Related papers: Examining student ability to interpret and use pot…
The Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K) is a multiple choice test developed by Beichner to assess students' understanding of kinematics graphs. Many of the items on the TUG-K have strong distractor choices which correspond to…
We present a study of student understanding of energy in quantum mechanical tunneling and barrier penetration. This paper will focus on student responses to two questions that were part of a test given in class to two modern physics classes…
Pre-college mathematics modeling instruction often frames mathematics as being separated from reasoning about the real world -- and commonly treats reasoning mathematically and reasoning about the real-world context as separate stages of a…
Gravity, and the puzzle regarding its energy, can be understood from a gauge theory perspective. Gravity, i.e., dynamical spacetime geometry, can be considered as a local gauge theory of the symmetry group of Minkowski spacetime: the…
Aspects of quantum physics are no longer confined to the upper years of a physics degree. Concepts like superposition or entanglement that were once reserved for second- or third-year undergraduate courses now deserve attention earlier in a…
Quantum graphity is a background independent model for emergent locality, spatial geometry and matter. The states of the system correspond to dynamical graphs on N vertices. At high energy, the graph describing the system is highly…
Geometrical formulation of classical mechanics with forces that are not necessarily potential-generated is presented. It is shown that a natural geometrical "playground" for a mechanical system of point particles lacking Lagrangian and/or…
We present an original undergraduate level compilation for the physics of electromechanical systems with special attention to power flow. An approach based on energy considerations is presented that is specially suited to compute the…
A quantum system at equilibrium is represented by a corresponding classical system, chosen to reproduce thermodynamic and structural properties. The motivation is to allow application of classical strong coupling theories and molecular…
We describe a classical thermodynamic model that reproduces the main features of the solid hydrogen phase diagram. In particular, we show how the general structure types that are found by electronic structure calculations and the quantum…
A book Chapter consisting of some of the main areas of research in graph theory applied to physics. It includes graphs in condensed matter theory, such as the tight-binding and the Hubbard model. It follows the study of graph theory and…
We derive the gravitational and electrostatic self-energies of a particle at rest in the background of a cosmic dispiration (topological defect), finding that the particle may experience potential steps, well potentials or potential…
Diagrams are ubiquitous in physics, especially in physics education and physics problem solving. Problem solvers may generate diagrams to orient to a scenario, to organize information, to directly extract an answer, or as a tool of…
Expanding our knowledge of student difficulties in advanced undergraduate electromagnetism is essential if we are to develop effective instructional interventions. Drawing on an analysis of course materials, in-class observations and…
Natural physical, chemical, and biological dynamical systems are often complex, with heterogeneous components interacting in diverse ways. We show how simple graph neural networks can be designed to jointly learn the interaction rules and…
The transition away from carbon-based energy sources poses several challenges for the operation of electricity distribution systems. Increasing shares of distributed energy resources (e.g. renewable energy generators, electric vehicles) and…
Just as expert physicists vary in their personal stances on interpretation in quantum mechanics, instructors vary on whether and how to teach interpretations of quantum phenomena in introductory modern physics courses. In this paper, we…
Utilizing the integral expression of Coulomb's Law to determine the electric potential from a continuous charge distribution is a canonical exercise in Electricity and Magnetism (E&M). In this study, we use both think-aloud interviews and…
Despite the large body of research showing that students in STEM classes at all levels learn better via active learning than they do via lecture, post-secondary physics and astronomy (P&A) faculty members continue to primarily use…
Graphs are a powerful data structure to represent relational data and are widely used to describe complex real-world data structures. Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGMs) have been well-developed in the past years to mathematically model…