A simple experiment is described to compare the descent time between two vertically separated points when an object slides down tracks of varying shape. A surprising result is that the descent time is shortest when it follows a circular track rather than a cycloidal track. Cycloidal tracks are usually predicted to result in the shortest descent…

Twenty nine students who had previously taken an undergraduate thermal physics course were interviewed about their basic knowledge about statistical mechanics at the undergraduate level. Of these 29, fourteen were undergraduate students, and fifteen were graduate students at varying stages of their career. This project aimed to identify and…

The Metapendulum is a combination of both the simple gravity pendulum and the spring pendulum. Both excite each another and, therefore, can be used as an example of mechanical resonance phenomena. The data of a smartphone's accelerometer can be used to record the acceleration of the pendulum during the oscillation movement. With that, the…

An atlatl or spearthrower is perhaps humanity's oldest technology for accelerating projectiles. The dynamics prior to launch of the dart projectile have been much discussed in the literature. In this article we present a simple new model of launch dynamics and show that dart flex is not an important factor in determining launch speed, but it…

Hierarchical structure and mechanics are crucial in biological systems as they allow for smaller molecules, such as proteins and sugars, to be used in the construction of large scale biological structures exhibiting properties such as structural support functionality. By exploring the fundamental principles of structure and mechanics at the…

An individual harmonic wave (i.e., having a single frequency and wavelength over all time and space) traveling in a loss-free medium has a single constant speed, which is equal to the magnitude of the phase velocity of the wave. However, when a set of different harmonic waves are traveling in the same direction, they interfere to form wave…

In recent years, there have been a number of articles published concerning whether or not potential energy ("PE") as defined in mechanics is invariant under Galilean transformation. This essay addresses that issue in a different, more fundamental and elegant way than has been done thus far. It recognizes that a considerable change in the…

Ideas about social justice are influenced by the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the worldview in which they are located. Since the seventeenth century, the dominant worldview in the western hemisphere has been shaped by the separatist and deterministic principles of classical Newtonian science. During the twentieth century, with…

This article analyzes and experimentally verifies the stability behavior of the equilibrium states of a conical pendulum. An analysis of the motion presents that the equilibrium states of the pendulum are determined by the pendulum angular speed. For a given pendulum length there exists a critical angular speed that determines stability…

Points near the top end of a falling rod hinged at its bottom end can fall faster than g. If a rod falls on a frictionless surface then the bottom end slides backwards and the centre of mass falls vertically with acceleration less than g. The effect was simulated by mounting a rod on wheels and filming the result with a video camera. The…

If a smooth ball is dropped vertically without spin on a smooth horizontal surface then one might expect the ball to bounce vertically without spin. If it does not then the centre of mass of the ball does not coincide with its geometric centre. An experiment is described where a billiard ball and a superball are deliberately biassed by adding a…

An a-posteriori multicentre reliability study was conducted to compare the reliability and magnitude of the maximum power (P[subscript max]) and optimal velocity (V[subscript opt]) between the force-power-velocity relationships during the leg cycle-ergometer and bench press throw exercises. The force-power-velocity relationships were determined in…

The overhead projector is perhaps passing out of use, but it is still a useful device with which to do lecture demonstrations. In my early years at Kenyon I was teaching the pre-med course, and found that the overhead projector was an ideal platform for showing the phenomena of polarized light. This note is a discussion of how I learned to use the…

A standard problem for physics students is to calculate or measure the acceleration of an object down an inclined plane. Additional information can be obtained by measuring the angular acceleration as well as the linear acceleration. An experiment is described where a billiard ball was filmed as it rolled down an inclined plane at different…

Many readers of this journal are probably familiar with calls from governmental, business, and educational authorities to expand and improve the preparation of science teachers, with a particular focus on the shortage of highly qualified physics teachers. It may seem as if this problem has been around forever, and in fact similar expressions of…