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The coupled motion is investigated for a mechanical system consisting of water and a body freely floating in it. Water occupies either a half-space or a layer of constant depth into which an infinitely long surface-piercing cylinder is…
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 propagation of waves through microstructured media with periodically arranged inclusions has applications in many areas of physics and engineering, stretching from photonic crystals through to seismic metamaterials. In the…
We describe a study on the conceptual difficulties faced by college students in understanding hydrodynamics of ideal fluids. This study was based on responses obtained in hundreds of written exams and oral interviews, which were held with…
As experiments continue to push the quantum-classical boundary using increasingly complex dynamical systems, the interpretation of experimental data becomes more and more challenging: when the observations are noisy, indirect, and limited,…
Active learning is a decision-making process. In both abstract and physical settings, active learning demands both analysis and action. This is a review of active learning in robotics, focusing on methods amenable to the demands of embodied…
The so-called quantum measurement problems are solved from a new perspective. One of the main observations is that the basic entities of our world are {\it particles}, elementary or composite. It follows that each elementary process, hence…
Laboratory wave basin measurements of the surge, heave and pitch of a floating plastic disk caused by regular incident waves are presented. The measurements are used to validate two theoretical models: one based on slope-sliding theory and…
Gravitational wave astronomy has emerged as a new branch of observational astronomy, since the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015. The current number of $O(100)$ detections is expected to grow by several orders of magnitude over…
We compare two high order finite-difference methods that solve the elastic wave equation in two dimensional domains with curved boundaries and material discontinuities. Two numerical experiments are designed with focus on wave boundary…
The ability to make decisions based on data, with its inherent uncertainties and variability, is a complex and vital skill in the modern world. The need for such quantitative critical thinking occurs in many different contexts, and while it…
Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving the problem. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
Wavefront shaping is a technique for directing light through turbid media. The theoretical aspects of wavefront shaping are well understood, and under near-ideal experimental conditions, accurate predictions for the expected signal…
Physics of nonlinear waves on variable backgrounds and the relevant mathematical analysis continues to be the challenging aspect of the study. In this work, we consider a (3+1)-dimensional nonlinear model describing the dynamics of {water…
We redesigned an advanced physics laboratory course to include a project component. The intention was to address learning outcomes such as modeling, design of experiments, teamwork, and developing technical skills in using apparatus and…
Measurement uncertainty and experimental error are important concepts taught in undergraduate physics laboratories. Although student ideas about error and uncertainty in introductory classical mechanics lab experiments have been studied…
A new method for the study of resonant behavior - using wave-packet dynamics - is presented, based on the powerful window operator technique. The method is illustrated and quantified by application to the astrophysically-important example…
Partial Wave Analysis has traditionally been carried out using a set of tools handcrafted for each experiment. By taking an object-oriented approach, the design presented in this paper attempts to create a more generally useful, and easily…
One finding of cognitive research is that people do not automatically acquire usable knowledge by spending lots of time on task. Because students' knowledge hierarchy is more fragmented, "knowledge chunks" are smaller than those of experts.…
In the last fifteen years, a great progress has been made in the understanding of the nonlinear resonance dynamics of water waves. Notions of scale- and angle-resonances have been introduced, new type of energy cascade due to nonlinear…