Experiments and Demonstrations in Physics: Bar-Ilan Physics Laboratory , Yaakov Kraftmakher , World Scientific, Hackensack, NJ, 2007. $128.00, $68.00 paper (533 pp.). ISBN 978-981-256-602-7, ISBN 978-981-270-538-9 paper
Physics education research has amply demonstrated the importance of hands-on activities for students. Most high-school and introductory college physics courses include a laboratory component and lecture demonstrations. A modern innovation is to eliminate the lecture altogether, or at least integrate it with student experimentation. At the upper-undergraduate level, courses tend to be more theoretical and divorced from their experimental counterpart, probably to the detriment of learning.
Resources for physics teachers who want to include more or better experiments and demonstrations in their courses are relatively sparse. Classic references include Richard Sutton’s Demonstration Experiments in Physics (McGraw-Hill, 1938), Physics Demonstration Experiments (Ronald Press, 1970) edited by Harry Meiners, and George Freir and Frances Anderson’s Demonstration Handbook for Physics (American Association of Physics Teachers, 1972). But those books tend not to exploit recent advances in instrumentation, especially computers. My own Physics Demonstrations: A Sourcebook for Teachers of Physics (University of Wisconsin Press, 2006) is aimed more at generating interest in the subject than at offering experimental experiences to students (see the review in Physics Today, Physics Today 0031-9228 59 10 2006 67 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2387093 October 2006, page 67 ).
Yaakov Kraftmakher, a professor emeritus of physics at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, has written a nearly encyclopedic book containing 88 experiments and demonstrations that he has developed, adapted, or refined for his university. Having published extensively in physics education journals during the past 50 years, he is well qualified for the task. Most of the experiments require a computer and make extensive use of ScienceWorkshop data-acquisition equipment and DataStudio analysis software from PASCO Scientific, a manufacturer of scientific products for instructors; most of the additional equipment mentioned in the book can also be obtained from PASCO.
Kraftmakher’s book is a truly impressive work, with something for everyone. The first chapter contains 20 experiments aimed at high-school students; however, many of those experiments involve topics not normally taught in US high schools and thus would be more suited for an introductory-level college physics course. The author then offers 38 experiments that would be appropriate for physics majors: in mechanics, molecular physics, electricity, magnetism, optics, atomic physics, and condensed-matter physics. A chapter on Nobel Prize–winning experiments includes eight experiments that demonstrate the principles for which the award was given, but it does not attempt to replicate the methods and equipment originally used. The final chapter contains 22 relatively straightforward but open-ended student projects, with many of the details left to the ingenuity of the student.
Most of the experiments include a brief description; a list of the required equipment; a short tutorial on the relevant physics, with the essential equations and references; diagrams of the setup; and sample experimental results. The book includes historical notes, approximately 600 annotated references, photographs of historic figures, and definitions of important units. The chapter on Nobel Prize experiments has photographs of the winners and quotes from the people who introduced their Nobel lectures. The book is nicely laid out, although without color, and is well organized and nearly free of typographical errors and inaccuracies. The level of detail varies from 15 pages on thermionic emission to 2 pages for many of the student projects. A majority of the experiments are more appropriate for the laboratory than the lecture, because they involve detailed acquisition and analysis of data and therefore do not have the pizzazz that makes for a good lecture demonstration.
I have only a few quibbles with Kraftmakher’s book. He uses some non-standard terminology; for example, he denotes the voltage by U rather than by V, and he calls µ0 the magnetic constant rather than the permeability. He rarely discusses sources and analyses of experimental errors and sometimes omits the expected values of the results. He gives no vendor sources for the non-PASCO instruments that are used and rarely mentions hazards or safety issues. Some topics, including plasmas, radioactivity, and chaos, are absent or only briefly discussed. But such concerns are relatively minor and do not diminish my admiration for his book.
Although Experiments and Demonstrations in Physics looks and feels like a textbook, it is aimed at anyone who wants to incorporate more and better exercises into the development or the presentation of laboratory courses or lecture demonstrations. And it is especially helpful to those who already use PASCO equipment.
