The Physics Teacher
Volume 59 Issue 2
February 2021
Cloudy with a chance of alpha particles
This month's cover is a time-lapse photo showing numerous condensation trails formed from radioactive particles emitted from a chip from a ’50s-era dinner plate. This fascinating look inside a cloud chamber, “Cloudy with a chance of alpha particles,” won third place in the AAPT High School Physics Photo Contest in 2019 and was submitted by Alia Yiskis of West Boca Raton Community High School in Florida; her teacher was Elizabeth Wenk. To see more fantastic physics photos from the past, see aapt.org/Programs/photocontest/index.cfm.
Authors should submit their article and cover letter at this website: http://tpt.peerx-press.org/.
Columns
And the Survey Says..., Astronotes, Figuring Physics, iPhysicsLabs, Little Gems, Physics Challenge for Teachers and Students, Fermi Questions, Talkin' Physics, Technology In The Classroom, Tricks of the Trade, Visual Physics, and Websights.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Simple physics with a surprise! by Terrence Toepker. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003453.
The addition of relativistic velocities from the k-calculus by Paul Secular. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003454
Papers
Surface Currents on the Plates of a Charging Capacitor by Carl E. Mungan. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003456
Energy Cubes by Lane Seeley, Kara Gray and Amy D. Robertson. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003457
The Central Scientific Company and its Apparatus by Thomas B. Greenslade Jr. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003459
One Hundred Years Later, Introductory Labs Are Poised for Change by Ashley R. Carter. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003460
Revisiting Standing Waves on a Circular Path by Peter Riggs. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003461
From Pressure Maps and Wind Velocity to Northern Lights and Other Fascinating Phenomena on the Rotating Earth by Andrea Gróf. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003462
A Semester-Long Study of Magnetic Fields Using Smartphones to Engage Non-Physics Majors by Stacy A. Hootman and Cory Pickett. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003463
Hands-on Experiment for Modeling the Baumgartner Jump Using Free-Fall Kinematics with Drag by Alexander Gössling, Sebastian Becker and Jochen Kuhn. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003464
Selective Assessment in Introductory Physics Labatorials by Mandana Sobhanzadeh and Peter Zizler. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003465
Sliding on an Arbitrarily Shaped Incline with Friction by Alexandre Gainer and Michael Waxman. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003466
Conservation of Momentum with Dual Technologies by Alan Bates. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003467
Systematic Problem Authoring: Constant Acceleration and Projectile Motion by Edward Forringer. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003468
Archimedes’ Balance Approach Applied to Buoyant Force by Sungki Kim and Seoung-Hey Paik. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003469
The Rematch of the Tortoise and the Hare: A Story of Speed and Velocity by Landon Bellavia. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003470
Kepler Made Me Do It by John Dumar. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003471
Implementing Raspberry Pi 3 and Python in the Physics Laboratory by Alexuan Martínez, Christian Nieves and Armando Rúa. DOI: 10.1119/10.0003472
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.
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