Related papers: Liquid crystals: a new topic in physics for underg…
When we lower the temperature of a liquid, at some point we meet a first order phase transition to the crystal. Yet, under certain conditions it is possible to keep the system in its metastable phase and to avoid crystallization. In this…
Liquid crystals (LCs) play a fundamental and significant role in modern technology. Recently, they have also been used in active switching, adaptive optics, and next-generation displays for augmented and virtual reality. This is due to the…
Whether the glass transition is caused by an underlying singularity or is a purely kinetic phenomenon is a significant outstanding question. Studying an atomistic glass former, we introduce a sampling method to access temperatures…
Of the three basic states of matter, liquid is perhaps the most complex. While its flow properties are described by fluid mechanics, its thermodynamic properties are often neglected, and for many years it was widely believed that a general…
We describe the development of a junior-senior level course for Physics majors designed to teach Mathematica skills in support of their undergraduate coursework, but also to introduce students to modern research level results. Standard…
This article is an invitation. It is, first, an invitation to consider as a subject worthy of attention the wide range of situations where small discrete elements, either bubbles, droplets or solid particles, are embedded in turbulent…
This is the first paper of a series aiming to present a new teaching sequence for Particle Physics in high school. We propose a systematic discussion of the subject, covering not only the understanding of its key concepts, but also of the…
We offer second year students the opportunity to explore Current Topics in Biophysics in a course co-taught by a physicist and a biologist. The interdisciplinary course allows university students to engage in analytical thinking that…
Holography as a subject is neglected largely in current physics lessons and in school books. Even though this topic might be complex, it is applicable and viable in the world that we live in. Holography lends itself to further develop…
In this lectures I discuss the electronic liquid crystal (ELC) phases in correlated electronic systems, what these phases are and in what context they arise. I will go over the strongest experimental evidence for these phases in a variety…
We describe here in detail the recently introduced methodology for simulation of structural transitions in crystals. The applications of the new scheme are illustrated on various kinds of crystals and the advantages with respect to previous…
Liquid crystalline polymers are materials of considerable scientific interest and technological value to society [1-3]. An important subset of such materials exhibit rubber-like elasticity; these can combine the remarkable optical…
In this work, the teaching content of a theoretical-chemistry (TC) course is reformed, establishing a theoretical contents from micro- to macro-system, and comprehensively introducing the theory of chemical reaction to undergraduate…
An active learning physics course (treatment) was re-organized in an attempt to increase students' problem solving abilities. This re-organized course covered all of the relevant concepts in the first 6 weeks with the final 4 weeks spent in…
Most educational literature on conceptual change concerns the process by which introductory students acquire scientific knowledge. However, with modern developments in science and technology, the social significance of learning successive…
We use numerical simulation to examine the possibility of a reversible liquid-liquid transition in supercooled water and related systems. In particular, for two atomistic models of water, we have computed free energies as functions 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…
Equations are about more than computing physical quantities or constructing formal models; they are also about understanding. The conceptual systems physicists use to think about nature are made from many different resources, formal and…
We report on a large-scale study of student learning of quantum tunneling in 4 traditional and 4 transformed modern physics courses. In the transformed courses, which were designed to address student difficulties found in previous research,…
Liquid crystals in two dimensions undergo a first-order isotropic-to-quasi-nematic transition, provided the particle interactions are sufficiently ``sharp and narrow''. This implies phase coexistence between isotropic and quasi-nematic…