Related papers: Air resistance
Suppose a projectile collides perpendicularly with a stationary rigid rod on a smooth horizontal table. We show that, contrary to what one naturally expects, it is not always the case that the rod acquires maximum angular velocity when…
In the U.S., introductory calculus-based courses often acts as a gatekeeper to STEM degrees. But access to the prerequisite math is far from equal--students from low-income and racially marginalized communities are far less likely to have…
Common research tasks ask students to identify a correct answer and justify their answer choice. We propose expanding the array of research tasks to access different knowledge that students might have. By asking students to discuss answers…
It is well documented that students sometimes resist active learning techniques. A recent study showed how students believed that they learned less in active learning classrooms than they learned in lectures, even though they learned more.…
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…
This article describes the third law of thermodynamics. This law is often poorly known and is often decried, or even considered optional and irrelevant to describe weather and climate phenomena. This, however, is inaccurate and contrary to…
The research presented in this thesis was motivated by the need to improve introductory physics courses. Introductory physics courses are generally the first courses in which students learn to create models to solve complex problems.…
We present a critical analysis of the classical approaches to energy subjects, based on the work-energy theorem and the conservation of mechanical energy proposed in the courses of the first years of tertiary education. We show how these…
These notes discuss, in a style intended for physicists, how to average data and fit it to some functional form. I try to make clear what is being calculated, what assumptions are being made, and to give a derivation of results rather than…
Physics has a bad press: it is seen by a majority of people as a boring discipline ever since their High School days. There is no glamour to it, just toil and pain, and for many who engaged in it, the end sight is often unemployment. Could…
This article discusses a number of incorrect statements appearing in textbooks on data analysis, machine learning, or computational methods; the common theme in all these cases is the relevance and application of statistics to the study of…
For many students, college physics courses have little or even negative impact on their beliefs about the connection between physics and the everyday world. One way to help students see this connection is to incorporate analysis of science…
Adaptive defenses, which optimize at test time, promise to improve adversarial robustness. We categorize such adaptive test-time defenses, explain their potential benefits and drawbacks, and evaluate a representative variety of the latest…
Making classifiers robust to adversarial examples is hard. Thus, many defenses tackle the seemingly easier task of detecting perturbed inputs. We show a barrier towards this goal. We prove a general hardness reduction between detection and…
An introduction to applied mathematics written for students in engineering and science. Focus is on a rigorous presentation that also builds understanding by discussion, analogy, and examples. Discussion of concepts involved in modeling…
Research into educational physics is a field of study that has undergone sustained growth in recent decades. Among the topics addressed in educational physics, there is a relatively new field of research that seeks to make advanced physics…
This paper has pedagogical motivation. It is not uncommon that students have great difficulty in accepting the new concepts of standard special relativity, since these seem contrary to common sense. Experience shows that geometrical or…
Physics students can encounter difficulties in physics problem solving as a result of failing to use knowledge that they have but do not perceive as relevant or appropriate. In previous work the authors have demonstrated that some of these…
When deploying online homework in physics courses, an important consideration is how many attempts should be allowed in order to solve numerical free-response problems. While on the one hand, the maximum number of attempts should be large…
The physics community explores and explains the physical world through a blend of theoretical and experimental studies. The future of physics as a discipline depends on training of students in both the theoretical and experimental aspects…