A method to determine the temperature dependence of copper wire resistance is described in this paper.

We present a general physics laboratory exercise that centres around the use of the electrocardiogram sensor as an application of circuits and electronic signal filtering. Although these topics are commonly taught in the general physics classroom, many students consider topics such as alternating current as unrelated to their future professions.…

Entertaining and educational experiments that can be conducted in a water park, illustrating physics concepts, principles and fundamental laws, are described. These experiments are suitable for students ranging from senior secondary school to junior university level. Newton's laws of motion, Bernoulli's equation, based on the…

This paper describes an interactive tool for analysis of data from the ATLAS experiment taking place at the world's highest energy particle collider at CERN. The tool, called HYPATIA/applet, enables students of various levels to become acquainted with particle physics and look for discoveries in a similar way to that of real research.

In continuation of our investigation into the buildup phenomenon appearing in gamma ray attenuation measurements in laboratory experiments we study the dependence of the buildup factor on the area of the absorber in an effort to reduce the buildup of photons. Detailed measurements are performed for up to two mean free paths of [superscript 60]Co…

Tablet computers were used as experimental tools to record and analyse the motion of a ball thrown vertically from a moving skateboard. Special applications plotted the measurement data component by component, allowing a simple determination of initial conditions and "g" in order to explore the underlying laws of motion. This experiment…

There is a popular myth that Galileo dropped two objects of the same shape but different mass, noted their equal fall time, and concluded that gravitational motion is independent of the mass of the object. This paper demonstrates that this experiment--if actually performed--most likely would have yielded a different result and thus with modern…

This paper describes a simple activity for plotting and characterizing the light curve from an exoplanet transit event by way of differential photometry analysis. Using free digital imaging software, participants analyse a series of telescope images with the goal of calculating various exoplanet parameters, including size, orbital radius and…

I describe a simple and fascinating experiment wherein helium leaks out of a rubber balloon, thereby causing it to descend. An estimate of the volumetric leakage rate is made by measuring its rate of descent.

We compare the period of oscillation of an ideal simple pendulum with the period of a more "real" pendulum constituted of a rigid sphere and a rigid slender rod. We determine the relative error in the calculation of the local acceleration of gravity if the period of the ideal pendulum is used instead of the period of this real pendulum.

The slow flow of a viscous liquid is a thought-provoking experiment that challenges students, academics and the public to think about some fundamental questions in modern science. In the Queensland demonstration--the world's longest-running experiment, which has earned the Ig Nobel prize--one drop of pitch takes about ten years to fall,…

The paper describes a set of physics demonstration experiments where thermal sensitive foils are used for the detection of the two dimensional distribution of temperature. The method is used for the demonstration of thermal conductivity, temperature change in adiabatic processes, distribution of electromagnetic radiation in a microwave oven and…

Smartphones and tablets are used as experimental tools and for quantitative measurements in two traditional laboratory experiments for undergraduate physics courses. The Doppler effect is analyzed and the speed of sound is determined with an accuracy of about 5% using ultrasonic frequency and two smartphones, which serve as rotating sound emitter…

This paper introduces the readers to simple inquiry-based activities (experiments with supporting questions) that one can do with a computer scanner to help students learn and apply the concepts of relative motion in 1 and 2D, vibrational motion and the Doppler effect. We also show how to use these activities to help students think like…

Cooking is a tangible, familiar, and delicious tool for teaching physics, which is easy to implement in a university setting. Through our courses at Harvard and UCLA, each year we are engaging hundreds of undergraduate students, primarily non-science majors, in science concepts and the scientific research process. We find that weekly lectures by…