Describes recent improvements and changes in the sequence and substance of offerings in a natural philosophy and physics degree course. (GA)

Describes an undergraduate course, The Colonization of Space, which introduces nonscience majors at the University of North Florida to current topics in the exploration, industrialization, and colonization of space. References to the audiovisual resources and literature are also included. (HM)

Presents a laboratory experiment that was developed to acquaint physics students with field-effect transistor characteristics and circuits. Computer-drawn curves supplementing student laboratory exercises can be generated to provide more permanent, usable data than those taken from a curve tracer. (HM)

Presents brief notes on new ideas, equipment, techniques, or materials of interest to teachers of physics. An apparatus that demonstrates the uniform acceleration of gravity, and a simple way to demonstrate nuclear blocking patterns of crystal lattices are among new ideas presented. (HM)

The findings of Piaget suggest that learning physics can help people achieve a series of four distinct but overlapping stages of intellectual growth as they search for patterns and relationships. (MLH)

Describes an interdisciplinary course on physics and history. The major goal of the course is to examine and compare history and physics in order to illuminate the implicit assumptions underlying the two disciplines. (MLH)

Describes how student responses to 26 bipolar adjectives describing laboratory studies are used at a New Zealand university to modify the content of laboratory experiments in physics. (MLH)

Reviews the evolution of semiconductor electronics, shows how it served and was strengthened by space and defense missions; discusses how new enterprises formed as semiconductor electronics developed. (MLH)

Discusses the goals and methodologies of several types of physics-and-society courses, citing content, disciplinary costs, and advantages to the student. (MLH)

Discusses two types of science-and-society courses: (1) those that examine little scientific subject matter, instead concentrating on political and sociological problems; and (2) those that give an overview of the achievements of modern scientific inquiry. (MLH)

Describes a presentation of basic quantum mechanics for nonscience majors that relies on a computer-generated graphic display to circumvent the usual mathematical difficulties. It allows a detailed treatment of free-particle motion in a wave picture. (MLH)

Presents a comparison of attitudes toward physics and chemistry by 300 eleventh and twelfth grade students. Attitudes toward chemistry were more positive than towards physics; chemistry was considered less masculine, and physics was considered more important. (SL)

Discusses the contributions made by the field of quantum electrodynamics to the understanding of positroniums. (MLH)

Discusses the idea of confined quarks or partons as constituents of the elementary particles was already present in the Greek atomic theory. (MLH)

Mathematical abilities at the beginning of a physics course weakly correlate with performance in the course. (MLH)