are essential in various scientific fields and they are standard components of introductory physics lectures. In this paper we explore how students understand and apply concepts of…
Students are taught several models of conductivity, both at the introductory and the advanced level. From early macroscopic models of current flow in circuits, through the discussion of microscopic particle descriptions of electrons flowing…
The analogy of classical repulsive interactions emerging from the exchange of mediating particles is revisited with a quantitative approach. Simulations are presented for a particular toy model which are accessible to undergraduate students…
The Modeling Instruction program at Arizona State University has developed a representational tool, called a system schema, to help students make a first level of abstraction of an actual physical situation [1]. A system schema consists of…
The recoils of an accelerated system caused by the transitions characterizing thermal equilibrium are taken into account through the quantum character of the position of the system. The specific model is that of a two level ion accelerated…
We describe an example of learning with multiple representations in an A-level revision lesson on mechanics. The context of the problem involved the motion of a ball thrown vertically upwards in air and studying how the associated physical…
The law of action-reaction is thoroughly used in textbooks to derive the conservation laws of linear and angular momentum, and it was considered by Ernst Mach the the cornerstone of physics. We give here a background survey of several…
Newtons Laws of Motion form the basis of classical mechanics, but misconceptions about their interrelationships persist in pedagogy. A prevalent misunderstanding is that Newtons First Law is a trivial consequence of the Second Law. This…
This paper discusses the likelihood of whether the Pioneer anomaly is due to 'mundane' systematic errors/effects or indicative of new or unappreciated physics. The main aim of this paper is to argue that recent publications suggesting that…
The recoil of atoms in arrays due to the emission or absorption of photons is studied for sub-wavelength interatomic spacing. The atoms in the array interact with each other through collective dipole-dipole interactions and with the…
Angular momentum is taught in every classical mechanics course. It is a difficult topic with misconceptions commonly forming significant barriers to student success. My intention in writing this paper is to combat some of the most common…
This work gives a brief summary of major formulations of the third law of thermodynamics and their implications, including the impossibility of perpetual motion of the third kind. The last sections of this work review more advanced…