Experiments involving RC circuits are an integral part of introductory physics courses. Previous articles using RC circuits describe determining the charge on a Van de Graaff generator, measuring currents and voltages in a charging RC circuit using a multimeter or an Arduino, measuring the decay constants of complex RC circuits, and using the…

The early 20th century marked a number of transformational experimental and theoretical discoveries in physics. Among them is one that is often neglected in the introductory physics curriculum, which revolutionized our understanding of the molecular world. Evidence for the thermal motions of atoms was first observed by Perrin in 1909, which had…

The electric field inside a uniformly charged long cylindrical shell is a standard example discussed in introductory university physics. The field is zero inside the cylinder; outside of the cylinder, the field behaves like a long wire at the center carrying the same amount of charge per unit length, analogous to that of a uniformly charged…

Science does not belong to just one civilization, one culture, one country, or one gender; it belongs to all who want to unfold the mysteries of nature. Most scientists agree that science currently is, and indeed always has been, international and multicultural in character. Our teaching at all levels should reflect this multiculturalism as part…

The question of the sources of electric and magnetic fields and their causes has been discussed extensively in the literature over the last decades. In this article, we approach this problem from the unified treatment of electromagnetic fields emphasizing the role of their sources in accordance with the cause-effect relationships. First, we…

Of all the conceivable ideal-gas processes, almost all introductory physics textbooks as well as more advanced texts on thermodynamics emphasize only four: isochoric, isobaric, isothermal, and adiabatic (isentropic). These are processes in which a state variable--volume, pressure, temperature, or entropy--remains constant. It turns out that these…

Measurement uncertainty is an important topic in the undergraduate laboratory curriculum. Previous research on student thinking about experimental measurement uncertainty has focused primarily on introductory-level students' procedural reasoning about data collection and interpretation. In this paper, we extended this prior work to study…

Quantitative literacy---the use of mathematics to describe and understand the world---is an essential skill. Physics has an opportunity to contribute to how students develop quantitative literacy, as much of physics curriculum centers on making sense of quantitative models. One facet of quantitative literacy in physics is covariational reasoning:…

Textbooks play a fundamental role in teaching and learning in school science classrooms. In this paper, we investigate the presentation of the nature of the electromagnetic field in a dozen of the world's most popular introductory university physics textbooks. We analyze, from an epistemologically based teaching approach, the didactic treatment of…

The Young-Laplace (Y-L) equation relates the pressure difference across the interface of two fluids (such as air and water) to the curvature of the interface. The pressure rises on crossing a convex interface such as a rain drop and falls on crossing a concave interface such as the meniscus of water in a glass capillary. The relation between…

Interactive classroom demonstrations (ICDs) are used extensively in physics, and prior studies indicate that, when conducted under certain conditions, they lead to appreciable increases in student gains and retention. The literature suggests that the ICD recipe for maximizing student gain is to (i) introduce the physical theory that will be…

Diffraction refers to a kind of optical phenomena which occurs when light approaches an element (object or aperture) whose features are in the range of the illuminating wavelength (small apertures, sharp edges). It can be explained by means of the undulatory nature of light or also geometrically by using simple ray optics. Diffraction phenomena…

The Young's two-slits experiment is arguably one of the most famous and beautiful experiments in physics. In introductory physics labs the experiment is almost exclusively carried out using a laser, and it is introduced this way in some introductory physics textbooks. In the case of laser illumination, light passes directly through the slits and…

As introductory physics courses increasingly focus on student engagement, the use of Learning Assistants (LAs) has increased. LAs and other instructors need to have sufficient PCK to effectively guide student learning. Our goal was to research LAs observed PCK in the classroom and to develop a set of questions to assess LAs' PCK. Our research…

We use a validated conceptual multiple-choice survey instrument focusing on thermodynamic processes and the first and second laws of thermodynamics at the level of introductory physics to investigate the problem-property dependence of introductory and advanced student responses to introductory thermodynamics problems after traditional…