We have designed an exercise suitable for a lab or project in an undergraduate physical chemistry course that creates a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to calculate the energy of the S[subscript 0] ground electronic state and the S[subscript 1] and T[subscript 1] excited states of H[subscript 2]. The spreadsheet calculations circumvent the…

In this paper, we describe animations and animated visualizations for introductory and intermediate-level quantum mechanics instruction developed at the University of St Andrews. The animations aim to help students build mental representations of quantum mechanics concepts. They focus on known areas of student difficulty and misconceptions by…

Mainly used in the 1960s, bubble chambers played a major role in particle physics. Now replaced with modern electronic detectors, we believe they remain an important didactic tool to introduce particle physics as they provide visual, appealing and insightful pictures. Sadly, this rare type of detector is mostly accessible through open-door events…

We introduce a computer exercise that bridges spectroscopy and thermodynamics using statistical mechanics and the experimental data taken from the commonly used laboratory exercise involving the rotational-vibrational spectrum of HCl. Based on the results from the analysis of their HCl spectrum, students calculate bulk thermodynamic properties…