Explores the derivation of empirical models for the stopping distance of a car being driven at a range of speeds. Indicates that the calculation of stopping distances makes an excellent example of empirical modeling because it is a situation that is readily understood and particularly relevant to many first-year undergraduates who are learning or…

Students prefer to classify creatures along the criteria of habitat and locomotion (method of movement). Discusses the educational consequences for biology instruction, particularly with regard to biological taxonomy, biodiversity, and evolution. (Contains 33 references.) (Author/YDS)

Recorded reaching and looking preferences and movement kinematics among 5- to 15-month-olds divided into 3 age groups. Found that 5- to 12-month-olds preferred looking first at a large object; 8.5- to 12-month-olds showed preference for reaching to smaller (graspable) objects. Kinematic measures suggested that onset of object-oriented action…

Describes the development of Simple Projectiles Lesson And Test (SPLAT), an interactive multimedia presentation that targets students aged 16 and older and focuses on teaching the fundamental concepts of physics with a simple and exciting approach, and filling in the gaps of school physics curriculum. (YDS)

A recent study by Zara Ambadar and Jeffrey F. Cohn of the University of Pittsburgh and Jonathan W. Schooler of the University of British Columbia, examined how motion affects people's judgment of subtle facial expressions. Two experiments demonstrated robust effects of motion in facilitating the perception of subtle facial expressions depicting…

John Napier was born in 1550 in the Tower of Merchiston, near Edinburgh, Scotland. Napier's work on logarithms greatly influenced the work that was to be done in the future. The logarithm's ability to simplify calculations meant that Kepler and many others were able to find the relationships and formulas for motion of bodies. In turn, Kepler's…

The potency of heat in gases is measured by the application of a computer and the LabWorks interaction, while the speed of sound in gases is determined by an instrument called Kundt's tube. This unique and accurate procedure is repeatable, and greatly reduces data acquisition time.

Performance in 2 versions of a computer-animated task was compared. Participants either indicated the time of arrival of a target that rolled off a horizontal surface and fell--hidden from view--onto a landing point (production task) or judged flight time on a rating scale (judgment task). As predicted, performance was significantly better in the…

People frequently analyze the actions of other people for the purpose of action coordination. To understand whether such self-relative action perception differs from other-relative action perception, the authors had observers either compare their own walking speed with that of a point-light walker or compare the walking speeds of 2 point-light…

Most people probably do not remember being coached to jump, or--more important--to land. Research on landing concentrates on the impact forces associated with landing, the consequential effect on the legs, and the subsequent injury potential. There is an abundance of literature on how to create stronger and more powerful muscles, which may be…

What forms the basis of musical expressivity? The Swiss composer and music educator, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, believed that bodily processes, rhythm, and physical motion were the basis of musical expressivity and music pedagogy. We can rephrase his emphasis on the synergy between bodily and musical processes into a question: How does the body…

The discovery of the near isochrony of the simple pendulum offered the possibility of measuring time intervals more accurately than had been possible before. However,the fact that it was not strictly isochronous for all amplitudes remained a problem. The cycloidal pendulum provided this strict isochrony and, over a thirty year period from 1659 the…

Galileo changed the very concepts or categories by which natural philosophy could deal with matter and motion. Central to these changes was his introduction of time as a fundamental concept. He worked with the pendulum and with the inclined plane to discover his new concept of motion. Both of these showed him that acceleration and time were…

We begin with the pendulum and the curious authority of the expression for the period of its swing,T = 2[pi][image omitted]l/g. That this is not an empirical result--[pi]$ is an irrational number--leads to an examination of the nature of physics. In the course of things, we come to Plato's critique of poetry in "The Republic" and the fundamental…

Impaired motion perception can be induced in normal observers in a rapid serial visual presentation task. Essential for this effect is the presence of motion distractors prior to the motion target, and we proposed that this attention-induced motion blindness results from high-level inhibition produced by the distractors. To investigate this, we…