MAAPT
FALL Meeting 2003
OCT. 25, AUGSBURG COLLEGE, St. Paul
This MAAPT meeting was held at Augsburg College, in Room 123 (main floor) of Science Hall, denoted as 23 on the Campus map. Augsburg is located just south of the West Bank campus of the University of Minnesota.
Directions to campus.
| 7:45 - 8:30 am | Coffee and Registration | |
| 8:30 - 9:00 am | The Argument for Humanistic Physics | |
| Keynote Address, Roger Jones | ||
| Professor Emeritus of Physics, University of Minnesota | ||
| 9:00 - 9:45 am: | Newton on Newton's Ring | |
| Invited paper, Alan Shapiro, Department of History of Science and Technology | ||
| University of Minnesota | ||
| 9:45 - 10:30 am | The Trouton Experiment and E=mc2 | |
| Invited paper, Michel Janssen, Department of History of Science and Technology, University of Minnesota | ||
| 10:30 - 10:45 am | Break | |
| 10:45 - 11:00 am | Courses and resources concerning the interactions between Physics and the Humanities | |
| Mark Engebretson, Augsburg College | ||
| 11:00 - 11:15 am | Calendars - The Interface between Astronomy and Cultures | |
| Gordon MacIntosh, University of Minnesota, Morris | ||
| 11:15 - 11:30 am | Walther Nernst, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics: or, How the History of Physics is different from Physics | |
| Clayton Gearhart, St. John's University | ||
| 11:30 - 11:45 am | Investigative Science at WSU | |
| Andrew Ferstl, Winona State University | ||
| 11:45 - 12:00 pm | Summer Physics Courses for Teachers | |
| Eileen Korenic, University of Wisconsin-River Falls | ||
| 12:00 - 12:15 pm | Break | |
| 12:15 - 12:30 pm | Written Lab Reports: A Grading Rubric | |
| Paul Knutson, University of Minnesota | ||
| 12:30 - 12:45 pm | New life for an old monochromator | |
| Bruce R. Thomas, Carleton College | ||
| 12:45 - 1:00 pm | Progress Toward a New Minnesota Planetarium | |
| Parke W. Kunkle, President, Minnesota Planetarium Society | ||
| 1:00 - 1:15 pm | A New Mechanism to Examine the Stability of a System | |
| Ramesh Misra, Minnesota State University, Mankato | ||
| 1:15 - 2:15 pm | Lunch and Business Meeting |
| "The Argument for Humanistic Physics" -- Roger Jones, University of Minnesota jones001@umn.edu |
| According to "Physics Today," conceptual physics courses have had a major influence on recent increasing physics enrollment. It's time we read the handwriting on the wall. Physics is not only for physicists. We need to emphasize the relevance of physics to the arts, society, philosophy, and the humanities generally. Physics has had a profound effect on our culture and worldview, which we must acknowledge and reflect in physics education. |
| Bibliography (doc) |
| "Newton on Newton's Rings" -- Alan Shapiro, University of Minnesota ashapiro@umphys.spa.umn.edu |
| At be the beginning of his career, between 1665 and 1675, Newton carried out his investigation of the colors of thin films and devised the experiment subsequently named after him, i.e., "Newton's rings." With this experiment he was able to demonstrate the periodicity of light experimentally. Drawing on Newton's unpublished papers, I will describe how he physically explained what we call interference phenomena and also attained a new level of precision in physics. |
| "The Trouton Experiment and E=mc2" -- Michel Janssen, University of Minnesota |
| It turns out that a long-forgotten experiment by a long-forgotten physicist aimed at detecting the motion of the earth with respect to a medium we no longer believe exists, provides a beautiful illustration of physics' most famous equation. |
| Presentation Short Version (pdf) Long Version (pdf) |
| "Courses and resources concerning the interactions between Physics and the Humanities" -- Mark Engebretson, Augsburg College engebret@augsburg.edu |
| Although nearly every introductory physics text contains at least a nod toward the nature of science and its place in modern society, most texts hurry on to more "substantive" matters. I believe that a discussion of the nature and role of science is too important to leave to nonscientists. In this talk I will review some of my efforts to better connect Physics and the Humanities, and the books and thinkers on which they have been based. |
| Presentation (ppt) Bibliography Do You Believe in the Big Bang? |
| "Calendars - The Interface between Astronomy and Cultures" -- Gordon McIntosh, University of Minnesota, Morris mcintogc@mrs.umn.edu |
