Describes the implementation and impact of a two-semester mastery-oriented astrophysics sequence for upper-level physics/astrophysics majors designed to handle flexibly a wide range of student backgrounds. A Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) format was used fostering frequent student-instructor interaction and role-modeling behavior in…

Presents data indicating that a large number of multiple-choice problems gives a reasonable correlation with hand-graded problems. (SK)

Examines reasons for including microprocessors in school curricula. Indicates that practical work with microprocessors is not easy and discusses problems associated with using and constructing these control and processing devices of microcomputers. (SK)

Assesses the level of intellectual development in proportional, combinatorial, and correlational reasoning and the ability to control variables in beginning sophomore students (N=207) at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. Compares this level with their performance on achievement tests in mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics. (CS)

Presents data on reasoning abilities of science and non-science majors at one private, liberal arts university. Indicates that most students taking physics are formal operational or into transition to formal reasoning and that six concrete operational students dropped the course. (JN)

Describes an undergraduate experiment which uses derivative spectroscopy to investigate the validity of the Planck function appearing in the blackbody radiation law. These measurements allow a critical examination of this function and also serve as an introduction to derivative spectroscopy techniques. (Author/HM)

Describes the use of a time-sharing computer and an x-y plotter in a variation of the laboratory exercise on the physical pendulum. (HM)

An integral equation for the s-wave bound-state solution is derived and then solved for a square-well potential. It is shown that the scattering solutions continue to exist at negative energies, and when evaluated at the energy of a bound state these solutions do reduce to the bound-state solution.

When examining complex waveforms by examining oscillograms from simple resonant circuits, interpretation problems occur. These problematic oscillograms are explainable by recognizing that the typical resonant filters pass significant amounts of several harmonics adjacent to the one intended. Adjacent harmonics effects are computed; resulting…

Describes an apparatus that offers a very lucid demonstration of Poisson statistics as applied to electrical currents, and the manner in which such statistics account for shot noise when applied to macroscopic currents. The experiment described is intended for undergraduate physics students. (HM)

Describes how the problem of low enrollment of girls in physics in a British high school was treated. (HM)

The history of the sciences in America in 1880 is described as a time of considerable vitality in the disciplines of earth and life sciences. The natural scientific resources of the American continent are credited as contributing to the vitality. Pluralism of institutional support is discussed with a historical perspective. (SA)

Focuses on human information processes and problem solving. Although a large body of knowledge is prerequisite to acquiring skill, the authors state that knowledge must be indexed by patterns that guide the person in a fraction of a second to relevant parts of the knowledge store. (Author/SA)

Lists titles of articles, notes, and letters together with the names of their authors for Volume 18 of the "Physics Teacher." Classification is based upon an analysis of the contents rather than upon the titles alone. (CS)

Some simple undergraduate laboratory experiments are described, which verify the energy-momentum relationship of special relativity. These experiments have been designed either to be used as classroom demonstrations or to be carried out by second-year students. (Author/JN)