The year 2014 marked the four-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Galileo's birth, making it the perfect occasion to present and illustrate a GeoGebra applet which reproduces some of Galileo's celebrated experiments on the uniformly accelerated motion, as reported on in "Discourses and Mathematical Demonstrations Relating to Two New…

Data collection is a fundamental skill in science education, one that students generally practice in a controlled setting using equipment only available in the classroom laboratory. However, using smartphones with their built-in sensors and often free apps, many fundamental experiments can be performed outside the laboratory. Taking advantage of…

Video analysis with a 30 Hz frame rate is the standard tool in physics education. The development of affordable high-speed-cameras has extended the capabilities of the tool for much smaller time scales to the 1 ms range, using frame rates of typically up to 1000 frames s[superscript -1], allowing us to study transient physics phenomena happening…

Carrying out classroom experiments that demonstrate Boyle's law and Gay-Lussac's law can be challenging. Even if we are able to conduct classroom experiments using pressure gauges and syringes, the results of these experiments do little to illuminate the kinetic theory of gases. However, molecular dynamics simulations that run on computers allow…

The use of a microcomputer as the basis of a multichannel analyzer (MCA) system is described. Principles of microcomputer MCA, choice of microcomputer, input-output port, data display, MCA program, and interrupt routine (with flowchart) are the topic areas considered. (JN)

Describes a microcomputer-controlled system which determines the current/voltage characteristics of a resistor, lamp, and diode, detailing system elements, construction, and providing printout of the program developed to provide control and arithmetic functions necessary to complete the experiment. (SK)

Microprocessor-based student experiments are described, including flowcharts of a typical program for time interval measurement and experimental and measurement subroutines. (JN)

Describes an undergraduate laboratory experiment in which a moving coil galvanometer is studied and the electromotive force generated by the swinging coil provides the impulse response information in a form suitable for digitizing and inputing to a microcomputer. Background information and analysis of typical data are included. (JN)

Describes: (1) two experiments using a laser (resonant cavity for light and pinhole camera effect with a hologram); (2) optical differaction patterns displayed by microcomputer; and (3) automating the Hall effect (with comments on apparatus needed and computer program used); and (4) an elegant experiment in mechanical equilibrium. (JN)

Describes apparatus, computer program (for Apple II), and procedures used in an experiment to determine the velocity of sound in air. In addition, the experiment focuses on the attention required in calibrating equipment and the measuring of both long distances and very short time intervals. (JN)

Describes the Interactive Microcomputer Peripheral (including major features, source, and current cost) and physics experiments using the instrument. The instrument can also be used for such purposes as counting, timing, and frequency measurement as well as for experiments in biology and experimental psychology. (JN)