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Pallava Bagla
A star is set to be born in southern France. A humongous effort costing over $ 20 billion is being made to construct a nuclear reactor like never before, a special steel cauldron where fusion energy could be tapped; it is called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
Subha Das Mollick
Popular films can be used by teachers to explain physics concepts. However, teachers would need to identify portions that can elevate the classroom experience of the students. Chosen clips from the films should bring the ideas under discussion into sharp focus. This article explains how a clip from the popular film, Swades, can be used to teach the concept of energy.
Manish Jain
Straws and potatoes can be used to explain some simple laws of physics. Here are a few experiments which can be tried out in the class or by students on their own. Not only can children have fun with these toys, they can also learn a lot along the way.
Aruna B V
The classroom can come alive if the teacher introduces fun activities and games while dealing with any topic on physics. In this article, the author, while explaining Newton’s Laws of Motion, introduces three games, for each of the three laws which can be held in any open space. Each of these games is designed to explain the laws in a fun way so that children can relate to them.
Rabindra Mehta
Does a cricket ball swing more on a humid or damp day as compared to a relatively dry day? Why do fast bowlers constantly shine the ball? If you are wondering why we are talking cricket here, then it is because physics is part of cricket and by connecting physics to this much loved game, students are bound to be all attentive and teachers can rest assured that learning is happening.
Pratyush Tiwary
In this short article, we will try to understand a driving force of nature that is arguably one of the most fundamental and omnipresent – yet generally a bit poorly understood by the average high school student.
The art and science of designing experiments Subha Das Mollick Practicals and laboratory work are an inseparable part of any science subject. In the syllabus, 50 percent marks are reserved for practicals. But how are these practical classes held and what do students actually learn in these classes? Typically, in a practical class, students are told what experiment to do and what result to expect. They follow a set procedure and do the experiment. Everybody in the class does the same experiment and expects the same result. In case of a physics experiment, if the student does not get the expected result, she tries to manipulate the data. Eventually the students record the experiments in a set pattern – Aim – procedure – observations – calculations – precautions – conclusion. In a limited span of time, perhaps this is the best one can do. But this set pattern of laboratory work does not challenge the student’s creativity. The student does not get a scope to design a new experiment. Any student of science must understand the importance of experimentation in the development of science and should be able to design an appropriate experiment to test a hypothesis. This section is dedicated to a few landmark experiments in physics that have revolutionized the way we understand the world around us. Each write-up explains how the scientist overcame technical hurdles of the day and succeeded in getting error free results. The teacher may find occasion to discuss these experiments in class to drive home the importance of designing a meaningful experiment. A well-designed experiment is also a work of art, a masterpiece to be appreciated. But the difference between Da Vinci’s Last Supper and Galileo’s experiment with falling bodies is that while the former is not meant to be replicated, the latter is meant to be replicated several times with the same results. The beauty of a work of art is in its uniqueness. The beauty of a work of science is in its replicability. The stories of unravelling the truth through each of these experiments are also gripping stories, nothing short of the mystery stories children are so fond of hearing. So the special classes on these experiments can be high on entertainment value and take away the tedium of a routine class. The author is the secretary of Bichitra Pathshala, an organization that promotes learning with moving images. She is also an associate director at iLEAD Institute, Kolkata. She can be reached at subha.dasmollick@gmail.com. Related
The art and science of designing experiments Subha Das Mollick Practicals and laboratory work are an inseparable part of any science subject. In the syllabus, 50 percent marks are reserved for practicals. But how are these practical classes held and what do students actually learn in these classes? Typically, in a practical class, students are told what experiment to do and what result to expect. They follow a set procedure and do the experiment. Everybody in the class does the same experiment and expects the same result. In case of a physics experiment, if the student does not get the expected result, she tries to manipulate the data. Eventually the students record the experiments in a set pattern – Aim – procedure – observations – calculations – precautions – conclusion. In a limited span of time, perhaps this is the best one can do. But this set pattern of laboratory work does not challenge the student’s creativity. The student does not get a scope to design a new experiment. Any student of science must understand the importance of experimentation in the development of science and should be able to design an appropriate experiment to test a hypothesis. This section is dedicated to a few landmark experiments in physics that have revolutionized the way we understand the world around us. Each write-up explains how the scientist overcame technical hurdles of the day and succeeded in getting error free results. The teacher may find occasion to discuss these experiments in class to drive home the importance of designing a meaningful experiment. A well-designed experiment is also a work of art, a masterpiece to be appreciated. But the difference between Da Vinci’s Last Supper and Galileo’s experiment with falling bodies is that while the former is not meant to be replicated, the latter is meant to be replicated several times with the same results. The beauty of a work of art is in its uniqueness. The beauty of a work of science is in its replicability. The stories of unravelling the truth through each of these experiments are also gripping stories, nothing short of the mystery stories children are so fond of hearing. So the special classes on these experiments can be high on entertainment value and take away the tedium of a routine class. The author is the secretary of Bichitra Pathshala, an organization that promotes learning with moving images. She is also an associate director at iLEAD Institute, Kolkata. She can be reached at subha.dasmollick@gmail.com. Related
Legend has it that Galileo Galilei dropped two weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove that objects of different weights fall at the same rate. Historians doubt this claim. They are also sceptical about Galileo’s description in his masterpiece Discourses Concerning Two New Sciences, of an experiment of rolling a 100-pound cannon ball and a 1-pound musket ball down an incline to study their acceleration using a water clock. “Too much accumulation of sources of error and inexactitude!” they exclaimed. Be that as it may, there is no denying that Galileo had dared debunk Aristotle’s theory which had been held sacrosanct for centuries. Aristotle, in the 4th Century BC, articulated that an object falls in proportion to its weight. A feather will take much longer to reach the ground than a rock. This erroneous assumption held ground for centuries because it tallies with our everyday experience. But Galileo had the wit to ask himself, “What if I tie the lighter object to the heavier object? Will the combined mass fall faster than the individual objects or will it fall at an average rate?” Thus the mind of the Father of modern science started working and he set out to deduce the law of falling objects mathematically as well as observe them experimentally. It was not just about who reaches the ground faster, it was also about the rate of fall – the acceleration. In 1604, Galileo did not have the advantage of time lapse photography or electronic sensors. So he had to slow down the fall using an inclined plane. Stillman Drake, a leading expert on Galilean science, accessed at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence, the manuscripts and scribbles left behind by Galileo and discovered some early papers that appeared to be some experiment conducted in 1604 in Padua. From the jottings, Drake recreated the following experiment: Galileo released a ball at the top of a wooden incline, noting, in the first few moments that it travelled a distance of 33 punti (points). After an equal amount of time had passed, the ball picked up speed and covered a distance of 130 punti and by the end of the third interval, 298 punti, then 526, 824, 1192, 1620. For the final distance, when the ball would have been moving at top speed, Galileo had actually written 2123 punti. Then he scratched it out and corrected it to 2104. Beside some of his figures he put a plus or minus sign, apparently indicating
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