Old physics textbooks give us a great opportunity to learn about the history of science and rediscover different methods to teach physics to our students. There are many disused and forgotten experiments in them, but these can still be very useful to affirm and understand physics. This is the case of an instrument used in the 19th century to…

A Finderscope is a low-power telescope with a relatively large field of view. It has the same line of sight as the main telescope, helping the main telescope easily find the target. One of the differences between a telescope and a finder is that the finder has crosshairs to aid in accurately pointing at a target. You can see the crosshairs and the…

Data analysis and interpretation has always played a fundamental role in the scientific curricula of high school students. The spread of digitalization has further increased the number of learning environments whereby this topic can be effectively taught: as a matter of fact, the ever-growing diffusion of data science across diverse sectors of…

In many introductory physics classes, diffraction of light is introduced first, then more advanced diffraction topics such as x-ray diffraction, Bragg's law, and crystallography are covered. Since using x-rays raises safety concerns and atomic spacing in a crystal is not easy to change, microwaves with macroscopic crystals have been used to study…

In conventional physics teaching, acceleration measurement is demonstrated using motion sensors and carts on inclined tracks, and relevant data are collected using specific professional software. This approach entails the connection of computers and interface boxes, and requires high cost and large space. Air-track carts can be used to perform…

In a 1993 book review, E. Pearlstein asks, "Why don't textbook authors begin their discussion of magnetism by talking about magnets? That's what students have experience with." A similar question can be asked, "Why don't professors have students measure the force between permanent magnets in introductory physics labs?" The…

Light and its spectrum are central concepts in many introductory physics, astronomy, geology, and conceptual physics courses. The Sun and its spectrum are usually primary examples, likely due to the Sun's everyday familiarity and the full spectrum it generates when dispersed. To enhance such discussions with a hands-on student activity, we've…

We present a simple experiment that allows us to demonstrate graphically that the intensity of sound waves is proportional to the square of their amplitude, a result that is theoretically analyzed in any introductory wave course but rarely demonstrated empirically. To achieve our goal, we use an audio signal generator that, when connected to a…

"Ulysses" by James Joyce (1882-1941) has a surprising amount of 19th-century, classical physics. The physics community is familiar with the name James Joyce mainly through the word "quark" (onomatopoeic for the sound of a duck or seagull), which Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019 -- Physics Nobel Prize 1969) sourced from Joyce's…

Physics is not a very popular subject at German schools, and several studies indicate that girls are less interested than boys in the traditional physics curriculum. To address this problem, physics education should be up to date, context oriented, interesting for girls and boys, and emerge from their everyday life. The ROSE study shows that…

One of the memories of my freshman year at Amherst was a lecture in the required physics/calculus course in which Arnold Arons quoted Isaac Newton on standing on the shoulders of giants. Now that I have spent my physics career, I still use the same quote, but now apply it to the eponymous apparatus that has been designed by the giants in our field.

Computational thinking" (CT) is still a relatively new term in the lexicon of learning objectives and science standards. The term was popularized in an essay by Wing, who said, "To reading, writing and arithmetic, we should add computational thinking to every child's analytical ability." Agreeing with this premise, in 2013 the…

Many high school and first-year university courses include discussion of the magnetic effect of currents. Frequently discussed textbook examples include long, straight wires, circular current loops, and solenoids, partly because these examples are tractable mathematically. The solenoid naturally leads to discussion on magnetic materials since it…

One of the objectives of the undergraduate physics curriculum is for students to become aware of the connections between formal physical principles and personal experience. However, research has shown that awareness of connections between the abstract and the experiential tends to deteriorate, sometimes significantly, after instruction in…

As part of a public education outreach effort, an introduction to the health effects of ionizing radiation and the field of medical physics was developed by a clinical medical physicist. The presentation was delivered to a broad public audience in 2019 (prior to COVID-19 safety concerns) through a community outreach science literacy program that…