Related papers: Students' epistemological framing in quantum mecha…
A goal of PER is to understand how students use math in physics contexts. To investigate how students use math, we need to identify transitions between conceptual sense-making about physical systems and using mathematics to describe and to…
Despite significant effort, the quantum machine learning community has only demonstrated quantum learning advantages for artificial cryptography-inspired datasets when dealing with classical data. In this paper we address the challenge of…
An appropriate diagram is a required element of a solution building process in physics problem solving and it can transform a given problem into a representation that is easier to exploit for solving the problem. A major focus while helping…
Upper-level, undergraduate quantum mechanics (QM) is widely considered a difficult subject with many varied approaches to teaching it and considerable variation in content coverage. For example, two common approaches to undergraduate QM…
In this companion paper, we explore the use of isomorphic problem pairs (IPPs) to assess introductory physics students' ability to solve and successfully transfer problem-solving knowledge from one context to another in mechanics. We call…
We investigate the physics of quantum reference frames. Specifically, we study several simple scenarios involving a small number of quantum particles, whereby we promote one of these particles to the role of a quantum observer and ask what…
In introductory physics laboratory instruction, students often expect to confirm or demonstrate textbook physics concepts (Wilcox & Lewandowski, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2018). This expectation is largely undesirable: labs that…
Quantum mechanics emerged as the result of a successful resolution of stringent empirical and profound conceptual conflicts within the development of atomic physics at the beginning of the last century. At first glance, it seems to be…
Several finite dimensional quasi-probability representations of quantum states have been proposed to study various problems in quantum information theory and quantum foundations. These representations are often defined only on restricted…
It is well-known that introductory physics students often have alternative conceptions that are inconsistent with established physical principles and concepts. Invoking alternative conceptions in quantitative problem-solving process can…
This paper introduces a theory about the role of language in learning physics. The theory is developed in the context of physics students' and physicists' talking and writing about the subject of quantum mechanics. We found that physicists'…
Quantum Computing is an exciting field that draws from information theory, computer science, mathematics, and quantum physics to process information in fundamentally new ways. There is an ongoing race to develop practical quantum computers…
Students often begin physics courses with misconceptions rooted in everyday experience and intuition, which can be resistant to change. While research has identified strategies for addressing misconceptions across physics, it remains…
In certain classes of physical quantum systems, the exponentially large state space "fragments" into many low-dimensional, dynamically disconnected subspaces. We introduce a learning problem known as fragment classification, where given a…
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…
In their study of physics beyond the first year of University -- termed upper-division in the US, many of students' primary learning opportunities come from working long, complex back-of-the-book style problems, and from trying to develop…
The research presented in this thesis was motivated by the need to improve introductory physics courses. Introductory physics courses are generally the first courses in which students learn to create models to solve complex problems.…
It is demonstrated that the reason for the diversity of interpretations of quantum mechanics is that they are not connected by continuity relations with classical physics, and also the reason is the impossibility of operationalist…
New status in quantum mechanics is connected with recent achievements in the inverse problem. With its help instead of about ten exactly solvable models which serve as a basis of the contemporary education there are infinite (!) number,…
Quantum information science and technology is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field drawing researchers from science and engineering fields. Traditional instruction in quantum mechanics is insufficient to prepare students for research…