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…

Here, a relatively simple laboratory experiment of a physical pendulum, suitable for students of science and engineering in the first courses of university physics, is presented to illustrate its dynamic behavior and to determine its inertia moment. To this end, a long wooden rod of length L = 99.8 cm and cross-section radius R = 1.73 cm was used…

The trajectory of a ball rolling across an inclined plane was recorded on video film to determine if it followed a parabolic path as others have suggested. The challenges in this case were (a) to determine the magnitude and direction of the friction force on the ball, (b) to determine the effect of the friction force on the trajectory and (c) to…

In one of the Faraday's experiments an electric current is induced in a conducting loop when a magnet in front of it moves towards or away from the loop. While the direction of circulation of the electric current in the loop has only two options, it depends on three experimental conditions that generate eight cases. Even though the Faraday law or…

The Arduino microcontroller is currently one of the favorite tools of makers, and many teachers have used it in teaching or experiments. In addition, light-emitting diode (LED) smart lighting is the worldwide trend in lighting. There are many teaching demonstrations or applications of color addition using LEDs. Furthermore, the Internet of Things…

In order to fix some important concepts of Fundamental Physics, either because they are not usually discussed in depth in theoretical classes and much less at laboratories, or because they are not sufficiently developed in textbooks, it is more effective not to tackle them directly, but to propose a mental or practical experiment to attract the…

Electrification by rubbing different materials is a well-known phenomenon with a history that began more than five centuries B.C. ago. However, simple experiments can lead to contradictory or inconsistent results, and the history of this phenomena is plagued with non-intuitive results. For example, triboelectric charging by rubbing identical…

Single slit diffraction and the thermal expansion of materials are common components of an undergraduate physics course, though these topics are often taught independently in both lectures and laboratory based courses. Higher levels of cognitive domains can be achieved by building on these established topics and combining them into a single…

In this work, a simple rocking pendulum, in a circular arc shape, is presented. The idea is to put a rigid arc on a clean flat surface of glass and leave it to oscillate under the effect of a little impulse. Then, the periodic time of this arc pendulum's motion is experimentally determined. The mathematical analysis of the arc's motion is derived…

For nearly two decades, augmented reality (AR) has found diverse applications in education, particularly in science education, where its efficacy has been supported by relevant theories and many empirical studies. However, previous studies have revealed the following research deficit: While AR technology appears to influence learning-related…

Although ripple tanks have been used in the past to perform wave simulations for electromagnetic and acoustic phenomena, especially before the advent of computers, they are still often used to demonstrate wave propagation in high school and college physics classrooms. Usually ripple tanks have a rectangular shape. The wave propagating through the…

Measurement uncertainty is a key topic in the university physics laboratory curriculum. In this study, we investigate students' ability to draw conclusions from measurement data and reasoning about measurement uncertainty in inquiry labs. This investigation centres around a task where students conclude whether measurements from two experiments…

Newton's laws are a ubiquitous topic in introductory physics instruction. One common problem involves asking what will happen if you stick your finger into a cup of water sitting on a scale. A way to solve the problem would be to first recognize that the water exerts a buoyant force upward on the finger, which students can recognize as being the…

In this article we present a simple experimental set-up to determine the band gap of germanium and silicon using the "ExpEYES-17" kit. The experiment is based on the temperature dependence of the reverse current through germanium and silicon diodes at different temperatures. The experimental values are found to agree well with accepted…

The ideal gas law, "PV = nRT," is one of the simplest physical laws in nature that is introduced to students as early as in high school and first year in college. In this equation, "P" stands for pressure, "V" is the volume, "n" is the amount expressed in mole, "T" is the temperature in Kelvin…