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This set of lecture notes constitutes the free textbook project I initiated towards the end of Summer 2015, while preparing for the Fall 2015 Analytical Methods in Physics course I taught to upper level undergraduates at the University of…
The aim of this book chapter is to indicate how quantum phenomena are affecting the operation of microscopic thermal machines, such as engines and refrigerators. As converting heat to work is one of the fundamental concerns in…
The role of student experiences in physics beyond the classroom which support their development has been the subject of exciting research in recent years. Results, typically from small studies at single institutions, have illustrated that…
How students use mathematics in their physics classes has been studied extensively in the physics education literature. In addition to specific mathematical methods in specific physics contexts, possible effects of more general "cultural"…
As more physics educators are developing courses and programs to prepare students for careers in quantum information science, understanding the quantum industry's future workforce needs has become increasingly important. As part of ongoing…
Physics faculty care about their students learning physics content. In addition, they usually hope that their students will learn some deeper lessons about thinking critically and scientifically. They hope that as a result of taking a…
Laboratory courses are an important part of the undergraduate physics curriculum. During physics labs, students can engage in authentic, hands-on experimental practices, which can prepare them for graduate school, research laboratories, and…
In the symposium contributions we discuss research in physics education and the consequences of its results for physics teaching. The symposium presents four different aspects of physics teaching and learning, but all of them have…
Misconception is the difference between a student's idea and his scientific concept. Physics learning needs to be designed by teachers to minimize misconceptions. Different diagnostic tools have been developed and used by researchers to…
Measurements with a glider show that thermal theories published for decades need to be revised. We present a corrected view of temperature and humidity in thermal updrafts.
We discuss the categorization of 20 quantum mechanics problems by 6 physics professors and 22 undergraduate students from two honors-level quantum mechanics courses. Professors and students were asked to categorize the problems based upon…
At the University of Colorado Boulder, as part of our broader efforts to transform middle- and upper-division physics courses, we research students' difficulties with particular concepts, methods, and tools in classical mechanics,…
We address the problem of the foundation of generalized ensembles in statistical physics. The approach is based on Boltzmann's concept of orthodes. These are the statistical ensembles that satisfy the heat theorem, according to which the…
Lack of knowledge about the detailed many-particle motion on the microscopic scale is a key issue in any theoretical description of a macroscopic experiment. For systems at or close to thermal equilibrium, statistical mechanics provides a…
There is a substantial curricular overlap between calculus and physics, yet introductory physics students often struggle to connect the two. We introduce a quantity-based framing of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus (FTC) to help unify…
Computational thinking has been a recent focus of education research within the sciences. However, there is a dearth of scholarly literature on how best to teach and to assess this topic, especially in disciplinary science courses. Physics…
Research suggests that interacting with more peers about physics course material is correlated with higher student performance. Some studies, however, have demonstrated that different topics of peer interactions may correlate with their…
Statistical thermodynamics has a universal appeal that extends beyond molecular systems, and yet, as its tools are being transplanted to fields outside physics, the fundamental question, \textit{what is thermodynamics?}, has remained…
Thermodynamics of the unitary Fermi gas at finite temperature is investigated from the perspective of the expansion over epsilon=4-d with d being the dimensionality of space. We show that the thermodynamics is dominated by bosonic…
We present the proposal of an elective for engineering courses, designed to train professionals with a solid foundation in Physics of the Atmosphere interested in environmental and sustainability issues broadly. We propose four chapters…