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Book Chapter
Have you ever wanted to go to Mars? Sending humans to Mars will require a lot of preparation but the work has already begun. If you were too young to have watched the efforts to send the first humans to the Moon, you may be able to participate in th...
Book Chapter
Everyone loves colors—the colors of spring and summer, the colors of butterfly wings and rainbows, the colors of soap bubbles, and the colors from a CD. How are these the same? How are they different? Should we look to the same cause for what appea...
Book Chapter
What distinguishes the world’s great chefs from the millions of adequate cooks is an understanding of the concepts of cooking. We strive for a similar appreciation of physics concepts in our students. Most of the time the problems in physics textbo...
Book Chapter
A low rumble through the Earth convulses a highway like a fish gasping for air. A child in a distant playground moves gracefully propelling the swing to new heights. A crystal glass shatters with the precision of an operatic singer's voice. The Ear...
Book Chapter
Why do elephants have such big ears? And why do they have such thick legs? In other words, why do elephants have different shapes than horses? This chapter focuses on these questions and more explaining how they can be answered using the laws of scal...
Book Chapter
An interesting experiment to perform involves a helium balloon tied to the seat of a car. As the car accelerates forward, the helium balloon will lean forward. There are two distinct ways of explaining why. The first involves the inertia of the air....
Book Chapter
A very popular physics toy consists of two concave spherical mirrors facing each other like the shells of a clam. If a coin or button is placed on the surface of the lower mirror, its image appears in the hole at the center of the top mirror. The i...
Book Chapter
Merry Go-Rounds are the most egalitarian ride in that everybody can have a good time. As personal thrill tolerances increase, other rides are tried where the floor is pulled out from under you when the cylinder is spinning fast enough to “pin” yo...
Book Chapter
Millions of dollars of research and experimentation have been invested in car designs to minimize the adverse effects of air resistance. And here is the American household negating all efforts to maximize gas mileage with outdoor gear strapped to t...
Book Chapter
As a police cruiser drives by with its siren sounding, the pitch of the siren decreases. The same thing happens at the Indianapolis 500 as a race car passes you. The pitch of the engine is steady as the car approaches, decreases as the car passes, an...
Book Chapter
He’s full of hot air! We all know what this expression means. In this chapter, students of physics take a more substantial look at hot air knowing that hot air rises and is one means by which a hot-air balloon can soar above. The hot-air balloon be...
Book Chapter
Michael Jordan makes it all look so easy. The ball gracefully glides in its arc and swishes through the net. All that polish from years of practice and no formal physics. Can a mathematical approach help to replicate Jordan’s skills? Definitely not...
Book Chapter
Have you ever taken your bathroom scales to an elevator for a ride? This is guaranteed to start an interesting conversation and you will be advancing the cause of physics at the same time. This chapter features several scenarios to explore physics i...
Book Chapter
The complexity of the human eye confounded Darwin. But his concept of adaptation and natural selection guided a steady stream of biologists who have collectively depicted a series of 40 steps, each a small advantage over the prior, which describe ...
Book Chapter
We are all familiar with images formed by mirrors and lens. In fact, we often pay to see images produced in special ways. But what is an “image charge?” Does it have anything to do with optical images? This chapter presents a scenario to help a...