For research areas to advance, researchers are required to carry out studies that are in line with the inadequacies in the field and to have a grasp of the studies in the field. One of the most important means of identifying inadequacies in a field is to review studies between certain years. In this sense, it is important to analyze the…

A Genecon is an inexpensive hand-cranked dc electric generator. You can use it to charge a one-farad supercapacitor. If you stop cranking the handle, the capacitor will discharge, sending a current into the Genecon and thereby causing the handle to start turning as an electric motor. How does the current direction compare before and after you stop…

Three simple experiments are described using a small water bottle with two holes in the side of the bottle. The main challenge is to predict and then explain the observations, but the arrangements can also be used for quantitative measurements concerning hydrostatic pressure, Bernoulli's equation, surface tension and bubble formation.

In this paper we present a novel way to demonstrate the Hall effect and study some of its main properties using basic materials and easily obtainable measuring devices.

Water has the unusual property that it expands on freezing, so that ice has a specific gravity of 0.92 compared to 1.0 for liquid water. The most familiar demonstration of this property is ice cubes floating in a glass of water. A more dramatic demonstration is the ice bomb shown in Fig. 1. Here a cast iron flask is filled with water and tightly…

I think most physics teachers would agree that two important components of a proper solution to a numerical physics problem are to first figure out a final symbolic solution and to only plug in numbers in the end. However, in spite of our best efforts, this is not what the majority of students is actually doing. Instead, they tend to plug numbers…

A spinning top or a spinning hard-boiled egg is fascinating to observe since both objects can remain upright for a relatively long time without falling over. If spun at sufficient speed on a horizontal surface, the spin axis rises to a vertical position and the bottom end tends to remain fixed in position on the surface. If the initial spin is…

In this project, a method that had been developed using a single setup was employed to correctly measure the tilt of the Earth's axis on 21 June 2015. The method is an easily comprehensible and applicable technique that can be used in elementary science and astronomy courses and understood by students of every age group.

Energy and entropy are two of the most important concepts in science. For all natural processes where a system exchanges energy with its environment, the energy of the system tends to decrease and the entropy of the system tends to increase. Free energy is the special concept that specifies how to balance the opposing tendencies to minimize energy…

The goal of this paper is to make more widely known an eye-catching demonstration experiment in which a hanging conducting can is made to spin when placed near the iron core of an Elihu Thomson "jumping ring" apparatus. An explanation is given based on Faraday's law of induced voltages and the magnetic forces due to the core's fields…

The concept of curved space is not readily observable in everyday life. The educational movie "Sphereland" attempts to illuminate the idea. The main character, a hexagon, has to go to great lengths to prove that her world is in fact curved. We present an experiment that demonstrates a new way to determine if a two-dimensional surface,…

Rotational motion is ubiquitous in nature, from astronomical systems to household devices in everyday life to elementary models of atoms. Unlike the tangential velocity vector that represents the instantaneous linear velocity (magnitude and direction), an angular velocity vector is conceptually more challenging for students to grasp. In physics…

Recently, I was tasked with the creation and execution of a new themed general education physics class called The Physics of Warfare. In the past, I had used the theme of a class, such as the physics of sports medicine, as a way to create homework and in-class activities, generate discussions, and provide an application to demonstrate that physics…

Over the last decade, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) have been recognized as a way to improve undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education by engaging students in authentic discovery. CUREs have been shown to have positive benefits similar to traditional undergraduate research experiences;…

More progress is needed to achieve equity in racial and gender representation in the push to diversify the physical sciences. In order to continue moving towards representation and equity, there is a need for more analytic tools that can help us understand where we are and how we got here. This may also enable meaningful systemic change. In this…