This paper describes an attempt to facilitate students' learning of scientific concepts by using detectors that take as input physical information and output an instantiation of the concept. The principle hypothesis was that students would have a better understanding of the concept of image if they were taught to use a simplified, runnable model…

Discusses the theory and experimental procedures for using Young's eriometer to determine the diameters of blood corpuscles, lycopodium powder, and wool fibers. (CC)

Describes use of a Fresnel biprism to demonstrate double-slit interference with polarized light. Discusses polarization and phase properties of a randomly polarized gas. (JM)

Discusses the production and structure of a sequence of optical crystals which can serve as one-, two-, and three-dimensional diffraction plates to illustrate diffraction patterns by using light rather than x-rays or particles. Applications to qualitative presentations of Laue theory at the secondary and college levels are recommended. (CC)