Related papers: Putnam Physics Competition: a suggestion
Recent decades have seen a rise in the use of physics methods to study different societal phenomena. This development has been due to physicists venturing outside of their traditional domains of interest, but also due to scientists from…
A Pomeron phenomenon remains a mystery. A short review of the experimental situation in diffractive physics and an account of some spectacular manifestations of the Pomeron are given.
In contemporary physics space and time are intertwined entities so that kinematical and dynamical quantities are expressed in the four-dimensional space-time. This formulation seems to contradict our every-day experience and perception…
We point out that the Nobel prize production of the USA, the UK, Germany and France has been in numbers that are large enough to allow for a reliable analysis or the long-term historical developments. Nobel prizes are often split, such that…
Quantum mechanics is difficult to learn because it is counterintuitive, hard to visualize, mathematically challenging, and abstract. The Physics Education Technology (PhET) Project, known for its interactive computer simulations for…
A lot of theoretical ideas have been floated to explain the so called cold fusion phenomenon. I look at a large subset of these and study further physical implications of the concepts involved. I suggest that these can be tested by other…
You will find here a number of (mostly) elementary physics problems dealing mainly with uniform motion kinematics. In preparing this collection I have tried to create original situations that could help bring motivation to an introductory…
In the Italian education system, secondary students (ages 14-19) face the foundations of quantum physics during the final term of scientific high school (pre-university year). The Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research…
Quantum mechanics has enjoyed a multitude of successes since its formulation in the early twentieth century. At the same time, it has generated puzzles that persist to this day. These puzzles have inspired a large literature in physics and…
Referring to quantum mechanics, Einstein used to say "The old one does not play dice." And this is true since the probability of quantum mechanics is not the classical probability of games such as dice. Historically this was the first…
Recruiting and retaining highly qualified physics and physical science teachers is critical for maintaining America's global competitiveness. Unfortunately, only one third of the high school teachers in physics have a degree in physics and…
The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and…
The study of undecidability in problems arising from physics has experienced a renewed interest, mainly in connection with quantum information problems. The goal of this review is to survey this recent development. After a historical…
Invited contribution to the inaugural issue of {\em Physics Educator.}
This work reports on results from the first national study of the impact of student facilitation of informal physics outreach programs on their physics identity, sense of belonging, and essential career skill development. Drawing on results…
We illustrate the current status of heavy quark physics on the lattice. Special emphasis is paid to the question of systematic uncertainties and to the connection of lattice computations to continuum physics. Latest results are presented…
The Brazilian National Assessment of Secondary Education (ENEM, Exame Nacional do Ensino M\'edio) has changed in 2009: from a self-assessment of competences at the end of high school to an assessment that allows access to college and…
During the last three decades, there has been a growing realization among physicists and cosmologists that the relation between particle physics and cosmology may constitute yet another successful example of the unity of science. However,…
Physics is one of the most successful endeavors in science. Being a prototypic big science it also reflects the growing tendency for scientific collaborations. Utilizing 250,000 papers from ArXiv.org a prepublishing platform prevalent in…