Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Spring 2015 Joint Meeting of the Texas Section of the AAPT, Texas Section of the APS and Zone 13 of the Society of Physics Students
Volume 60, Number 2
Thursday–Saturday, March 5–7, 2015; Baytown, Texas
Session F1: AAPT - Teaching Curricular Approaches, Topics, Labs and Others II |
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Chair: Joe Musser, Stephen F. Austin State University Room: Tucker Hall Auditorium |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 10:00AM - 10:24AM |
F1.00001: Physics of Model Rockets: From small to big Dwain Desbien This talk will discuss the physics of model rockets from Estes size up to O sized motors. Pics, video and analysis of flight data will be included. Additionally ideas on how you can incorporated rockets into your physics classes will be shared. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 10:24AM - 10:36AM |
F1.00002: What is epistemology and why should you care? Erin Scanlon Recent studies (May and Etkina, 2001; Lising and Elby, 2003; Sahin, 2009; Ding, 2014) have shown that students' personal epistemology can affect student conceptual learning and course grades in physics. But rarely in talks or conversation is the term epistemology defined clearly in relation to the physics classroom. In this talk I will define epistemology, discuss several theoretical frameworks related to personal epistemology, and describe why knowing about students' epistemologies can impact both teaching and learning in physics classrooms. The Epistemological Beliefs and Epistemological Resources framework will be discussed as well as assessments related to their frameworks and suggestions for classroom instructions. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 10:36AM - 10:48AM |
F1.00003: Solar peak color in human eye Lianxi Ma There are two forms of Wien's displacement law that can be derived from Planck's equation. They are: $\lambda_{m} T=\mbox{constant}$ (1) and $\frac{f_{m} }{T}=\mbox{constant}$- (2) Suppose that we have known a black body's temperature, then $\lambda_{\mathrm{m}}$ and $f_{\mathrm{m}}$ can be obtained from Eqs. (1) and (2). For example, the Sun's surface temperature, $T \quad =$ 5778 K, then according to Eq. (1) $\lambda _{\mathrm{m}} \quad =$ 500 nm which is green; but according to Eq. (2) $f_{\mathrm{m}} \quad =$ 3.40 $\times$ 10$^{\mathrm{14}}$ Hz which is near-infrared. While the inequality $\lambda_{m} f_{m} \ne c$ can be explained mathematically by substituting $\lambda f=c$ into Planck's radiation function, the question lingers: what color of sun light ``really'' peaks in human eye? The answer is that Planck's function, or Wien's law, can't answer this question. Planck's function, $I(\lambda )$, or $I(f)$, is the radiation intensity per $d\lambda $ (meter) or $df$ (Hz) and, $d\lambda $ and $df$don't have same interval. For a spectrometer, it peaks at green if $\lambda $ changes evenly; peaks at near-infrared if $f $changes evenly. For human eye, its peak's location depends on $I(\lambda )$, or $I(f)$, and, how much each type of cone is excited. We can naively represent any color as a triplet of numbers: (red, green, blue), where each is the degree to which the associated type of cone is excited. Then $\mbox{red}=\int {d\lambda I(\lambda )S_{r} (\lambda )} =\int {dfI(f)S_{r} (f)} $ -(3) where $S_{r} (\lambda )$/$S_{r} (\lambda )$ is the sensibility of red cone. For green and blue we have same equations. Then the peak is determined by the value of integral. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 10:48AM - 11:00AM |
F1.00004: Gravitational Dispersion in a Torsional Wave Machine Rafael de la Madrid We demonstrate that mechanical waves traveling in a torsional, mechanical wave machine exhibit dispersion due to gravity and the discreteness of the medium. We also show that although the dispersion due to discreteness is negligible, the dispersion due to gravity can be easily measured, and can be shown to disappear in a zero-gravity environment. These results have been obtained in collaboration with Mr. Alejandro Gonzalez and Dr. George Irwin, and they have been included in a paper published by the American Journal of Physics [Am. J. Phys. 82, 1134 (2014)] [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 11:00AM - 11:12AM |
F1.00005: Death By Powerpoint Stephanie Ingle Spice up your presentations! Powerpoint has many features other than just to present words and pictures however most powerpoint presentations used in class are exactly that. Students stare blindly at the screen, pretend to listen or just play on their computers, tablets, or phones while the instructor goes on passionately about the topic of the day. As we evolve our teaching strategies to engage students at a higher level, implement current technologies, and relate topics to the students' everyday lives, why are we still just showing words and pictures? Explore the possibilities of powerpoint as well as some other presentation tools to increase student engagement during lecture. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 11:12AM - 11:24AM |
F1.00006: Reasons for MATLAB's Popularity and ``Targeted to Audience'' Textbooks Jim Sizemore MATLAB For Dummies coauthor will present the reasons behind the programming language MATLAB becoming widely adopted in science and engineering. Examples will include symbolic linear equation solving, nonlinear differential equation solving, and fluid dynamics. The Dummies series has also achieved wide adoption due to a presentation style, content choice, and content quantity relevant to getting beginners up to speed in the subject quickly while avoiding excess that overwhelms people. This ``Goldilocks'' style of the Dummies series will be discussed as it pertains to textbook writing. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 11:24AM - 11:36AM |
F1.00007: Surface Charge in Electrostatics and Circuits Bruce Sherwood In electrostatics and in circuits, charge buildups on the surfaces of conductors contribute to the electric field inside and outside of the conductors. A relaxation method based on field was used to compute the surface charge distributions in 3D for a number of interesting configurations, using Python with the Numpy vectorization library. These distributions and the associated fields can be explored interactively with a GlowScript/VPython program at glowscript.org/\#/user/Bruce\_Sherwood/folder/MI4e/program/18-SurfaceCharge. The talk will highlight some of the interesting features of these charge distributions. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, March 7, 2015 11:36AM - 11:48AM |
F1.00008: Computational Modeling for Electric Fields and Force in the Introductory Physics Lab Thomas O'Kuma VPython (http://vpython.org) is a 3D programming language that enable students to fairly quickly create physics situations that help them visualize what is happening in a 2D or 3D world. In this presentation, I will discuss why and how I am using VPython for some of my calculus-based physics electric field and force laboratory activities. I will also show some student generated results. [Preview Abstract] |
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