Browsing the Journals

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

An article on page 101 of the February 2020 issue of The Physics Teacher (http://aapt.scitation.org/journal/pte) experimentally investigates the lift on a drone in a variety of different gases at various pressures for future applications in planetary explorations. On page 113 of the same issue, Georgios Horsch compares theory and experiment for the flow of water out of a hole in the side of a vessel including corrections for the size and shape of the orifice, and on page 119 Marc Frodyma compares motion due to a constant force in Newtonian and relativistic mechanics. In the March issue, I took note of a thermodynamic study of air in a vacuum food cylinder on page 186, and a short look at why a nearly empty shampoo bottle is so much easier to knock over than a full one on page 220. Vincent Coletta on page 244 of the April issue shows that students choose to sleep longer before final exams when shown data that doing so improves scores. Finally, a comprehensive experimental study of how a handblender immersed in a glass of water can be used to lift it is reported on page 308 of the May issue and corrects my previous hypothesis about the effect. Much of the May issue is devoted to articles dealing with gender issues in physics education.

Mark Denny provides an overall method of solution for all falling chain problems (sliding through a hole in a table or onto a floor, a folded chain released from one end, and chain fountains) on page 94 of the February 2020 issue of the American Journal of Physics (http://aapt.scitation.org/journal/ajp). John Milsom discusses a charging capacitor in relation to the conduction and displacement currents on page 194 of the March issue. The June issue has an article on page 475 that treats the steady-state shape of the free surface of water spinning in containers of various shapes. Also Robert Ross presents a simulation of Mermin’s three-switch two-light EPR quantum apparatus on page 483 of the same issue.

The flapping motion of a coin placed over the opening of a frozen bottle is analyzed in article 025105 of the March 2020 issue of the European Journal of Physics. Douglas Mundarain considers how to renormalize away the infinities that appear in the electrostatic potential of infinite wires and disks in article 035205 of the May issue. Article 035804 of the same issue models a frying pan with a lid as a Helmholtz resonator to explain the change in the frying sound as the lid is opened and closed. The journal can be accessed online starting at http://iopscience.iop.org/journalList.

The geyser produced when Mentos candies are dropped into a bottle of Diet Coke is investigated at various altitudes above sea level on page 980 of the April 2020 issue of the Journal of Chemical Education. An article on page 1026 of the same issue discusses an Excel spreadsheet to solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation using a finite-difference algorithm, and another on page 1195 investigates the demonstration of placing an inverted beaker over a burning candle standing in a container of water. The journal archives are at http://pubs.acs.org/loi/jceda8.

Article 4307 in the December 2019 issue of the Latin-American Journal of Physics Education (http://www.lajpe.org/) presents a comprehensive analysis of the oscillations of Newton’s cradle, including stress-strain relations, viscoelastic dissipation, air drag, and other effects.

The October–December 2019 issue of Physics Education (India) at http://www.physedu.in/ has an article discussing the possibilities for interstellar travel. After reviewing the history of space exploration, relativistic acceleration, and the rocket equation, various concepts are proposed such as chemical, nuclear, anti-matter, hydrogen scoop, solar sail, particle beam, and bomb propulsion mechanisms.

The wanderings of earth’s magnetic poles are discussed on page 363 of the March 2020 issue of Resonance. Using the angle of minimum deviation to measure refractive index is reviewed on page 579 of the April issue. These articles can be freely accessed at http://www.ias.ac.in/listing/issues/reso.

Article 010112 in Physical Review Physics Education Research at https://journals.aps.org/prper/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.010112 investigates student difficulties with noninertial frames of reference as they try to predict the trajectory of a ball rolling on a rotating disk. Article 013101 at https://journals.aps.org/prper/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.16.013101 suggests that students may learn more from online than live lecture demonstrations, in part because contrasting cases can be quickly shown back-to-back, slow motion is more easily displayed, and whiteboarding explanations can be presented and animated.

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.