We believe that a natural focus of the physics education research community is on understanding and improving students' learning in our physics courses. Due to the increase in technology, we can bring laboratory experiments closer to our students. It is necessary to update our laboratories technologically to get closer to the world in which our…

Measuring the "e/m" ratio is a classic experiment in the physics curriculum. We show that smartphones can reliably measure the magnetic field strengths involved. Moreover, phone cameras and the image-processing software Tracker can make determining the charge-to-mass ratio of the electron more accurate.

To help engage non-physics majors in a General Physics II (Electricity & Magnetism) course at the University of Indianapolis, students used their smartphones to detect magnetic fields on campus in a semester-long data collection project. This paper discusses details about the design of the project, previous studies that utilize smartphones for…

The use of smartphones in experimental physics is by now widely accepted and documented. PASCO scientific's smart cart, in combination with student-owned smartphones and free apps, has opened up a new universe of low-cost experiments that have traditionally required cumbersome and expensive equipment. In this paper we demonstrate the simplicity,…

Light polarization, which is the direction of electromagnetic field oscillation, provides information that is highly different from that of spectral and intensity images and thus can enhance various fields of optical metrology. Polarization imaging can be also used by combining polarization and imaging, thereby providing polarization and spatial…

Here we present an inexpensive proposal to experimentally study Faraday's law of induction. The experiment uses low-cost materials, a computer with a sound card and a smartphone, both running free software. A value proportional to the induced electromotive force is measured with the computer's sound card and the data related to the magnetic field…

Described is an established geophysics project to construct a solar wind monitor based on a nT resolution fluxgate magnetometer. Low-cost and appropriate from school to university level it incorporates elements of astrophysics, geophysics, electronics, programming, computer networking and signal processing. The system monitors the earth's field in…

A magnetic linear accelerator (or Gauss accelerator) is a device that uses the conversion of magnetic energy into kinetic energy to launch an object with high velocity. A simple experimental implementation consists of a line of steel spheres in which the first one is a permanent magnetic sphere. If another steel ball collides with the magnetic…

The angular velocity of a spinning object is, by standard, measured using a device called a tachometer. However, by directly using it in a classroom setting, the activity is likely to appear as less instructive and less engaging. Indeed, some alternative classroom-suitable methods for measuring angular velocity have been presented. In this paper,…

With a belief in the need for a reform in education that prepares students for life, work, and citizenship in a globalized economy, leaders were determined to connect students across the district, state, country, and globe in global collaborative STEM projects. These projects were aligned to the standards but also afforded students the opportunity…

This work deals with the experimental demonstration of coupled oscillators using simple tools in the form of mechanical coupled pendulums, magnetically coupled elastic strings or electromagnetic oscillators. For the evaluation of results the data logger Lab Quest Vernier and video analysis in the Tracker program were used. In the first part of…

A low-cost chaos dynamics lab is developed for quantitative demonstration of the butterfly effect using a magnetic pendulum. Chaotic motion is explored by recording magnetic time series. Students analyze the data in Excel® to investigate the butterfly effect as well as the reconstruction of the strange attractor using time delay plots. The lab…

This paper focuses on the use of software developed by the authors that allows the visualization of the motion of a charged particle under the influence of magnetic and electric fields in 3D, at a level suitable for introductory physics courses. The software offers the possibility of studying a great number of physical situations that can…

The paper presents an interactive module created through the Wolfram Demonstrations Project that visualizes the Zeeman effect for the small magnetic field strengths present in the interstellar medium. The paper provides an overview of spectral lines and a few examples of strong and weak Zeeman splitting before discussing the module in depth.…

Undergraduate courses in electrical machines often include an introduction to their magnetic circuits and to the various magnetic materials used in their construction and their properties. The students must learn to be able to recognize and compare the permeability, saturation, and losses of these magnetic materials, relate each material to its…