Related papers: How simple is simple pendulum
Paper has a lot of interesting properties with which quite a lot of standard topics of science education can be turned into hands-on activities. Among others, experiments are presented on elasticity, capillarity, feedback oscillations,…
Physics and mathematics are difficult enough without the aditional burden of bad habits. In this article, we examine some helpful habits that tend to be underemphasized by many physics teachers (mainly because they seem so obvious!).
Among the many decisions to be made in their teaching practice, physics teachers must decide how to explain each particular phenomenon to students. This study explores student teachers' (STs) decision-making process when presented with…
This paper discusses experiments with single-particle systems, some of whose states appear to be entangled. It shows that the interpretation of the experiments in terms of entanglement is ill-defined. Three forms of ambiguity are discussed.…
We analyze a very simple variant of the Lorentz pendulum, in which the length is varied exponentially, instead of uniformly, as it is assumed in the standard case. We establish quantitative criteria for the condition of adiabatic changes in…
This article describes five common student misconceptions about succeeding in college-level Physics courses: the miracle finish, the soft hearted professor, an extension of high school, weak areas won't be tested, and passing is more…
A liquid meniscus, a bending rod (also called elastica) and a simple pendulum are all described by the same non-dimensional equation. The oscillatory regime of the pendulum corresponds to buckling rods and pendant drops, and the…
A bouncing rubber ball under a motion sensor is a classic of introductory physics labs. It is often used to measure the acceleration due to gravity, and can also demonstrate conservation of energy. By observing that the ball rises to a…
A simple setup was assembled to study the motion of an object while it falls. The setup was used to determine the instantaneous velocity, terminal velocity and acceleration due to gravity. Also, since the whole project was done within $20…
We examine the difficulties that introductory physics students, undergraduate physics majors, and physics graduate students have with concepts related to conductors and insulators covered in introductory physics by giving written tests and…
An investigation on student understanding of waves is performed during an optional laboratory realized in informal extracurricular way with few, interested and talented pupils. The background and smart intuitions of students rendered the…
A pendulum powered by high voltage electricity is described. The pendulum consists of two conducting plates(thin foil) separated by copper rods and are insulated from each other. High voltage is applied to these plates through the…
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,…
This article summarises a Web-book on "Complexity" that was developed to introduce undergraduate students to interesting complex systems in the biological, physical and social sciences, and the common tools, principles and concepts used for…
A system's apparent simplicity depends on whether it is represented classically or quantally. This is not so surprising, as classical and quantum physics are descriptive frameworks built on different assumptions that capture, emphasize, and…
The objectives of physics laboratory courses include fostering conceptual understanding and development of several important cognitive, psycho-motor, attitudinal and affective abilities. In most of the Indian colleges and universities (and…
The small angle approximation often fails to explain experimental data, does not even predict if a plane pendulum's period increases or decreases with increasing amplitude. We make a perturbation ansatz for the Conserved Energy Surfaces of…
We are interested in the naive problem whether we can move a solid object in a solid box or not. We restrict move to rotation. In the case we can, the centre and the ``direction'' of rotation may be restricted. Simplifying, we consider…
Experimental activities are an essential part of physics education. In addition to conveying scientific knowledge, they play a significant role in developing scientific literacy, inquiry skills, and critical thinking. In today's world,…
We analyze the dynamics of a driven, damped pendulum as used in mechanical clocks. We derive equations for the amplitude and phase of the oscillation, on time scales longer than the pendulum period. The equations are first order ODEs and…