摘要:

The Naive Knowledge Study conducted at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia was a research and application project to uncover widespread misconceptions about the concept of gravity held by science museum visitors and to test the efficacy of hands‐on exhibits in altering these naive notions. An analysis of visitors’ misconceptions revealed five widespread naive notions about gravity. Prototype exhibits were designed to counter the two most frequent misconceptions—that gravity needs air to work and that gravity is generated by the rotation of the Earth. Visitors interviewed after using the exhibit prototypes showed significant decreases in naive notions. Results point to the importance of front‐end evaluation in the creation of exhibits which build explicit connections between the novice view and more sophisticated ways of looking at a topic.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48833

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The development and operation of the Guelph‐Waterloo‐McMaster interactive Video‐Link is described. The link was built to service primarily senior and graduate courses in chemistry and physics so particular attention has been paid to the transmission and legibility of graphic material and the layout of the classrooms. In addition the system has been designed to operate without technical attendance using microprocessor control to simplify the lecturer’s control functions.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48841

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

A review is made of current teaching practice in Latin America. The impact of research about teaching is assessed. It is argued that the usual role of teaching laboratories as a place just to measure physical constants is a sad waste of time and resources. Also the usual format of lectures is considered inefficient and a plea is made for the return to some kind of personalized instruction. Universities are compared to hospitals. This similitude suggest that the most important changes are related to administrative decisions. The conclusion is rather pessimistic, since the main educational defects arise from factors not easily dealt with.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48834

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

UNIVERSUM, the science museum of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was designed to allow for various degrees of involvement depending on the interests, level, and different learning styles of the visitors. In order to do so, many front‐end evaluation studies on a wide variety of subjects were performed with high school and first year university students (our target audience). As a result, several sections, such as the ones that deal with physics, offer students an opportunity to update their knowledge, carry out experiments, and have a good time in a place tailored for their needs. The relationship between formal and informal education in a place such as this one is discussed.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48835

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The twentieth century has witnessed the entrenchment of physics education at different educational levels. However, as the century comes to an end, the teaching of physics stands at a confluence where diverse sources work to influence emerging trends in both practice and research. This paper discusses some of these aspects; points are illustrated with examples drawn from pre‐college physics education in Que´bec.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48771

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

I will discuss various ways of using the computer for teaching, including the CATaMac project, which is a set of interactive tutorials aimed at a first year physics audience. I will also show how a computer‐based course can be built including various commercial packages (such as Interactive Physics and Voyager) to provide a teaching tool with some advantages over traditional methods. Finally I will suggest how an interactive electronic classroom could be constructed.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48772

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The ‘Large Hadron Collider’, LHC, is in preparation at CERN. Proton–proton collisions at energies of up to 14 TeV will probe the laws of the fundamental interactions at effective energies of 1 TeV or higher. At these energies, today’s ‘Standard Model’ predicts the observation of new fundamental processes. Furthermore, this description may have to be expanded to a more global theory. The discovery potential of the LHC, some of the technological challenges of this superconducting machine, and the experimental research are described.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48836

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The multi‐wire proportional chamber, introduced in 1967 by Georges Charpak (recipient of the 1992 Nobel prize for physics) allows to achieve high‐rate, fully electronics detection and localization of ionizing radiation. The myriad of devices inspired by this initial work generated a revolution in the conception of detectors for elementary particle physics experiments; examples are the time projection chamber, the drift chamber, the micro‐strip gas chamber. After a brief introduction on the basic operating principles of the device, I will describe several examples of application of advanced gas detectors in medicine and biology and analyze the operating characteristics that make the new devices attractive when confronted with classic detectors.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48773

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

We present a summary of the searches fortt¯production in experimental channels involving a pair of dilepton (e and &mgr;) or a single lepton plus jets inp¯pcollisions at a center of mass energy of 1.8 TeV by the CDF and the D0 collaborations. CDF finds an excess of 13 counts over an estimated background of 5.96+0.49−0.44in an integrated luminosity of 19 pb−1. Though the statistics are too limited to firmly establish the existence of the top quark, a natural interpretation of the excess is that it is due tott¯production. Under this assumption, constrained mass fitting yields a top quark mass of 174±10+13−12GeV and att¯production cross section of 13.9+6.1−4.8pb. A preliminary analysis of the D0 data shows an excess of 7 events over a background of 3.2±1.1 in 13.2 pb−1. The D0 statistics shows no clear evidence for the existence of the top quark.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48774

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Recent QCD related measurements are presented from the CDF and D0 experiments at the Tevatronpp¯collider at Fermilab. These results include the inclusive jet cross section, direct photon cross section, search for rapidity gaps, and study of photon+jet events. QCD NLO calculations exist for all the above processes and a comparison is made.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.48775

出版商:AIP    

年代:1995

数据来源: AIP