The Michelson interferometer is one of the best established tools for quantitative interferometric measurements. It has been, and is still successfully used, not only for scientific purposes, but it is also introduced in undergraduate courses for qualitative demonstrations as well as for quantitative determination of several properties such as…

This paper describes an attempt to facilitate students' learning of scientific concepts by using detectors that take as input physical information and output an instantiation of the concept. The principle hypothesis was that students would have a better understanding of the concept of image if they were taught to use a simplified, runnable model…