The author taught for years in rural high schools, where students often helped their parents out around the house or farm with chores, learning basic mechanical skills that he could then build on in class. Then the author taught in an urban high school, where student skills often centered on video games and other electronics. The author knew that…

A tippe top (see Fig. 1) is usually constructed as a truncated sphere with a cylindrical peg on top, as indicated in Fig. 2(a). When spun rapidly on a horizontal surface, a tippe top spins about a vertical axis while rotating slowly about a horizontal axis until the peg touches the surface. At that point, weight is transferred to the peg, the…

Dropping a magnet into a conductive pipe (made up of copper or brass or aluminum) is a very popular demonstration in many physics classrooms and laboratories. In this paper we present an inexpensive timer that can be used to measure the terminal velocity of the magnet falling through a conducting pipe. The timer assembly consists of Hall effect…

The paper discussed the challenges of research and human capital development in Nigeria. Research and human capital development are critical to the development of any nation. Research facilitates human capital development. A high rating in human capital development indices places a country among the leading countries of the world. The paper…

William Henry Bragg moved from Cambridge in Britain to South Australia to take up a professorship at the University of Adelaide in 1885. He brought with him a broad interest in many areas of physics, but when Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays in the 1890s, Bragg's interest was stimulated. William's Australian-born son, Lawrence (WL Bragg), began…

In this paper I propose a method of calculating the time between line captures in a standard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) webcam using the rolling shutter effect when filming a guitar. The exercise links the concepts of wavelength and frequency, while outlining the basic operation of a CMOS camera through vertical line capture.

The ripple tank is one of the physics education devices most appreciated by teachers and students. It allows one to visualize various phenomena related to wave physics in an effective and enthralling way. Usually this apparatus consists of a tank with a transparent bottom that is filled with a thin layer of water. A source of light illuminates the…

The need to increase science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates is great. To interest more students into STEM degrees, we made our graphene biosensor research portable, inexpensive, and safe to demonstrate technology development to high school students. The students increased their knowledge of biosensors and proteins, and…

During the AAPT summer meeting at Creighton University in 2011, Vacek Miglus and I took pictures of early apparatus at the Creighton physics department. The apparatus in the left-hand picture, shown with the spigot closed, appeared to be a liquid-level device: the water level was the same in both the narrow tube and the flaring glass vase.…

Usually parametric oscillations are not the topic of general physics courses. Probably it is because the mathematical theory of this phenomenon is relatively complicated, and until quite recently laboratory experiments for students were difficult to implement. However parametric oscillations are good illustrations of the laws of physics and can be…

Radiation, radiation detection and radiation protection are topics in physics and its applications which generate a wide interest in the public. This interest is either generated through medical procedures, applications of nuclear energy or nuclear accidents. The technical nature of these topics usually means that they are not well covered in the…

End-pipe corrections seldom come to mind as a suitable topic for an introductory physics lab. Yet, the end-pipe correction formula can be verified in an engaging and inexpensive lab that requires only two supplies: plastic-tube toys called boomwhackers and a meter-stick. This article describes a lab activity in which students model data from…

Electroscopes are sensitive instruments useful for investigations of static electricity. They are devices that are used for detecting whether an object is charged or uncharged. They also determine the type of charge. Their operation is based on the principle of like sign charge repulsion.

As our closest celestial neighbor, the Moon is a familiar and inspiring object to investigate using a small telescope, binoculars, or even photographs or one of the many high quality maps available online. The wondrously varied surface of the Moon--filled with craters, mountains, volcanic flows, scarps, and rilles--makes the Moon an excellent…

Planisphere is a simple and useful tool in locating constellations of the night sky at a specific time, date and geographic location. However it does not show the planet positions because planets are not fixed on the celestial sphere. It is known that the planet orbital planes are nearly coplanar and close to the ecliptic plane. By making…