Jodi Christiansen, Andy Siver As the universe expands astronomical observables such as brightness and angular size on the sky change in ways that differ from our simple Cartesian expectation. We show how observed quantities depend on the expansion of space and demonstrate how to calculate such quantities using the Friedmann equations. The general solution to… [Read more…]
March 21, 2012
Adam Savage walks through two spectacular examples of profound scientific discoveries that came from simple, creative methods anyone could have followed — Eratosthenes’ calculation of the Earth’s circumference around 200 BC and Hippolyte Fizeau’s measurement of the speed of light in 1849. (Launching a series on Inventions that Shaped History) “How Simple Ideas Lead to… [Read more…]
February 6, 2012
Brian C. Thomas & Matthew Quick Sports are a popular and effective way to illustrate physics principles. Baseball in particular presents a number of opportunities to motivate student interest and teach concepts. Several articles have appeared in this journal on this topic, illustrating a wide variety of areas of physics. In addition, several websites and… [Read more…]
January 21, 2012
National exams are too easy, a group of high-achieving pupils has told David Willetts in a report which called for a new, tougher science GCSE for those pursuing scientific careers. By Nick Collins The examination would be more rigorous than the rudimentary “citizen science” currently studied in schools and introduce gifted students to advanced disciplines… [Read more…]
January 16, 2012
Richard Feynman was a brilliant Nobel Prize winning physicist with a “rock ‘n roll” personality Richard Feynman was a talented mathematician and Nobel-prize winning physicist whose startlingly clear answers to questions earned him the unofficial title, the “Great Explainer”. As a student at Far Rockaway High School in Queens, a borough of New York City,… [Read more…]
January 9, 2012
Alyssa Goodman, Jonathan Fay, August Muench, Alberto Pepe, Patricia Udomprasert, Curtis Wong The WorldWide Telescope computer program, released to researchers and the public as a free resource in 2008 by Microsoft Research, has changed the way the ever-growing Universe of online astronomical data is viewed and understood. The WWT program can be thought of as… [Read more…]
January 4, 2012
Fabrizio Logiurato Google Earth is a huge source of interesting illustrations of various natural phenomena. It can represent a valuable tool for science education, not only for teaching geography and geology, but also physics. Here we suggest that Google Earth can be used for introducing in an attractive way the physics of waves… Read more: arxiv.org/pdf
December 27, 2011
M M J French A Faraday cage is an interesting physics phenomena where an electromagnetic wave can be excluded from a volume of space by enclosure with an electrically conducting material. The practical application of this in the classroom is to block the signal to a mobile phone by enclosing it in a metal can!… [Read more…]
December 3, 2011
Roberto B. Salgado We present visual calculations in special relativity using spacetime diagrams drawn on graph paper that has been rotated by 45 degrees. The rotated lines represent lightlike directions in Minkowski spacetime, and the boxes in the grid (called “light-clock diamonds”) represent units of measurement modeled on the ticks of an inertial observer’s lightclock.… [Read more…]
November 6, 2011
Interest in A-level and university courses rises as US comedy makes the subject “cool” Mark Townsend – The Observer A cult US sitcom has emerged as the latest factor behind a remarkable resurgence of physics among A-level and university students. The Big Bang Theory, a California-based comedy that follows two young physicists, is being credited… [Read more…]
October 30, 2011
Correspondence between geometrical and differential definitions of the sine and cosine functions and connection with kinematics Horia I. Petrache In classical physics, the familiar sine and cosine functions appear in two forms: (1) geometrical, in the treatment of vectors such as forces and velocities, and (2) differential, as solutions of oscillation and wave equations. These two forms… [Read more…]
October 24, 2011
The present issue of the series <Modern Problems in Mathematical Physics> represents the Proceedings of the Students Training Contest Olympiad in Mathematical and Theoretical Physics and includes the statements and the solutions of the problems offered to the participants. The contest Olympiad was held on May 21st-24th, 2010 by Scientific Research Laboratory of Mathematical Physics… [Read more…]
October 15, 2011
Bernd A. Berg, Peter Hoeflich Two simple exercises are solved, which educators can use to awake interest of their students in subtleties of the CERN Neutrino beam to Grand Sasso (CNGS) experiment. The first one is about the statistical error of the average departure time of neutrinos from CERN. The second one about a hypothetical… [Read more…]
October 13, 2011
Alejandro Jenkins Physicists are very familiar with forced and parametric resonance, but usually not with self-oscillation, a property of certain linear systems that gives rise to a great variety of vibrations, both useful and destructive. In a self-oscillator, the driving force is controlled by the oscillation itself so that it acts in phase with the… [Read more…]
September 21, 2011
Yes, the universe itself will eventually outpace the speed of light. Just how this will happen is a bit complicated, so let’s begin at the very beginning: the big bang. Around 14 billion years ago, all matter in the universe was thrown in every direction. That first explosion is still pushing galaxies outward. Scientists know… [Read more…]
September 8, 2011
These notes are based on lectures given by Michael Green during Part III of the Mathematics Tripos (the Certificate for Advanced Study in Mathematics) in the Spring of 2003. The course provided an introduction to string theory, focussing on the Bosonic string, but treating the superstring as well. A background in quantum field theory and… [Read more…]
September 5, 2011
Watch this video and learn everything you’d ever want to know about spaghettification Now here’s an interesting thought to begin your work week: death by black hole. In this convergence between biology and astrophysics, Neil deGrasse Tyson, the director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, talks about the process of… [Read more…]
September 2, 2011
The multicoloured halo surrounding the peak of this dark cloud looks heavenly, but it’s actually an iridescent pileus cloud, also called a cap cloud. These smooth, round clouds form on top of a puffy cumulus cloud when it rises into higher, colder air. The pileus cloud is made up of uniformly sized water droplets that… [Read more…]
August 31, 2011
This demonstartes that a radioactive source produces radiation that will ionise the air. The conducting air completes a circuit to charge an electroscope. Use the circuit to show the ionising effect of the radiation and present it as a means of detecting ionising radiation.
August 12, 2011
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 12 August 1930 It would seem all doubts as to the existence of the new planet announced from the Lowell Observatory in March last have been set at rest. Fifteen years ago the late Dr. Percival Lowell published his “Memoir on a Trans Neptunian Planet,” in which he… [Read more…]
June 24, 2011
Argon is a rare hermit among the many reactive and bond-forming elements Argon is element number 18 and has the atomic symbol Ar – renamed in 1959 from its original atomic symbol, which was simply A. As you can see in the image above, argon gas produces a lovely bluish-purple colour when excited with electricity. Argon is the… [Read more…]
June 21, 2011
Pupils generally enjoy carrying out experiments – but do teachers overuse them when they should in fact be teaching more theory, asks Alom Shaha Remember burning magnesium in school? Doing this for the first time as an 11-year-old who has just started secondary school is one of those magical experiences that all students should have. But… [Read more…]
May 26, 2011
Give your students practice with division by letting them dive into a wormhole. Difficulty of wormholes varies widely, so you may want to design a wormhole before you give it to your class. Explain this video benvitale-funwithnum3ers.blogspot.com
May 23, 2011
THE business of gaining understanding of the world about us rarely follows a simple path from A to B. False starts, dead ends and U-turns are part of the journey. Science’s ability to accept those setbacks with aplomb – to say “we got it wrong”, to modify and abandon cherished notions and find new ideas… [Read more…]
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April 7, 2012
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