1999 Spring Meeting Program
Illinois Section of AAPT

Joliet West High School, Joliet, Illinois
April 16-17, 1999

The registration desk will be set up near the main entrance of the high school 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 David Renneke at phrenneke@augustana.edu, 309-794-3403.

Friday, April 16, 1999

1:00 - 2:30 - Tour of Argonne National Laboratory - meet at Argonne - I-55 and Cass Ave., Exit 273 (south), turn right at the Argonne sign on Northgate Road, immediately south of I-55. Follow Northgate Road to the Argonne Information Center. Free but you must register by Monday, April 12. If you plan to go on the tour, please read this important information.

2:30 - 5:00 - Registration - Auditorium Lobby - Joliet West High School, 401 N. Larkin Ave. (intersection of Larkin Ave. and Greenwood), Joliet, Illinois. Signs directing you to the registration desk will be posted near the front entrance of the high school, the entrance near the flagpole.

3:00 - 6:00 - "Make and Take" Workshop - Room 225 - Limit 20 - $20 fee - a reservation is required

3:15 - 3:40 - A1 - Little Theater - Session chair: Roger Malcolm

• TIPER (Tasks Inspired by Physics Education Research). Curtis Hieggelke, Joliet Junior College, Joliet, IL 60431. This talk will discuss and provide examples of various types of conceptual (qualitative) exercises and formats that are or can be used in physics instructional materials. These exercises are based, in part, on efforts in Physics Education Research and thus are called TIPERs (Tasks Inspired by Physics Education Research). They include: Ranking Tasks (RT); Working Backwards Tasks (WBT); What, if anything, is Wrong Tasks (WWT); Qualitative Reasoning Tasks (QRT); Bar Chart Tasks (BCT); Conflicting Contentions Tasks (CCT); Linked Multiple Choice Tasks (LMCT); Desktop Experiments Tasks (DET); Changing Representations Tasks (CRT); Concept Oriented Demonstrations Tasks (CODT); Meaningful, Meaningless Calculations Tasks (MMCT); Predict and Explain Tasks (PET); and Concept Oriented Simulations Tasks (COST). Such tasks support active learning approaches and can usually be easily incorporated in small pieces without making major changes.

3:40 - 4:05 - A2

• People Friendly Particle Physics Experiments on the Web. Robert Grimm, Pat Franzen, Brian Wegley, Spenser Pasero, Fermilab Education Office, Batavia, IL 60510. A number of particle physics activities have been developed as a Virtual Tour of Fermilab’s Lederman Science Education Center. These activities have teacher and student pages for those not well versed in particle physics, but they also are designed to stand alone for students to work at their own pace. Topics covered are family classification, event recognition, orders of magnitude and radiation. These activities may be done with students over a wide range of ages as every age may be found to have similar prior knowledge in this field.

4:05 - 4:15

• Take-Fives: Dave Williams, Earl Zwicker

4:15 - 4:35 - A3

• Using and Organizing Graphs in Teaching Straight Line Motion. Deborah Lojkutz, Joliet West High School, Joliet, IL 60435. Physics students in our classes do many experiments where they collect data of objects moving in straight line motion using a ticker tape timer. This data is then graphed on d-t, v-t and a-t graphs. This paper presents "the Chart" - a means to help students organize their understanding of graphs better.

4:35 - 4:55 - A4

• DC Circuits, Slowly but Surely. Ann Brandon, Joliet West High School, Joliet, IL 60435. When you examine most high school or college textbooks and lab books, DC circuits are covered in one or two laboratory exercises - one on Ohm's Law followed by one on series and parallel circuits. In our experience students are not successful when they approach something so new to them in such large gulps. We have developed a series of labs which approach this in much smaller steps. I will describe these and report our results. I will include our extension of these into our Advanced Physics course.

6:30-7:30 - Banquet - Cafeteria at the High School
7:30-9:30 - Chicago Area Demo Team - Lots of Fun Demonstrations Featuring "Bigger is Better"! Ray Coleman, Bill Blunk, Janet Landato, Maria Pluta, Bill Conway, Paul Dolan, Tom Senior, Martha Lietz, Debby Lojkutz, Ann Brandon.

