Related papers: Air resistance
Most introductory physics textbooks neglect air resistance in situations where an astute student can observe that it dominates the dynamics. We give examples from many books. Using dimensional analysis we discuss how to estimate the…
I discuss how to estimate the gas mileage of a car. This discussion, which covers air resistance and Reynolds numbers, describes one way to introduce dimensional analysis and order-of-magnitude physics into introductory physics (if only the…
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!).
This article discusses several erroneous claims which appear in textbooks on numerical methods and computational physics. These are not typos or mistakes an individual author has made, but widespread misconceptions. In an attempt to stop…
We propose a unified approach to addition of some physical quantities (among which resistors and capacitors are the most well-known) that are usually encountered in introductory physics such that the formulae required to solve problems are…
We discuss an investigation exploring students' difficulties with equations involving resistance, capacitance and inductance. We find that introductory physics students have great difficulty understanding, e.g., how the resistance of an…
We propose a unified approach to addition of resistors and capacitors such that the formulae are always simply additive. This approach has the advantage of being consistent with the intuition of the students. To demonstrate our point of…
Whoever has to learn or to teach thermodynamics is confronted with conceptual difficulties which are specific to this field of physics ([1],[2]). It seems that they can be eliminated by inserting relativity in the thermodynamic theory. The…
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…
Physics is considered as one of the most prevailing and problematic subjects by the students in the realm of science. Students perceived physics as a difficult subject during high school days and become more evasive when they reach college.…
The fundamental role of hydrophobic interactions in nature and technology has motivated decades long research aimed at measuring the distance-dependent hydrophobic force and identifying its origin. This quest has nevertheless proved more…
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…
Correctly evaluating defenses against adversarial examples has proven to be extremely difficult. Despite the significant amount of recent work attempting to design defenses that withstand adaptive attacks, few have succeeded; most papers…
This resource letter intends to provide physics instructors - particularly graduate student teaching assistants - at the introductory university level with a small but representative collection of resources to acquire a familiarity with…
It is important to be able to calculate the moist-air entropy of the atmosphere with precision. A potential temperature has already been defined from the third law of thermodynamics for this purpose. However, a doubt remains as to whether…
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…
We examine the relationship between homework completion and exam performance for students having different physics aptitudes for five different semesters of an introductory electricity and magnetism course. In our analysis, we plot exam…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students…
A popular scientific contribution should not contradict any established facts and ought to be understandable. I complied with both these requirements and am offering a sufficiently full introduction to probability theory. Furthermore, I…
This manuscript is written for students in introductory physics classes to address some of the common difficulties and misconceptions of the normal force, especially the relationship between normal and friction forces. Accordingly, it is…