The various aspects of projectile motion have been analyzed many times in this journal. As a sample, over the years, authors have investigated particular details of the path of a projectile and different situations for launching projectiles. Others have written about a nifty way to determine the maximum height of a projectile, finding the range of…

Aristotle's wheel paradox is a fascinating example of a classical puzzle that can pique a student's interest. The existing explanations in the literature are limited to discussions of the wheel trajectory; in this paper, we study the paradox from the viewpoint of motion decomposition, an approach we consider more intuitive. The motion of the point…

Problems involving chains, cables, or ropes that are dropped, folded, or pass around pulleys attract ongoing interest, in part because they can become variable-mass situations if the chain is partitioned into sections for analysis. Less attention has been paid to trying to intentionally project the end of a string as far as possible. Here we…

Quantum science is in the news daily and engages students' interest and curiosity. A fundamental quantum science concept that underpins medical imaging, quantum computing and many future technologies is quantum spin. Quantum spin can explain many physical phenomena that are in the lower secondary school curriculum, such as magnetism and light,…

The stately fall of magnets through conducting pipes is a favorite classroom and laboratory activity used in teaching electromagnetic induction, Lenz's law, eddy currents, electromagnetic braking, and even Newton's third law. When a neodymium magnet is used, the terminal velocity is reached in just a few milliseconds as the induced eddy currents…

Kids are drawn to dolls and dump trucks, and crashing the two together might just be a child's favorite pastime. Who knew such a simple pleasure could serve as an accessible, compelling phenomenon for instigating investigations of force and motion. With a few inexpensive materials straight out of the toy box (literally, a doll, a dump truck, a…

This study explored the impact of interactive e-books on the viewing behaviors of children in science demonstrations at museums. To conduct this study, an interactive e-book on a pendulum experiment was developed and integrated into a physical science demonstration at a museum. Two scientific demonstrations were conducted in this study. The first…

Students have difficulty bridging the conceptual gap between Newtonian and relativistic physics, and, consequently, the teaching of special relativity has been discussed extensively in the literature. A comprehensive list of such references is too large to include, but a brief list is given. In this paper, the author presents several exercises,…

The classic brachistrochrone problem is standard material in intermediate mechanics. Many variations exist including some accessible to introductory students. While a quantitative solution isn't feasible in introductory classes, qualitative discussions can be very beneficial since kinematics, Newton's laws, energy conservation, and motion along…

The High Road/Low Road race is often used as a qualitative prediction activity. A marble is released simultaneously on two elevated tracks that differ only in the middle section where the Low Road dips before finishing at the same height as the High Road. Typically a minority of students correctly predict that the Low Road will finish first. In…

The ubiquitous bouncy ball, or "superball," is an engaging child's toy that has endured for more than 50 years. But what makes a bouncy ball so uniquely suited to its name? Steel balls, for example, are more highly elastic than are butadiene bouncy balls. Yet it is butadiene balls, and not steel balls, that appear in toy stores and…

Ludic-didactic material has systematically been proven to be a useful tool that enhances teaching and learning processes, at practically any educational level by reducing the stress level of students and creating a feeling of team spirit and trust. In chemistry courses, significant efforts have been made to improve the learning of intermolecular…

Problems involving rotating systems analysed from an inertial frame, without invoking fictitious forces, is something that freshman students find difficult to understand in an introductory mechanics course. In this article we try to see what could be the factors that lead to this difficulty and propose a set of arguments that could be used to…

A journey through the wonderful world of spinning tops, emphasising their practical use in both amusement, skill and as part of the physics curriculum.

Some teenagers are exploring the outer perimeter of a castle. They notice a spy hole in its wall, across the moat a horizontal distance "x" and vertically up the wall a distance "y." They decide to throw pebbles at the hole. One girl wants to use physics to throw with the minimum speed necessary to hit the hole. What is the…