Educational research has found that students have challenges understanding thermal science. Undergraduate physics students have difficulties differentiating basic thermal concepts, such as heat, temperature, and internal energy. Engineering students have been found to have difficulties grasping surface emissivity as a thermal material property.…

With a new data-acquisition system developed by PASCO scientific, an experiment on telemetry with an optical fiber can be made easier and more accurate. For this aim, an alternative strategy of the remote temperature measurements is proposed: the frequency of light pulses transmitted via the light guide numerically equals the temperature using…

A pair of fine tweezers and a steady hand may well be enough to pick up a grain of sand, but what would you use to hold something hundreds of times smaller still, the size of only one micron? The answer is to use a device that is not mechanical in nature but that relies instead on the tiny forces that light exerts on small particles: "optical…

Presents a chronicle of the life of American born Benjamin Thompson. His private life as well as descriptions of his scientific experiments are discussed. (CP)

Photographs illustrate several principles of physics which can be observed in everyday situations. (CP)

Lists several ideas for experiments for the amateur scientist to try or design. The list covers a wide range of topics; sound, mechanics, thermodynamics, fluids, optics, and electrostatics. (GA)