Atwood invented a machine in the 1780s that enabled him to observe the motion of a falling body as slowly as desired. This machine was equipped with the necessary means to measure the distance covered by the body and the time taken. With this data, it was possible, in addition to studying the falling motion, to calculate the local gravitational…

Neutrinos are perhaps the least understood of the known denizens of the subatomic world. They have nearly no mass, interact only via the weak nuclear force and gravity, and, perhaps most surprising, the three known species of neutrinos can transform from one variant into another. This transformation, called neutrino oscillation, has been…

Using a Geiger-Müller tube, sound-capturing software, and a simple computer program, students measured to reasonable precision the half-value layer of steel in absorbing high-energy gamma rays from a Radium Ore Revigator (pronounced re-vig-a-tor with the accent on "vig"), an early quack medical device. This article describes the process…

This article presents some simple calculations related to the Future Circular Collider (FCC), which is being studied at CERN as a potential future replacement for the world's largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The aim of this article is to bring particle physics into secondary school classrooms using the physics of the…

The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, are often depicted as lone geniuses, secretly assembling the first successful powered aircraft far from civilization at Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. There is a germ of truth in the popular story, but only a germ. The brothers succeeded while so many other experimenters failed not because…

Two well-regarded measurements for the expansion rate of the universe disagree, leaving cosmologists very puzzled. It may be that something large has been overlooked in our theory of the Big Bang. This discrepancy is called the Hubble tension and it has led to a very interesting conversation within the cosmology community.

The preschool level is often the first formal opportunity for children to experience science. There are many examples of appropriate experiments and scientific experiences aimed at young children, both in Mexico and around the world. Even the formal public preschool program in Mexico includes sections called Academic Training Topics, one of which…

In 2013, I was an Einstein Fellow with the U.S. Department of Energy and I was asked by a colleague, working in a senator's office, if I would join him in a meeting with a physicist to "translate" the science into something more understandable. That meeting turned out to be a wonderful opportunity I would never have otherwise had. During…

This paper aims to critically frame the successes and failings of scientific conferences designed for underrepresented undergraduate physics students as counterspaces in physics. The beginning of the paper outlines the necessity of these counterspaces' existence as evidenced by the literature. We apply a critical lens to the experiences of…

Progress is made in science by constructing many models (possibly of different complexities), testing them against measurements, and determining which of them explain the data the best. It is my observation, however, that in many introductory physics labs we provide students with the materials and methods to verify the "correct" model of…

Some educators use what we call a "hook" as a key element in their lessons. We use "hooks" to get our students interested in what it is we are teaching. Many teachers have adopted the Next Generation Science Standards and establish the phenomena as the engine that drives scientific investigation and learning in the classroom.…

I begin my introductory astronomy course with a unit on critical thinking that focuses on, among other things, the differences between the "scientific method" as frequently presented in textbooks and actual scientific practice. One particular classroom activity uses a simple dice game to simulate observation of a natural phenomenon and…

Numerical computation (the use of a computer to solve, simulate, or visualize a physical problem) has fundamentally changed the way scientific research is done. Systems that are too difficult to solve in closed form are probed using computation. Experiments that are impossible to perform in the laboratory are studied numerically. Consequently, in…

When the sun rose over America on July 4, 2012, the world of science had radically changed. The Higgs boson had been discovered. Mind you, the press releases were more cautious than that, with "a new particle consistent with being the Higgs boson" being the carefully constructed phrase of the day. But, make no mistake, champagne corks…

The chronic underrepresentation of Native and indigenous peoples in STEM fields (Fig. 1) has been a longstanding issue in the United States, despite concentrated efforts by many local and national groups, including the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and the American Indian Science and…