In 4 studies, the authors examined how intuitions about the relative difficulties of the sciences develop. In Study 1, familiar everyday phenomena in physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and economics were pretested in adults, so as to be equally difficult to explain. When participants in kindergarten, Grades 2, 4, 6, and 8, and college were…

Discusses why publications by Thomas Kuhn had little impact in the field of science history. (Author/CCM)

Discusses Kuhn's model of scientific theory change. Documents Kuhn's move away from conceptual relativism and rational relativism. Provides an analysis of his present ontological form of relativism. (CCM)

Chemistry is considered to be a combination of principles and facts that causes the formation of the earth and its layering that governs the ecosystem, which underlie the properties of materials and of living organisms. Laboratory classes do not help students to understand the way in which chemical principles affect their universe.

To most students entering today's biology classes, evolution is something that occurred long ago, and is therefore irrelevant to their lives. Examples of evolution that are important concerns in the modern world, such as the resistance of insects to pesticides and antibiotic resistance, do not match students' concept of evolution. In this article,…

The law of inertia is a problem in teaching due to the impossibility of showing the proposition experimentally. As we cannot do an experiment to verify the law, we cannot know if it is correct. On the other hand, we know that the science based upon it is successful. A study in the history of mechanics has shown that there are different foundations…

A playground can provide a valuable physics education laboratory. For example, Taylor et al. describe bringing teachers in a workshop to a playground to examine the physics of a seesaw and slide, and briefly suggest experiments involving a merry-go-round. In this paper, we describe an experiment performed by students from a Society of Physics…

In the usual treatment of waves in introductory courses, one begins with traveling waves and the frequency/wavelength relationship f[lambda] = v, where "v" is the wave velocity. One then makes the point about superposition and shows that two waves traveling in opposite directions can add up to a standing wave; Eq. (1) still applies. This approach…

We describe a simple undergraduate lab in which students determine how the force between two magnetic dipoles depends on their separation. We consider the case where both dipoles are permanent and the case where one of the dipoles is induced by the field of the other (permanent) dipole. Agreement with theoretically expected results is quite good.

Did you know that some strong little cylindrical magnets available in local hardware stores can have an effective circumferential current of 2500 A? This intriguing information can be obtained by hanging a pair of magnets at the center of a coil, as shown in Fig. 1, and measuring the oscillation frequency as a function of coil current.

This paper illustrates a new and practical experimental technique for studying the Doppler effect where the pitch variation of noise from a passing aircraft is used to calculate its speed.

An attention-grabbing center-of-mass demonstration uses the map of a state mounted on a sheet of heavy cardboard and cut out along the boundaries. The two-dimensional object is hung from a hole punched into a city near the edge, and a string with a pendulum bob attached to it passes through the center of mass. The process is repeated with a…

Our students like using the covers of their TI graphing calculators in an inquiry-based extension of a traditional exercise that challenges their preconceived ideas about friction. Biology major Fiona McGraw (Fig. 1) is obviously excited about the large coefficient of static friction ([mu][subscript s] = 1.3) for the four little rubber feet on her…