Volume 56 Issue 2, February 2018

The Physics Teacher

This month's cover features two naturally occurring heart shapes, an acoustic cardioid tucked inside a fractal valentine. The latter image, the Mandelbrot set in vivid red and black, is by Matthias Hauser (Fine Art America: https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/matthias-hauser.html);for more about the former, see Visualizing Sound Directivity via Smartphone Sensors by Scott H. Hawley and Robert E. McClain Jr.

 

 

Letters to the Editor

Encouraging women in STEM: What is a teacher to do? by Marianna Ruggerio. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021425

You gotta be kidding by Howard C. Hayden. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021426

Energy transfer by a wave transmitted from one nondissipative system to another by Carl Mungan. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021427

Mishra’s response by Subodha Mishra. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021428

Columns

And the Survey Says..., Figuring Physics, iPhysicsLabs, Little Gems,  Astronotes, Physics Challenge for Teachers and Students, Fermi Questions, Talkin' Physics, Technology in the Classroom, Visual Physics, and Websights.

Papers

Two-Dimensional Light Diffraction from an EPROM Chip by Tom Ekkens. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021429

Visualizing Sound Directivity via Smartphone Sensors by Scott H. Hawley, and Robert E. McClain Jr. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021430

A Fan-tastic Quantitative Exploration of Ohm’s Law by Brandon Mitchell, Robert Ekey, Roy McCullough, and William Reitz. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021431

Backpack Weight and the Scaling of the Human Frame – II by Michael J. O’Shea. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021432

The Indeterminate Case of Classical Static Friction When Coupled with Tension by Kenneth D. Hahn, and Jacob M. Russell. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021433

Reflective Writing for a Better Understanding of Scientific Concepts in High School by Joseph El-Helou, and Calvin S. Kalman. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021434

Emotional Component in Teaching and Learning by Michael Ponnambalam. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021435

Simple Examples of the Interpretation of Changes in Kinetic and Potential Energy Under Galilean Transformations by Edw. S. Ginsberg. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021436

Periscope: Looking into Learning in Best-Practices Physics Classrooms by Rachel E. Scherr, and Renee Michelle Goertzen. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021437

The Magnetic Field Along the Axis of a Short, Thick Solenoid by Francis Xavier Hart. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021438

Science at Home: Measuring a Thermophysical Property of Water with a Microwave Oven by Zachary H. Levine. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021439

A DIY Ultrasonic Signal Generator for Sound Experiments by Ihab F. Riad. DOI: 10.1119/1.5021441

Additional Resources

Race and Physics Teaching Collection Resource

DNA Science Lesson & Digi-Kit

 

Inspired by an article from The Physics Teacher, this multidisciplinary lesson and digital resource collection is based on How Rosalind Franklin Discovered the Helical Structure of DNA: Experiments in Diffraction (Braun, Tierney, & Schmitzer, 2011). Click the image to access this resource.

 

Article Collections from TPT and AJP