One of the most profound qualities of science is its potential to transform and enrich students' experiences with the world. In prior work, I have conceptualized this quality of science in the construct of transformative experience. In order to illustrate the difference between transformative and nontransformative experience, this article presents…

This paper describes an interactive modelling, simulation, animation, and real-time control (MoSART) environment for a class of 'cart-pendulum' electromechanical systems that may be used to enhance learning within differential equations and linear algebra classes. The environment is useful for conveying fundamental mathematical/systems concepts…

Einstein, who had already developed the light-quantum theory, knew the inadequacy of Maxwell's theory in the microscopic sphere. Therefore, in writing his paper on special relativity, he had to set up the light-velocity postulate independently of the relativity postulate in order to make the electromagnetic foundation of physics compatible with…

When identifying instruments that have had great influence on the history of physics, none comes to mind more quickly than the pendulum. Though first treated scientifically by Galileo in the 16th century, and in some respects nearly "dead" by the middle of the 20th century; the pendulum experienced "rebirth" by becoming an archetype of chaos. With…

The simple pendulum is a model for the linear oscillator. The usual mathematical treatment of the problem begins with a differential equation that one solves with the techniques of the differential calculus, a formal process that tends to obscure the physics. In this paper we begin with a kinematic description of the motion obtained by experiment…

Recent research into signed languages indicates that signs may share some properties with gesture, especially in the use of space in classifier constructions. A prediction of this proposal is that there will be similarities in the representation of motion events by sign-naive gesturers and by native signers of unrelated signed languages. This…

The authors demonstrate that the timing and sequencing of target durations require low-level timing and executive control. Sixteen young (M-sub(age) = 19 years) and 16 older (M-sub(age) = 70 years) adults participated in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1, individual mean-variance functions for low-level timing (isochronous tapping) and the sequencing…

During locomotion, retinal flow, gaze angle, and vestibular information can contribute to one's perception of self-motion. Their respective roles were investigated during active steering: Retinal flow and gaze angle were biased by altering the visual information during computer-simulated locomotion, and vestibular information was controlled…

To demonstrate how Newton's first law of motion applies to students' everyday lives, the author developed a learning cycle series of activities on inertia. The discrepant event at the heart of these activities is sure to elicit wide-eyed stares and puzzled looks from students, but also promote critical thinking and help bring an abstract concept…

The persistence of students' misconceptions about motion illustrates the enormous difficulty that teachers face in their attempts to overcome these with traditional physics instruction. An understanding of students' ideas about motion and ways to incorporate them into successful instructional approaches can be obtained from an analysis of…

This article examines an amusing application of the concept of kinetic energy. Using some rudimentary physical notions, we have analysed the energetics of the motion of Santa Claus. The results, which are quite surprising, can be of interest to high school and early college physics educators when they teach kinetic energy, and energy conservation…

Observers' judgments of the final position of a moving target are typically shifted in the direction of implied motion ("representational momentum"). The role of attention is unclear: visual attention may be necessary to maintain or halt target displacement. When attention was captured by irrelevant distractors presented during the retention…

The reliability of a laser system was compared with the reliability of a video-based kinematic analysis in measuring displacement and velocity during running. Validity and reliability of the laser on static measures was also assessed at distances between 10 m and 70 m by evaluating the coefficient of variation and intraclass correlation…

A simple circuit problem treating an inductor, resistor and battery in series has uncovered a basic misconception of first-year students. The misconception is not about circuits or electrical properties but concerns rather the meaning and interpretation of the rate of change (instantaneous slope or derivative) of physical quantities. Resolving the…

In this paper, a method to get the best representation of a speech motion from several repetitions is presented. Each repetition is a representation of the same speech captured at different times by sequence of ultrasound images and is composed of a set of 2D spatio-temporal contours. These 2D contours in different repetitions are time aligned…