We have added two improvements to a self-luminous LED stroboscope (a flashing point-like projectile developed for introductory mechanics): downsizing by replacing heavy and risky batteries with a compact and safe capacitor of several Farads (a so-called Super-C) and wireless control via ordinary IR (infrared) communications. Consequently, the…

The recent works of oscillators are mainly focused on underdamped oscillation. Therefore, the writer proposes an experimental apparatus to demonstrate all types of damped harmonic oscillation. The apparatus utilizes an Arduino for data acquisition and an Excel spreadsheet for data analysis. By using this apparatus, the type of damped harmonic…

For more than 10 years, I had taught Kepler's laws and the law of universal gravity without a corresponding experiment. I sometimes remember how these topics were difficult for me in my high school days to understand. At that time, I thought that one of the reasons for my difficulty was that these phenomena cannot be visualized using physical…

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…

Dark matter makes up most of the matter in the universe but very little of a standard introductory physics curriculum. Here we present our construction and use of a spandex sheet-style gravity simulator to qualitatively demonstrate two aspects of modern physics related to dark matter. First, we describe an activity in which students explore the…