Related papers: Mechanics and special relativity: tutorial problem…
This study presents a review of the current state of research on teaching quantum mechanics in secondary and lower undergraduate education. A conceptual approach to quantum mechanics is being implemented in more and more introductory…
Students' difficulties in quantum mechanics may be the result of unproductive framing rather than a fundamental inability to solve the problems or misconceptions about physics content. Using the theoretical lens of epistemological framing,…
As research-based self-paced e-learning tools become increasingly available, a critical issue educators encounter is implementing strategies to ensure that all students engage with them as intended. Here, we discuss the effectiveness of…
The purpose of this article is to present a simple solution of the classic dog-and-rabbit chase problem which emphasizes the use of concepts of elementary kinematics and, therefore, can be used in introductory mechanics course. The article…
As an expansion of complex numbers, the quaternions show close relations to numerous physically fundamental concepts. In spite of that, the didactic potential provided by quaternion interrelationships in formulating physical laws are hardly…
We explain the solution of the following two problems: obtaining of Kepler's laws from Newton's laws (so called two bodies problem) and obtaining the fourth Newton's law (the formula for gravitation) as a corollary of Kepler's laws. This…
This set of notes was designed to accompany two hours of lectures and practical exercises at the New Horizons for Psi workshop in Lisbon in July 2024 entitled "Studying fundamental fields with numerical relativity". Numerical relativity is…
Helping students become proficient problem solvers is a major goal of many physics courses from introductory to advanced levels. In fact, physics has often been used by cognitive scientists to investigate the differences between the…
We examine the task of locating a target region among those induced by intersections of $n$ halfspaces in $\mathbb{R}^d$. This generic task connects to fundamental machine learning problems, such as training a perceptron and learning a…
Recent times are witnessing rapid development in machine learning algorithm systems, especially in reinforcement learning, natural language processing, computer and robot vision, image processing, speech, and emotional processing and…
Identifying the relevant physics principles is a central component of problem solving. A major goal of most introductory physics courses is to help students discern the deep similarities between problems based upon the physics principles so…
These lecture notes contain an extended version of the material presented in the C.I.M.E. summer course in 2017, aiming to give a detailed introduction to the metric Sobolev theory. The notes are divided in four main parts. The first one is…
As we typically teach in an introductory mechanics course, choosing a "good" reference frame with convenient axes may present a major simplification to a problem. Additionally, knowing some conserved quantities provides an extremely…
This paper aims to provide teachers with a tool to teach the essential features of special relativity, considering the students' difficulties highlighted by numerous studies. Our proposal presents special relativity as the solution to the…
The development of both special and general relativity is accomplished in a series of 6 papers using a simple approach. The purpose is to explain the how and why of relativity to a broad public, and to be useful for students of physics by…
This work examines student meaning-making in undergraduate physics problem-solving. We use a social semiotic perspective to sketch a theoretical framework. The social semiotic approach focuses on all types of meaning-making practices that…
We present a study of student learning through the use of virtual reality. A software package is used to introduce concepts of special relativity to students in a game-like environment where users experience the effects of travelling at…
This article is a part of the report for the research project ``Reform of the Course System and Teaching Content of Higher Mathematics (For Non-Mathematical Specialties)'' in 1995, supported by the National Ministry of Education. There are…
If students are to successfully grapple with authentic, complex biological problems as scientists and citizens, they need practice solving such problems during their undergraduate years. Physics education researchers have investigated…
Many physical problems can be formulated as operator equations of the form Au = f. If these operator equations are ill-posed, we then resort to finding the approximate solutions numerically. Ill-posed problems can be found in the fields of…