The necessity to teach experimental physics in the pandemic period motivated the development of practices in which students may take measurements with instruments constructed by themselves. In this article, we present an experimental practice to approach Newton's law of cooling with a thermoscope (the earliest device for detecting changes in…

A eutectic system is a mixture of two or more substances, displaying a melting temperature lower than its standalone components. The eutectic composition displays the lowest melting temperature of all mixtures. Typically, a eutectic system is used as an example of binary phase diagrams to demonstrate to undergraduate students. Herein, the liquidus…

At constant current (I) the forward bias potential (V) of a "pn" junction diode may be considered to vary linearly with temperature (t) within a temperature range. Based on this property we have constructed diode thermometer using germanium (Ge) and silicon (Si) diodes. The experimental "V-t" data at constant forward current…

The concept of equilibrium vapor pressure plays a key role in the general chemistry curriculum; it is among the first and most easily demonstrated examples of equilibrium and frequently caps off the first semester of general chemistry where it illustrates the properties of liquids and intermolecular forces. We report here simple modifications of…

Mobile phones are a widely used platform for educational apps, mobile health, and a variety of chemical tests. Here, we are working on a mobile phone-based physics lab (mPhysics) that uses a mobile phone's capabilities to run simple physics experiments and demonstrations. While a mobile phone can be used to analyze magnetic and optical properties…

Infrared (IR) thermography renders invisible infrared radiation with intuitive coloration in images and videos taken of objects, reactions, and processes. Educators can take advantage of this technology to extend students' sensory perception of chemical reactions or processes that absorb or release heat in rich detail. In theory, IR thermography…

A common misconception about dissolving is that heating and/or stirring are required for the dissolving process to occur. In this study, quantitative experimental evidence was collected and analyzed to demonstrate that neither heating nor stirring is required for dissolving. Educators can use the data and results in this study to address this…

A low-cost alternative to the typical scientific laboratory water bath or a hot plate stirrer water bath is proposed. Readily available immersion circulators have been developed for sous vide cooking. These precision cookers are designed to maintain water at an exact temperature and thus are well-suited for the similar laboratory requirements of a…

Flavonoids have been studied extensively for their antioxidant properties. Specifically, the flavonoids in tea, such as catechin and epigallocatechin gallate, have been shown to have positive health effects. These compounds are also oxidizable, so the concentrations of these compounds in a given kind of tea can be determined using cyclic…

Using everyday life examples is proven didactically useful for teaching physics, as it presents effective applications of physical laws. Cooking and food, in particular, serve two useful purposes: on one side, they are able to engage students in the study of physics with familiar examples; on the other side, thanks to the wide range of physical…

The infrared camera is a useful tool in physics education to 'see' in the infrared. In this paper, we describe four simple experiments that focus on phenomena related to heat transfer and optics that are encountered at undergraduate physics level using an infrared camera, and discuss the strengths and limitations of this tool for such purposes.

Thermogravimetry coupled with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (TG-FTIR) is a useful technique for the thermal and structural characterization of materials at academic and research levels. This paper describes an experiment for chemistry students to understand the use of TG-FTIR for advanced qualitative and quantitative thermal analysis…

In the present theoretical study, we introduce the entropy concept into Chi's ontological shift theory. Chi distinguishes between two categories of process phenomena, direct and emergent, and claims that incorrectly considering emergent processes as direct ones is one of the sources of students' robust scientific misconceptions. The present study…

Chemical engineering is mostly taught using traditional classroom teaching and laboratory experiments when possible. Being a wide discipline encompassing topics such as analytical chemistry, process design, and microbiology, it may be argued that brewing of beer has many relations to chemical engineering topic-wise. This work illustrates how…

This article describes our modeling approach to teaching the one-dimensional heat (diffusion) equation in a one-semester undergraduate partial differential equations course. We constructed the apparatus for a demonstration of heat diffusion through a long, thin metal rod with prescribed temperatures at each end. The students observed the physical…