There are situations in which physics students would profit from the performance of real quantitative experiments but the equipment is lacking, expensive, or too bulky. One such situatuation is in distance education courses, where the desire to have students perform real experiments is outweighed by cost and/or logistics. The result often is a resort to simulated experiments, or incurring the expense of bringing students to a central location for a marathon session of lab exercises, many of which are done out of sequence. I describe here five quantitative experiments designed for an introductory DE course in physics, that require almost nothing in the way of equipment except a computer and items commonly found in the home.
REFERENCES
1.
R.D. Edge, String and Sticky Tape Experiments (AAPT, College Park, MD, 1987).
2.
In a previous home experiment we have supplied a fire-polished glass tube that was taped for safety. Others have used the siphon tubes from water closets. See
Aaron
McAlexander
, “Physics to go
,” Phys. Teach.
41
, 214
–18
(April 2003
).3.
The soda straw used in the version of Ref. 1 exhibits considerable friction where the thread runs over the edge of the straw. The molded plastic ends advocated here have much less friction.
4.
The “Audacity” sound editor is freeware and available for download at http://audacity.sourceforge.net. It can also be used to record the sound.
5.
Joel
Tellinghuisen
, “Exploring the diffraction grating using a He-Ne laser and a CD-ROM
,” J. Chem. Educ.
79
, 703
(2002
).6.
This is the industry standard and is adhered to with great precision.
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© 2005 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2005
American Association of Physics Teachers
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