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We examine the difficulties that introductory physics students, undergraduate physics majors, and physics graduate students have with concepts related to conductors and insulators covered in introductory physics by giving written tests and…
Modern physics is now a regular course for non-physics majors who do not have to take the accompanying laboratory. This lack of an experimental component puts the engineering students at a disadvantage. A possible solution is the use of…
National studies conducted over many years show that, while most Americans are interested in science and support federal funding of scientific research, the scientific literacy of the public is very low. Why this situation exists and who is…
This article describes five common student misconceptions about succeeding in college-level Physics courses: the miracle finish, the soft hearted professor, an extension of high school, weak areas won't be tested, and passing is more…
At many physics departments a significant fraction of teaching is in support of engineers and scientists in other majors. These service courses are thus an automatic crucible of interdisciplinary interaction, and at times, strife. For…
We will introduce formal frames of manifolds, which are a generalization of ordinary frames. Their fundamental properties are discussed. In particular, canonical forms are introduced, and torsions are defined in terms of them as a…
Automated methods are becoming increasingly integrated into studies of formative feedback on students' science explanation writing. Most of this work, however, addresses students' responses to short answer questions. We investigate…
An important step in learning to use math in science is learning to see physics equations as not just calculational tools, but as ways of expressing fundamental relationships among physical quantities, of coding conceptual information, and…
The physics community explores and explains the physical world through a blend of theoretical and experimental studies. The future of physics as a discipline depends on training of students in both the theoretical and experimental aspects…
I discuss the influence of adding the air resistance and the kinetic friction to the classical mechanics homework-problem: finding the motion of a body sliding down a hemispherical hill. For a physically realistic ($\propto v^2$) form of…
This article serves as a pedagogical introduction to the problem of motion in classical field theories. The primary focus is on self-interaction: How does an object's own field affect its motion? General laws governing the self-force and…
The recent wide recognition of the existence of neutrino oscillations concludes the pioneer stage of these studies and poses the problem of how to communicate effectively the basic aspects of this branch of science. In fact, the phenomenon…
Newton's third law is one of the most important concepts learned early in introductory mechanics courses; however, ample studies have documented a wide range of students' misconceptions and fragmented understandings of this concept that are…
We report results from a study designed to identify links between undergraduate students' views about experimental physics and their engagement in multiweek projects in lab courses. Using surveys and interviews, we explored whether students…
Drawing appropriate diagrams is a useful problem solving heuristic that can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving it. A major focus while helping introductory physics students learn problem…
Elementary particle physics is gradually implemented into science curricula at high school level. However, common presentations on educational, semi-technical or popular level contain or support severe misconceptions. We discuss in…
This brief note, written for non-specialists, aims at drawing an introductive overview of the multiverse issue.
In this essay we wish to seek a unifying thread between the basic forces. We propose that there exists a universal force which is shared by all that physically exists. Universality is characterized by the two properties: (i) universal…
When a ball hits a surface, does the angle of reflection always equal the angle of incidence? Not at all! Depending on the interplay of the ball's spin and speed and the force of friction, the ball's behavior after the bounce may differ…
Many physicists, following Einstein, believe that the ultimate aim of theoretical physics is to find a unified theory of all interactions which would not depend on any free dimensionless constant, i.e., a dimensionless constant that is only…