Physics textbook authors commonly introduce the concept of weightlessness (apparent or real) through a "thought experiment" in which a person weighs herself or himself in an elevator. When the elevator falls freely, the spring balance should show zero weight. There is an unresolved controversy about how this "zero reading"…

With the introduction of the Wireless Smart Cart by PASCO scientific in April 2016, we expect a paradigm shift in undergraduate physics laboratory instruction. We have evaluated the feasibility of using the smart cart by carrying out experiments that are usually performed using traditional PASCO equipment. The simplicity, convenience, and…

Heating a fluid causes a local expansion and the resulting buoyance of the rarefied fluid drives it upward. This phenomenon roughly defines heat convection. Convection is fairly well known due to our familiarity with a large number of convection systems in open air like candles, bonfires, barbecue grills, boiling pans, hot air balloons, etc. Most…

In anticipation of "AstroNotes" articles planned for the near future, a short primer on certain fundamental aspects of the celestial sphere and its associated geometry is in order. While astronomers proper and longtime astronomy faculty will already be familiar with this topic, newer faculty and perhaps those from other disciplines, but…

One of the most consequential inventions of modern times is the telescope. Almost immediately upon turning it to the skies, Galileo made discoveries that altered our perceptions of our place in the cosmos forever: features on the Moon, the rotation of the Sun, the composition of the Milky Way, the phases of Venus, and the four large moons of…

Hooke's law for springs, stating that the force needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance is proportional to that distance, is a topic covered by almost all introductory physics courses at both school and university levels. In this article we present a much more efficient and intuitive approach, compared to the traditional method, for…

Quantum physics is the basis for many technologies that are a fundamental part of our daily lives (e.g., lasers) or that may become so in the future (e.g., quantum cryptography and quantum computing). Because of this, quantum physics is now a central aspect of many countries' secondary school curricula. In this article, we present the design and…

We have developed a learning unit based on the Standard Model of particle physics, featuring novel typographic illustrations of elementary particles and particle systems. Since the unit includes antiparticles and systems of antiparticles, a visualization of anticolor charge was required. We propose an alternative to the commonly used…

Smartphones are increasingly used in higher education and at university in mechanics, acoustics, and even thermodynamics as they offer a unique way to do simple science experiments. In this article, we show how smartphones can be used in fluid mechanics to measure surface tension of various liquids, which could help students understand the concept…

Any teacher of elementary physics can attest to the waning interest of students when all they are exposed to are boxes sliding down planes. In an effort to motivate interest, it is often useful to borrow examples from the real world. This way the students find it easy to identify the relevance of the subject matter. In addition, high-tech…

This May marks the 80th anniversary of the "Hindenburg" disaster. On May 6, 1937, the German passenger zeppelin "Hindenburg," hovering 300 feet in the air and held aloft by seven million cubic feet of hydrogen gas, burst into flames while preparing to dock at the Naval Air Station in Lakehurst, NJ (Fig. 1). Amazingly, the…

Light polarization, which is the direction of electromagnetic field oscillation, provides information that is highly different from that of spectral and intensity images and thus can enhance various fields of optical metrology. Polarization imaging can be also used by combining polarization and imaging, thereby providing polarization and spatial…

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…

This November marks another anniversary of the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, an example appropriate to introductory science or physical sciences courses from grade school to university. The purpose of this brief submission is to add an element to this story, which, despite having been mentioned before, has not received the prominence it…

The laws of physics are often seen as objective truth, pure and simple. Hence, they tend to appear cerebral and cold. However, their presentation is necessarily subjective and may vary from being boring to being exciting. A detailed analysis of physics education reform efforts over the last three decades finds that interactive instruction results…