A popular introductory physics laboratory experiment is one focusing on Snell's law. This is straightforward to complete with lasers and prisms, but here we present an alternative version that guides the students through some of the major historical developments, recreating and analyzing significant experiments. The discovery of Snell's law has a…

Understanding thermal concepts constitutes one of the most important challenges in teaching science as these concepts are central to the principals of science and allow students to build connections among scientific disciplines. From an early age, students' interaction with daily phenomena and real situations comes to shape their conceptions of…

In this paper, we present a demonstration of Ohm's law on a spreadsheet. Students can perform an experiment of Ohm's law like they perform in laboratories. The only difference is that the apparatus is virtual. The students record readings of current through the circuit and potential difference across a resistor. A graph is drawn between I and V to…

Newton's law of cooling describes an object whose temperature decreases exponentially with time. Because of its many applications, it is a frequent topic of introductory physics labs. In this article, I describe an experiment designed for the freshman year algebra-based physics course that applies this law to answering the question, "Why…

The smartphone's ambient light sensor has been used in the literature to study different physical phenomena. For instance, Malus's law, which involves the polarized light, has been verified by using simultaneously the orientation and light sensors of a smartphone. The illuminance of point light sources has been characterized also using the light…

The game of baseball provides an interesting laboratory for experimenting with mechanical phenomena (there are many good examples in "The Physics Teacher," available on Professor Alan Nathan's website, and discussed in "Physics of Baseball & Softball"). We have developed a lab, for an introductory-level physics course, that…

The use of systems in many introductory courses is limited and often implicit. Modeling two or more objects as a system and tracking the center of mass of that system is usually not included. Thinking in terms of the center of mass facilitates problem solving while exposing the importance of using conservation laws. We present below three…

Undergraduate physics laboratories seldom have experiments that measure the Coriolis acceleration. This has traditionally been the case owing to the inherent complexities of making such measurements. Articles on the experimental determination of the Coriolis acceleration are few and far between in the physics literature. However, because modern…

Acommon undergraduate laboratory experience is the determination of the elastic constant of a spring, whether studying the elongation under a static load or studying the damped harmonic motion of the spring with a suspended mass. An alternative approach to this laboratory experience has been suggested by Menezes et al., aimed at studying the…

Although simple architectural structures like bridges, catwalks, cantilevers, and Stonehenge have been integral in human societies for millennia, as have levers and other simple tools, modern students of introductory physics continue to grapple with Newton's conditions for static equilibrium. As formulated in typical introductory physics…

It has been suggested that there is a need to deepen the understanding of fluid dynamics in the introductory physics course and to offer interesting experiments to do so. To address this need we have developed a laboratory experiment and the supporting analysis to demonstrate the role of viscosity and the interestingly mysterious use of…

A mirage can occur when a continuous variation in the refractive index of the air causes light rays to follow a curved path. As a result, the image we see is displaced from the location of the object. If the image appears higher in the air than the object, it is called a "superior" mirage, while if it appears lower it is called an "inferior"…

Students in introductory physics courses often don't study thermodynamics or thermodynamic events. If any thermal physics is taught in introductory courses (e.g., Physics 101 for Liberal Arts Majors), it usually involves the concepts of specific heat and various temperature scales. Seldom are the first and second laws of thermodynamics taught in…

It has been suggested that Einstein's principle of equivalence (PE) should be introduced at an early stage. This principle leads to the notion of local effective gravity, which in turn defines effective vertical and horizontal directions. Local effective gravity need not coincide with the direction of terrestrial gravity. This paper describes…

I have come to the conclusion that for high school physics classroom and laboratory experiences, simpler is better! In this paper I describe a very simple and effective lab experience that my AP students have thoroughly enjoyed year after year. I call this lab exercise "Time Trials." The experiment is simple in design and it is a lot of fun for…