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Dark matter is one of the most intriguing scientific mysteries of our time and offers exciting instructional opportunities for physics education in high schools. The topic is likely to engage and motivate students in the classroom and…
A lock-in amplifier is a versatile instrument frequently used in physics research. However, many students struggle with the basic operating principles of a lock-in amplifier which can lead to a variety of difficulties. To improve students'…
Sports are a popular and effective way to illustrate physics principles. Baseball in particular presents a number of opportunities to motivate student interest and teach concepts. Several articles have appeared in this journal on this…
In this brief article I describe an experiment to illustrate how a fuse works. I have used this as part of lessons for my year 11 classes to demonstrate how an electrical fuse 'blows' when too high a current passes through it.
Vortex dynamics are an important topic in fluid dynamics, explaining phenomena like drag and lift generation, jet propulsion, and corner flows. It is also often excluded from introductory or undergraduate fluid dynamics courses on account…
We developed a two-day physics class that uses a nearby forest as a teaching location. Using low-cost material, students design and carry out physics projects outside of the usual controlled environment that is a classroom. In this way they…
The cosmological gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomenon is reviewed. The broad observational facts and empirical phenomenological relations of the GRB prompt emission and afterglow are outlined. A well-tested, successful fireball shock model is…
The teapot effect refers to the tendency of a poured liquid to cling to the lip of a container and run down the outside. It is a familiar but physically rich example of flow separation. We present a low-cost experiment for introductory…
We report several simulation programs which can be used to teach the statistical foundation of thermal physics in the introductory college physics courses. These programs are simple applications of a technique of generating random…
Forest fires pose a natural threat with devastating social, environmental, and economic implications. The rapid and highly uncertain rate of spread of wildfires necessitates a trustworthy digital tool capable of providing real-time…
Turbulence driven by AGN activity, cluster mergers and galaxy motion constitutes an attractive energy source for heating the intracluster medium (ICM). How this energy dissipates into the ICM plasma remains unclear, given its low…
Compressing a porous, fluid-filled material will drive the interstitial fluid out of the pore space, as when squeezing water out of a kitchen sponge. Inversely, injecting fluid into a porous material can deform the solid structure, as when…
Photoinduced hyperthermia is a cancer therapy technique that induces death to cancerous cells via heat generated by plasmonic nanoparticles. While previous studies have shown that some nanoparticles can be effective at killing cancer cells…
The stellarator is a type of fusion energy device that - if properly designed - could provide clean, safe, and abundant energy to the grid. To generate this energy, a stellarator must keep a hot mixture of charged particles (known as a…
The lock-in amplifier is a versatile instrument frequently used in physics research. However, many students struggle with the basic operating principles of a lock-in amplifier which can lead to a variety of difficulties. To improve…
Relativistic fluid dynamics and the theory of relativistic detonation fronts are used to estimate the space-time dynamics of the burning of the D-T fuel in Laser driven pellet fusion experiments. The initial "High foot" heating of the fuel…
We describe the physics of an articulated toy with an internal source of energy provided by a spiral spring. The toy is a funny low cost kangaroo which jumps and rotates. The study consists of a mechanical and a thermodynamical analysis…
In order to understand the nature of friction in closely-packed granular materials, a discrete element simulation on granular layers subjected to isobaric plain shear is performed. It is found that the friction coefficient increases as the…
This mini-course gives an introduction to the techniques used in experimental particle physics with an emphasis on the impact of technological advances. The basic detector types and particle accelerator facilities will be briefly covered…
A space-filling, low blockage fractal grid is used as a novel turbulence generator in a premixed turbulent combustion experiment. In contrast to the power law decay of a standard turbulence grid, the downstream turbulence intensity of the…