I Baked Cookies For My Students
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
6M ago
A while back, I wrote an article on how to impress upon the students of the need have units in most of the numbers that they write in physics. I gave them a recipe for a banana bread, but I left out all the units of measure. It was the students themselves who noticed what was wrong with the recipe, so in the process, I managed to convey to them that (i) without units, these numbers are meaningless and (ii) this is not just something in physics (or science) but rather something common that we encounter and take for granted. Over the Summer, I did the same thing but I showed them a recipe for my ..read more
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The Unseen Impact of Physics In Healthcare
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
8M ago
This is a nice news article that provides a basic summary of the applications of physics in healthcare and medicine. It's another one of those where if someone thinks physics only deals with esoteric and useless ideas, show him/her this. I've mentioned many examples of similar medical/health/etc. applications and concepts that came directly from physics, such as this one. As someone who often teaches general physics to life science/premed/bio/kinesiology major, this is definitely another useful evidence to get them to realize that the physics class they are taking has a direct relevance to the ..read more
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Since When Does A "Proposal" Become "Evidence"?
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
9M ago
It's one of the reasons why I groan at popular media's reporting of science. This article is reporting on a paper that proposes a possibility of finding evidence of large-scale symmetry breaking from the  data ".. in current and upcoming surveys such as those undertaken by Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, the Euclid satellite, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.... ". Yet, the article is trumpeting the "Incredible new evidence...." as if it has been found. This is similar to accepting speculation as the truth. Over-selling and over-hyping science does no one any good, other than makin ..read more
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The First 12 Months of the James Webb Space Telescope
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
9M ago
Many of us knew that it would be a significant instrument. We just didn't know that in its early days, it would make this many discoveries. In case you were asleep for most of the past 12 months, here is an article that will highlight some of the groundbreaking discoveries made by the JWST. It will not be hard to guess that there will be more earth-shattering (universe-shattering?) discoveries to be made in the next 12 months. Zz ..read more
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ChatGPT and Projectile Motion, Part 2
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
1y ago
If you missed my previous physics questions to ChatGPT, check them out here and here.  In this particular case, I asked ChatGPT a rather common question, and ended up having an argument with it. My questions are in red while ChatGPT's responses are in blue. Three projectiles of the same mass are launched from the top of a cliff with the same initial speed. The first projectile is launched at an angle of 20 degrees above the horizontal. The second is launched horizontally. The third is launched at an angle 20 degrees below the horizontal. Which projectile hit the ground with the largest sp ..read more
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ChatGPT and Buoyant Force
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
1y ago
I posted previously about ChatGPT's response to a projectile motion question. It got the answer correct, but with a wrong starting point, which made the whole response rather puzzling, inconsistent, and self-contradictory. This time, I decided to ask a question that I had asked my students in a poll during a lesson on buoyancy and Archimedes principle. A block of Styrofoam floats on water while a lead block of the same size block lies submerged in the water. Which one has the larger buoyant force? The buoyant force on an object is equal to the weight of the fluid displaced by the object. The ..read more
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ChatGPT and Projectile Motion
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
1y ago
In my previous post, I mentioned an exercise that I often give to my General Physics students that are learning about projectile motion. Using a PhET application, they found out that two different scenarios produced a projectile motion that has the same maximum height and same time of flight. I asked the students to figure out why. I decided to post the same question to ChatGPT. The result was a bit of an eye-opener. I will show my question (in red) and its response below: Why does a projectile shot with initial velocity of 20 m/s and angle 30 degrees with respect to the horizontal reach the s ..read more
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My Favorite Web Applications - Part 7
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
1y ago
Previous posts: My favorite web applications - Part 1 My favorite web applications - Part 2 My favorite web applications - Part 3 My favorite web applications - Part 4 My favorite web applications - Part 5 My favorite web application - Part 6 This one is an obvious one. It is from PhET, and it is on projectile motion (the "Lab" option). I have used this web app in many different situations and for many different purposes, including using it as a virtual lab when we went remote. However, even in my face-to-face classes, I continue to use this during our lessons on projectile motion. One of the ..read more
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Physics Can Be So Distracting!
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
1y ago
I've been the internet for a very, very long time, longer than a lot of people have been alive. In all those years, I've had battle scars from my battle with weirdos and cranks of all kinds, especially during the early wild, wild west days of unmoderated Usenet. Even now, I have to deal with them frequently, both online at various forums, and of course, the occasional stuff that tried to appear on this blog. So you'll understand when I say that dealing with physics cranks is such a major distraction that, often, I see something and the first thing that comes to mind is just that! I was at a wo ..read more
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Room-Temperature Superconductor?
Physics and Physicists
by ZapperZ
1y ago
Here we go again! Big news with the new publication out of Nature this week. A report on an observation of room-temperature superconductivity on a sample that is under pressure at only 1 GPa. That pressure is exceedingly low considering that most of the other superconductors that that has a high transition temperatures tend to be under hundreds of GPa. Superconductivity has been observed at 20 °C (294 K) in a nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride under a pressure of 1 GPa (10 kbar). The material was made and studied by Ranga Dias and colleagues at the University of Rochester in the US, who claim tha ..read more
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