Ion transport, involving the diffusion and migration of ions within the electrolyte, stands as a fundamental concept in electrochemistry and serves as the driving force for electrochemical reactions. Electric double layers are critical in the fields of electrochemical energy storage and chemical conversion, constituting a central focus of…

In general, undergraduate experimental physics laboratories do not usually have experiments designed to address rolling friction and to measure the value of the rolling friction coefficient. This work explores an experiment, which has the potential to arouse students' curiosity about rolling friction by addressing a counterintuitive aspect of the…

Calculating the duration of a motion when the applied net force on the moving body changes with time is usually a challenging task. In most cases, the only example of the duration of a motion when the acceleration is not constant presented to introductory physics students worldwide is the example of harmonic motion. A discussion with respect to…

An experiment using the volumetric flux of a water stream was used to find the initial velocity of the water as it performs parabolic motion. The trajectories were measured with different initial velocities, comparing the maximum height and range values with the theoretical calculations. The closeness of the measured values to the calculations…

A common procedure when conducting physics experiments is to repeat a measurement several times to calculate the mean and standard deviation. That might be the only instruction we give to students as a means to minimize random errors. However, that technique does not guarantee that the answer will be correct. It might give the same wrong answer…

A well known physics problem is to calculate the friction forces required to support a ladder against a wall. A more tractable problem is to calculate the friction forces needed to support an inclined beam on a ball or a cylinder. In the latter case there are three rather than two points of sliding support. Measurements and calculations are…

This work presents the design of an inexpensive electronic system to measure water temperature and generate an experimental data set used to verify the fitting between experimental and theoretical curves of a water-cooling process. The cooling constant is computed with three different theoretical methods to check their efficiency and this approach…

In the field of physics teaching, the simple pendulum provides a very simple way to study the harmonic oscillator, the source of some fundamental concepts such as periodicity, relaxation time and anharmonicity. As such, its experimental study is frequently integrated into high school or first year university programs. With this in mind, in this…

A novel method of measuring the coefficients of kinetic and rolling friction is proposed. The method is simple to implement and reliable. Samples of measurements and calculations are presented.

Science and engineering students in the second semester of a calculus-based physics sequence typically study and measure the on-axis magnetic field for a multiple, circular turn coil. There are four benefits to this approach: 1) an analytical solution is easily obtained, 2) the coil is easily constructed using tightly wound, high-gauge wire where…

This work shows the redesign of an elemental experience based on the Helmholtz resonator using 3D printing. A Helmholtz resonator is based on a volume and at least one opening that can include a tube or not. The air column inside the tube can be considered the mass of the system, whereas the volume represents the system's stiffness. Due to these…

Interaction forces between magnetic fields and current loops play a central role in the theory of magnetism. This work describes a reasonably simple and cheap experiment for demonstrating this issue: the force on a thin coil due to a nearby cylindrical magnet. The magnitude of the force as well as its attractive/repulsive character is comfortably…

A solid ball placed on a rotating turntable is known to roll slowly around a circular path, at a speed 3.5 times slower than the turnable itself. If the ball is located in a straight track across a diameter of the turntable, then it accelerates rapidly to the edge. Both effects were filmed in slow motion using a video camera and a cake decoration…

Providing exposure to the process and methods of science is a fundamental goal of any general education college science course. This is largely because most students taking such courses are generally "not" science majors, so they are likely to take few, if any, other science courses. Meeting this goal can be a challenge in courses such…

We discuss the limits of the equation of the period of a simple pendulum, T[subscript s] = 2[pi][square root]l/g, frequently used in high-school and university classrooms to measure the acceleration of gravity. We evaluate the relative error in determining the acceleration of gravity with this simple equation instead of a more realistic one,…