| Various cultures around the world have used the natural periods of the Earth, Moon, planets, specific stars, and Sun to construct their calendars and keep time. The approach taken by several of these cultures will be presented including the development of the present Gregorian calendar. The incorporation of calendar material into an astronomy course will also be discussed. |
| Presentation (doc) |
| "Walther Nernst, Max Planck, Albert Einstein, and the Third Law of Thermodynamics: or, How the History of Physics is different from Physics." -- Clayton Gearhart, St. John's University cgearhart@csbsju.edu |
| Most thermodynamics texts describe the Third Law as quantum mechanical in nature, and discuss it in terms of the behavior of the entropy at absolute zero, or the impossibility of attaining absolute zero. It's history is quite different: It was first introduced by Walther Nernst in 1906, in a context that had nothing to do with either quantum physics or entropy. In this paper, I will talk about the convoluted early history of the Third Law. |
| Presentation (pdf) |
| "Investigative Science at WSU" -- Andrew Ferstl, Minnesota State University, Winona AFerstl@winona.edu |
| Winona State University was awarded a NOVA grant to develop an integrated science class with the theme of "Earth, the Water Planet". The class is loosely inquiry based. This class would partially fulfill the science requirement for elementary education majors. The Fall 2003 semester is the first time it is being offered. I want to share with you the organization and goals of the course and hopefully get some feedback from you. |
| Presentation (ppt) |
| "Summer Physics Courses for Teachers" -- Eileen Korenic, University of Wisconsin - River Falls eileen.korenic@uwrf.edu |
| The Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls offers a summer program of basic and advanced graduate courses for teacher licensing and optionally leading to a Master in Science Education degree. This paper will describe the structure of such a program and how it might serve as a model for other professional development programs. |
| Presentation (ppt) |
| "Written Lab Reports: A Grading Rubric*" -- Paul Knutson, University of Minnesota knut0199@umn.edu |
| Bonni Hill, Osseo Senior High; Kimberly Carlson, Minnetonka High School, Patricia Heller, Ken Heller, University of Minnesota |
|
The Physics Education Research Group at the University of Minnesota is involved in research and
development of introductory physics courses. We view writing laboratory reports as an important part
of a problem-solving based instructional strategy. We are currently exploring how students' expository
expressions of their understanding of physics concepts and technical writing skills progress during a
semester. To do this we have developed a grading rubric to investigate this progression. This poster
will present the grading rubric, and some preliminary results from the analysis of the reports.
*Supported in part by NSF grants #9651339 and NSF/PHY - 0139099 |
| Presentation (ppt) |
| "New life for an old monochromator -- Bruce R. Thomas, Carleton College bthomas@carleton.edu |
| We have adapted an old manual-crank adjustable monochromator by adding a stepper motor and computer control. Now it supports a nice lab activity on atomic spectra in our sophomore-level modern physics course. I'll show some of the results that we obtain with it and explain some subtleties that improve the pedagogical effectiveness of the exercise. |
| "Progress Toward a New Minnesota Planetarium" -- Parke W. Kunkle, Minnesota Planetarium Society Parke.Kunkle@minneapolis.edu |
| The Minnesota Planetarium Society has formed to help build and operate the new Minnesota Planetarium. This paper will review the history of the Planetarium, discuss the vision for the new Planetarium, and explain the progress made in the last six months. |
| Presentation (ppt) Brochure (doc) |
| "A New Mechanism to Examine the Stability of a System:" -- Ramesh Misra, Minnesota State University, Mankato ramesh.misra@mnsu.edu |
| We have constructed a function J that determines the stability of a system. When J is negative, the system is stable and is capable of generating quantized excited states. An application of our mechanism gives the location of hard quark matter, and also this mechanism is capable of predicting the wide widths of the exotic pentaquarks as reported in Science and Discovery, Physics Today, 2003 September issue, Page 19. |
