1998 Fall Meeting Program
Illinois Section of AAPT

Highland Community College, Freeport, Illinois
October 23-24, 1998

The registration desk will be set up in the Student/Conference Center on Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning. If you plan to attend and have not yet registered, you are strongly encourged to fill out our Online Registration Form before you come.

The names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses of all those who are giving a contributed paper are given here. If you have submitted an abstract and then have corrections or additions, please send them by e-mail to Eric Peterson at epeterson@student.highland.cc.il.us, (815) 235-6121 x229.

Workshop W1 - "Powerful Ideas in Teaching Physical Science", Joseph Schaefer, Loras College

1:15 - 2:30 - Workshop W2 - Room 208 - Limit 15 - free but a reservation is required
2:45 - 4:00 - Workshop W3 - Room 208 - Limit 15 - free but a reservation is required (repeat of Workshop W2)

Workshops W2 and W3 - "Demonstrations of the Latest Pasco Equipment", Tom Kuhn, Midwest Sales Representative for Pasco Scientific Co., 1352 Blair Lane, Hoffman Estates, IL 60194. 847-843-0630, 800-772-8700 x502.

1:15-1:45 - A1 - Session chair: Eric Peterson

The Evolution of Physics Textbooks and their Effects on the Teaching of Physics. Conley Stutz, Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625. Textbooks have had a definite effect on how physics has been taught during the past century. Using period texts as references the connection will be made between the texts and the teaching techniques and technologies used during the selected periods.

Three Modern Physics Spreadsheet Exercises. Jeff Davidson, Highland Community College, Freeport, IL 61032. Three spreadsheet exercises will be presented which relate to several topics covered in a beginning course in Modern Physics. These topics are Blackbody Radiation, Wave Packets and Group Velocity, and Wave Functions. These spreadsheet exercises can be used in several ways, either as assignments or as classroom demonstrations, in order to help students understand these concepts.

Revitalizing Undergraduate Physics Programs. Kevin Kimberlin and Kelly Roos , Bradley University, Peoria, IL 61625. We will give a brief report on the "Building Undergraduate Physics Programs for the 21st Century" conference held October 2-4 in Arlington, Virginia. We will present an overview of the conference and discuss the main issues raised regarding the problems facing undergraduate physics programs. We will conclude by suggesting general strategies for individual physics departments to revitalize their undergrad programs.

Spreadsheet Physics. Eric Peterson, Highland Community College, Freeport, IL 61032. The utility of spreadsheet programs to massage and display physical relationships will be revealed through sundry examples.

Backward Causation and the EPR Paradox. William R. Wharton, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187. Backward causation in which future events affect the past is formalized in a way consistent with Special Relativity and shown to restore locality to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. It can explain the correlation's of the EPR paradox without using hidden variables. It also restores time-symmetry to microphysics. Quantum Mechanics has the right properties to allow for backward causation. The new model is probably untestable experimentally but it has profound philosophical implications concerning reality.

Sound and Light: An Attractive Approach to Science Literacy. Thomas D. Rossing and Christopher Chiaverina, Northern Illinois University/New Trier High School, Dekalb, IL. Although physics and physical science courses have traditionally begun with Newton's laws, current research in physics education reminds us that many students retain misconceptions and are unable to apply mechanical principles to everyday life. We suggest that sound and light, which require less abstract intuition and mathematical understanding, are areas of physics with appeal to many young people, especially those with an interest in music and/or visual arts. Even future scientists, who must eventually master mechanics, will welcome sound and light.

Take-Fives: Janet Landato, Steve Weber

Invited speaker - Robert Yager, President of NASTS, Science Education Center, University of Iowa, "Why Student's Don't Learn What Teachers Teach". It will focus on the research into real learning and the kind of teaching that is required to achieve it.

Keynote speaker - Dr. Clint Sprott, Professor of Physics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, "Chaos". The ability to make accurate quantitive predictions and to replicate experiments with the same result are hallmarks of the scientific revolution. In the last few decades it has come to be widely recognized that deterministic systems governed by simple equations can behave unpredictably. This phenomenom is called "chaos", and it has excited the imagination of the public as well as the interest of scientists in diverse fields. Examples of chaos will be shown using simple apparatus and computer simulations.

8:30-8:45 - C1 - Room 201 - Session chair: Carl Wenning

Rotation Ranking Tasks and Conceptual Exercises . Curtis Hieggelke, Joliet Junior College, Joliet, IL 60431. Students have a great deal of difficulty dealing with rotational dynamics of rigid bodies. This includes working with quantities such as center of mass, rotational inertia, torque, angular velocity and acceleration. A collection of ranking tasks and conceptual exercises have been developed and tested with students. They are designed to assist students with learning, understanding, and applying basic concepts and principles associated with rotational dynamics. Details and assessment results will be presented on these exercises.

