Students are well aware of the effect of the deflection of sports balls when they have been given a spin. A volleyball, tennis, or table tennis ball served with topspin results in an additional downward force that makes the ball difficult to catch and return. In soccer, the effect of sidespin causes the ball to curve unexpectedly sideways,…

Helping students develop an understanding of how to interpret experimental data trends is an important part of the introductory physics laboratory. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues have lamented that too many of their students do this poorly. This is a common refrain, and past research has already revealed student difficulties with…

Describes a variation of the familiar laboratory investigation on the spring and mass oscillator. (SK)

Presents a physics lab activity in which students determine if an electrode configuration simulates a section of concentric cylinders or concentric spheres. (WRM)

Explains why one orientation of an asymmetric spring-and-mass system leads to a higher frequency of 0000000000 than another orientation. (WRM)

Discusses the history of the development of Newton's Law of Cooling. Describes an experiment conducted in the kitchen that is designed to test the rate of cooling of a hot block of iron. Finds that Newton's law does not represent very well the mechanism of heat loss. (Contains over 10 references.) (WRM)

According to historical stories, the Saxons placed a bowl with a hole in its bottom in water and used the time it took the bowl to submerge to limit orations. Describes a science activity in which students find a relationship between the diameter of the hole and the time to submergence. (WRM)

Describes an experiment that extends Newton's instantaneous-impulse method of orbital analysis to a graphical method of orbit determination. Discusses the experiment's usefulness for teaching both horizontal projectile motion and instantaneous impulse. (WRM)

Describes a simple demonstration of the flow of sand through an orifice at the bottom of a sandbox. Advocates the experiment's use with dimensional analysis for students in an introductory physics course. (WRM)

Explains how students can perform a refutation of the ether theory using information from the Global Positioning System (GPS). Discusses the functioning of the GPS, qualitatively describes how position determination would be affected by an ether wind, and illustrates the pertinent ideas with a simple quantitative model. (WRM)