Browsing the Journals

Carl Mungan, United States Naval Academy
mungan@usna.edu

Ricardo Kam reviews four introductory explanations about why quantum mechanics requires complex numbers on page 39 of the January 2020 issue of the American Journal of Physics (http://aapt.scitation.org/journal/ajp). An article on page 51 of the same issue explores different methods of deriving the relationship between the isobaric and isochoric heat capacities.

Jean Farago analyzes an interesting calculus of variation problem from a science fiction story in article 065003 of the November 2019 issue of the European Journal of Physics. It involves traversing a set of parallel walkways moving at progressively increasing speeds. The Leidenfrost effect is studied by video analysis in article 065101 of the same issue. Article 065003 in the November 2019 issue of Physics Education presents three apparently paradoxical problems involving masses connected by springs. Articles 065008 and 065009 in the same issue respectively examine scissors cutting at superluminal speeds and road mirages. John Campbell presents some interesting historical commentary in article 066501 about Rutherford scattering. Articles 015006 and 015007 in the January 2020 issue discuss the evolution in the geometry of solar cells over time and the trapping of dye in a vortex above a magnetic stirrer in a liquid. Ivanov and Nikolov challenge the conventional atmospheric pressure explanation for the breaking of a struck stick projecting beyond the edge of a table when the portion on the table is covered with a sheet of newspaper in article 015014. Both journals can be accessed online starting at http://iopscience.iop.org/journalList.

Bhattacharyya and Dawlaty discuss the connection between the thermodynamic and statistical mechanics definitions of entropy on page 2208 of the October 2019 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. In a letter on page 2352 of the same issue, Jerry Bell argues that heating a plastic cube filled with carbon dioxide by a sunlamp to demonstrate the atmospheric greenhouse effect is flawed. (Also see the follow-up reply and correction articles.) An article on page 2553 of the November issue discusses the formation of interference rings by heating when a laser is incident on a dye-doped liquid or polymer. The journal archives are at http://pubs.acs.org/loi/jceda8.

Article 1305 in the March 2019 issue of the Latin-American Journal of Physics Education (http://www.lajpe.org/) analyzes the demo of two stacked balls dropped from a height when the two balls are initially obliquely aligned with each other.

The November 2019 issue of Resonance has an article on page 1235 discussing Bertrand’s theorem, which states that only the Kepler and simple harmonic oscillator potentials give rise to closed orbits for central forces. The December issue has articles on pages 1439 and 1445 that respectively consider how to experimentally measure Fermi energies and the math problem of burning ropes to measure time intervals. These articles can be freely accessed at http://www.ias.ac.in/listing/issues/reso.

Article 1950014 in the Dec. 2019 issue of The Physics Educator presents logic gate circuits constructed using relays and light bulbs. Article 1920009 in the same issue explores deficiencies in typical explanations of why electric power is transmitted across long-distance cables at high voltages. The journal homepage is at https://www.worldscientific.com/worldscinet/tpe.

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.