If football captures the interest of students, it can be used to teach physics. In this case, a Beckham free-kick can be used to introduce concepts such as drag, the Bernoulli principle, Reynolds number, and the Magnus effect by asking the simple question: How does he curve the ball so much? Introduces basic mechanics along the way. (Author/ASK)

Describes the Physics Phones Home unit which is context-led and developed by the Supported Learning in Physics Projects. Teaches introductory magnetism; electric, magnetic and gravitational fields; and electricity and circular motion. (YDS)

Provides information to help students easily measure gravitational field strength to a few parts in 10,000, a degree of precision 1-2 orders of magnitude better than can be achieved with the simple pendulum. (CCM)

Experiments in an accelerating frame are hard to perform. Illustrates how simple computer software allows sufficiently rapid and accurate measurements to be made on an arrangement of weights and pulleys known as Atwood's machine. (Author/CCM)

These proceedings contain the papers and posters of the International Conference on e-Learning (EL) 2019, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society and co-organised by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, in Porto, Portugal, July 17-19, 2019. The EL 2019 conference aims to address the…

Compared to Ernst Mach's influence on the conceptual development of physics, his efforts to popularize science and his reflections on science literacy are known to a much lesser degree. The approach and the impact of Mach's popular scientific lectures are discussed in view of today's problems of understanding science. The key issues…

In an after-dinner talk at the fall 2005 meeting of the New England chapter of the AAPT, Professor Robert Arns drew an analogy between classical physics and Classic Coke. To generations of physics teachers and textbook writers, classical physics was the real thing. Modern physics, which in introductory textbooks "appears in one or more extra…

The bending of a laser beam in a medium with a density and refractive index gradient in the same direction has been described previously. When a transparent container is half filled with a salt or sugar solution and an equal amount of water is floated on top of it, then diffusion will create a concentration gradient from top to bottom. A laser…

There seems to be no reasonable way to measure the thickness of a narrow-mouth glass bottle. One can measure the outer and inner diameters of the mouth with a ruler or a pair of calipers and then calculate the thickness. However, this measurement might be interfered with by the threads at the mouth. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether the…

Isaac Newton may have seen an apple fall, but it was Robert Hooke who had a better idea of where it would land. No one really knows whether or not Isaac Newton actually saw an apple fall in his garden. Supposedly it took place in 1666, but it was a tale he told in his old age more than 60 years later, a time when his memory was failing and his…

In the last several years, the electronics industry has released hand generator-powered flashlights, which are advertised as the end of battery-powered flashlights. This has become possible because of recent advances in capacitor, magnet, and LED technology. Nevertheless, the physics behind these flashlights is fairly simple.

The overwhelming majority of important papers in physics are written by physicists. But the physician Julius Robert Mayer (1814-1878, see photo) did a valid theoretical calculation of the mechanical equivalent of heat just before Joule reported on his results from his well-known paddle-wheel experiments. Joule is well-known to physics people and…

One of the most known phenomena in physics is the Hall effect. This is mainly due to its simplicity and to the wide range of its theoretical and practical applications. To complete the pedagogical utility of the Hall effect in physics teaching, I will apply it here to determine the Faraday constant as a fundamental physical number and the number…

The equilibrium of a flexible inextensible string, or chain, in the centrifugal force field of a rotating reference frame is investigated. It is assumed that the end points are fixed on the rotation axis. The shape of the curve, the skipping rope curve or "troposkien", is given by the Jacobi elliptic function sn. (Contains 3 figures.)

We present a short overview on the ideas of large extra dimensions and their implications for the possible production of micro black holes in the next generation particle accelerator at CERN (Geneva, Switzerland) from this year on. In fact, the possibility of black hole production on Earth is currently one of the most exciting predictions for the…