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The purpose of this paper is to show the magic of physics by showing the physics of magic. What usually makes magic tricks interesting is that something unexpected occurs. Similarly, demonstrations are interesting inasmuch as they produce…
In order to describe natural phenomena, science develops sophisticated models that use mathematical and formal languages which seem, and often are, very far from common experience. When a phenomenon is not accessible to our senses, its…
A primary goal of physics is to create mathematical models that allow both predictions and explanations of physical phenomena. We weave maths extensively into our physics instruction beginning in high school, and the level and complexity of…
Statistical mechanics is one of the most powerful and elegant tools in the quantitative sciences. One key virtue of statistical mechanics is that it is designed to examine large systems with many interacting degrees of freedom, providing a…
Researchers in physics education have advocated both for including modeling in science classrooms as well as promoting student engagement with sensemaking. These two processes facilitate the generation of new knowledge by connecting to…
Learning to use math in physics involves combining (blending) our everyday experiences and the conceptual ideas of physics with symbolic mathematical representations. Graphs are one of the best ways to learn to build the blend. They are a…
Even if students can make the blend, interpret physics correctly in mathematical symbology and graphs, they still need to be able to apply that knowledge in productive and coherent ways. As instructors, we can show our solutions to complex…
We show how builtin sensors in mobile devices can be used as portable laboratories at the service of teaching experimental sciences, especially physics, in the last years of high school and first years of university. We describe experiments…
Science students must deal with the errors inherent to all physical measurements and be conscious of the necessity to express their as a best estimate and a range of uncertainty. Errors are routinely classified as statistical or systematic.…
Courses in mathematical methods for physics students are not known for including too much in the way of mathematical rigour and, in some ways, understandably so. However, the conditions under which some quite commonly used mathematical…
Mechanics and electronic systems can be applied to the physical models to understand the physical phenomena for students in laboratory. In this paper we have developed a robot arm for a laboratory experiment, where students learn how to…
This is the third series of the lab manuals for virtual teaching of introductory physics classes. This covers fluids, waves, thermodynamics, optics, interference, photoelectric effect, atomic spectra, and radiation concepts. A few of these…
Education, science, in fact the whole society, extensively use images. Between us and the world are the visual displays. Screens, small and large, individual or not, are everywhere. Images are increasingly the 2D substrate of our virtual…
To increase the attention of students, several physics experiments can be performed at school, as well at home, by using the smartphone as laboratory tools. In the paper we describe a mechanical model of the smartphone's accelerometer,…
[Taken from the "README" in the book] My goal with this book is to provide some kind of bridge for mathematics between the high-school-level and college-level for physics students. From my perspective, our job as physicists is to observe…
Learning to use math in science is a non-trivial task. It involves many different skills (not usually taught in a math class) that help blend physical knowledge with mathematical symbology. One of these is the idea of quantification: that…
Learning to create, use, and evaluate models is a central element of becoming a scientist. In physics, we often begin an analysis of a complex system with highly simplified or toy models. In introductory physics classes, we tend to use them…
The main task of an introductory laboratory course is to foster students' manual, conceptual and statistical ability to investigate physical phenomena. Needing very simple apparatus, pendulum experiments are an ideal starting point in our…
Popular media is an unspoken yet ever-present element of the physics landscape and a tool we can utilize in our teaching. It is also well-understood that students enter the physics classroom with a host of conceptions learned from the world…
Science students must deal with the errors inherent to all physical measurements and be conscious of the need to expressvthem as a best estimate and a range of uncertainty. Errors are routinely classified as statistical or systematic.…