Eliminating Student Misconceptions of Physics to Enhance the Learning Process. Doug A. Franklin and Mark S. Boley, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455. Beginning Physics students often come to class with preconceived notions of how the world works. These alternate conceptions can interfere with the learning of new concepts. Providing a hands-on experience for the students can cause them to question what they have previously believed and will cause them to be more receptive to new concepts. Three students of varying background were provided with a hands-on demonstration of static friction. As the demonstration progressed they were asked to share their conceptions which led to some interesting results. This talk will share what conceptions students held and how they adapted their conceptions to fit what was demonstrated.

Casting Doubts: A Sophomore/Junior Level Course in Philosophy of Physics. Narendra K. Jaggi, Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL 61702. I will share my experiences (ongoing) with a special topics course covering various incarnations of realism and anti-realism, and the limits of knowledge in physics and mathematics. The course attempts to explore the limits placed by physics (special theory of relativity, general theory of relativity and quantum theory) on philosophical speculation, and seeks intimate familiarity with Godel's theorem and the limits it places on physics. Each student is assessed on the basis of a book length manuscript titled, "Casting Doubts" that the student writes during the semester.

Non-Contact Magnetic Detection of Torque for use in Electric Power Steering Systems. Benjamin D. Murphy and Mark S. Boley, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455. Experiments have been performed on thin rings of maraging steel shrink-fitted onto stainless steel shafts for use in electric power steering systems. These rings have been magnetically conditioned via high speed rotation past permanent bar magnets of opposite polarity such that the two halves of the ring are circumferentially magnetized in opposing directions. Because of the magnetorestriction present in the ring, the application of torque onto the stainless steel shaft causes a rotation in the primary magnetic field axes of the rings of sufficient magnitude to generate a substantial radial field component at the center line of the ring. This can be easily detected with a standard gaussmeter probe. Our studies show a reproducible linear response of the field component with applied torque in either direction, whether on the increase or decrease. Along with appropriately designed magnetic flux gate sensors, these magnetoelastic torque transducers promise to have a wide range of validity in both automotive power steering and transmission applications.

Introducing Least Squares Curve Fitting on a Spreadsheet. Robert M. Boeke, William Rainey Harper College, Palatine, IL 60067. A computer spreadsheet can be used without getting into details of the mathematics. Students watch changes in the sum of the squared deviations as they change the slope and intercept of a test fit line. This exercise focuses on linear fits to data sets, but the concept is easily extended to fit any curve.

Converting Holograms into Real Objects Via Laser-Assisted Assembly of Microparticles. Matthew T. Dearing and Gabriel C. Spalding, Illinois Wesleyan University - Dept. of Physics, Bloomington, IL 61702 and E. R. Dufresne, D. G. Grier, University of Chicago, Dept. of Physics, Chicago, IL 60637. It is now possible to produce computer-generated holograms. We are attempting to add substance to these ethereal images. That is, in addition to discussing issues associated with hologram formation, we will describe the physical mechanisms by which we control the assembly of microparticles into arbitrary topologies. We will also discuss the most immediate applications which we have planned for this technology, which include basic research into laser-assisted assembly, phase transitions, and microparticle interactions.

Report on the TYC Physics Workshop Project*. Curtis Hieggelke, Joliet Junior College, Joliet, IL 60431. This three-year national workshop project has been led and administered by Joliet Junior College (IL) and Lee College (TX). It was the extension of several previous successful physics workshop projects which started in 1991 for two-year college physics teachers. At this time, these projects have offered 36 workshops which have served 756 participants from 294 two-year colleges representing 45 states and two US territories. They have been held at 17 different two-year colleges in 12 states. The goal of this project has been to revitalize, update, and enhance the introductory physics program at two-year colleges by providing active-teaching/learning models that have been proven to be successful and readily transportable to the two-year college setting, plus introducing some of the recent promising developments in technology. This talk will report on some of the efforts of this project. *Supported by NSF DUE grant # 9554683

Developing Conceptual Surveys in Electricity and Magnetism. Curtis Hieggelke, Joliet Junior College, Joliet, IL 60431. We will report on the status of an ongoing project to develop research-based conceptual surveys in electricity and magnetism. In this project,which is now in its fourth year, we have been trying to develop multiple-choice tests that can be used to pre and posttest students in general physics courses to check on conceptual learning. The instruments have undergone several revisions and we now have separate instruments for electricity, ignoring DC circuits, and magnetism, as well as a combined instrument for these topic domains. We will describe the instruments and present results from a variety of groups that have taken the tests.

Take-Fives: Ann Brandon, Deborah Lojkutz, Roger Malcolm, Paul Robinson, Tom Snyder, Bill Conway, Steve Weber, Fred Zurheide

Lunch - Door prizes - Business meeting