Saturday, April 17, 1999

7:30-8:30 - Council meeting - Room 201

8:30-8:50 - B1 - Little Theater - Session chair: David Cornell

• Re-examining our Focus in Introductory College Physics Courses. Doug A. Franklin and Mark S. Boley, Department of Physics, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455. In many cases, a typical college-level, algebra based physics course closely resembles a calculus-based course in both style and learning outcomes for the students. The assumption is made that the algebra-based student will go on to take more physics. More often, however, the student is taking the algebra-based course as a requirement for another field. In this talk, I will explore the need for different learning outcomes for students based on their experience and their chosen career path. Although we know that many pilot programs have been tested in the past, increasing amounts of research are showing that conceptual development and activity-based learning result in the highest levels of student knowledge and its maximum retention. In recent years, this research has led to the development of national science education standards. I will discuss the impact of these standards on physics education, and their application for the major versus the non-major.

8:50-9:05 - B2

• Investigation of Gravitational Shielding by Rotating Superconductors. Amul D. Tevar, Mark S. Boley, Doug Franklin, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455. The purpose of this project was to investigate the effects of rotating superconductors on the measured weight of suspended masses. A small but distinct weight loss was found to occur when sample masses were hung over rotating superconducting disks, suggesting a weak gravitational-shielding effect. This finding could have applications in satellites, medicine, computers, and MRI. The experimental samples used were 2.54 cm disks of Y₁Ba₂Cu₃O_7-x superconductor. The experimental controls were rubber disks of identical dimensions. Above both groups, either non-magnetic, non-conducting masses or magnetic, conducting masses were suspended. Both groups were rotated with and without fixed external magnetic fields placed within 0.4cm of the disks. The masses were suspended from a balance with a counterweight placed on a sensitive electronic scale. A special apparatus was made that could cool, rotate, and insulate the experimental disks from the masses that were hung 6 cm above them. The disks were rotated at 7500 r.p.m. then slowed to 0 r.p.m. A video camera was used to record the readings of the scale and the movements of the counterweight. A maximum weight loss of 0.24% was found when a non-magnetic, non-conducting sample was hung over a rotating superconductor. There was an effect on all samples when hung over a rotating superconductor. There was also a minute weight fluctuation in the control samples. This is probably due to the evaporation of the liquid nitrogen used to cool the disks. This fluctuation due to liquid nitrogen was accounted for in the calculation of the experimental results.

9:05-9:25 - B3

• Using Semi-Automated Magnetic Hysteresis Measurements and Torque Load Testing to Analyse Heat Treatment Effects on Magneto-Elastic Ringless Torque Sensors. Mark S. Boley, Toni D. Sauncy, Yong S. Kim, Yoshimi Ikeuchi, Doug A. Franklin, Michael J. Cheadle, Matthew G. Walker, Benjamin D. Murphy, Daniel K. Pratt, and David J. Pratt, Department of Physics, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455. Experiments have been performed before and after each portion of a three-step commercially prescribed heat treatment procedure to measure the axial and circumferential magnetic hysteresis of 300M steel ringless hollow shafts, designed for use as non-contact magneto-elastic torque sensors. Torque-load testing has also been performed in each case to determine the effects of the heat treatment steps on the sensor's resolution, reliability, and saturation level. The hysteresis characteristics of a particular ferromagnetic material help determine the utility and/or efficiency of that material for the desired application. Large retentivity (magnetic induction B-axis intercept) characterizes "hard" iron as used in a permanent magnet, and low coercive force (applied magnetic field H-axis intercept) characterizes "soft" iron as used for a transformer core. For our application, a large retentivity and high coercive force are desirable in the circumferential direction to maintain the local sensory region, while a low retentivity and low coercive force are desirable in the axial direction to allow for maximum torque sensitivity of the sensory region. A standard 60 Hz AC voltage, sampled by a storage CRO X–channel, is used to produce the applied H-field, while the CRO Y–channel is connected through an integrator circuit to a secondary pickup coil to measure the magnetic induction B in the material. This allows for a direct screen display and computer download of the hysteresis loop. We will discuss the experimental results as well as pointing out the advantages of direct student involvement in magnetic measurements, an often neglected part of the standard undergraduate physics curriculum.

9:25-9:45 - B4

• Using Web-based Course Components to Add a Student-friendly New Dimension to a General-education Conceptual Physics Course for Non-majors. Toni D. Sauncy, Western Illinois University, Macomb, IL 61455. In a general education course intended for non-math, non-science majors, perhaps the greatest challenge in teaching physics is in motivating these students to be interested in learning more about a subject that many of them unwittingly deem unrelated to "real life". In an effort to achieve a higher level of student involvement, I have implemented a change in the "standard" introductory physics curriculum by including required Web-based activities. The success of this approach, although still in its earliest stages of development, is evidenced by the number of students actively using the class Web site on a regular basis. The successes and problems encountered in the implementation of Web-based course components will be discussed, along with examples of the Web activities and student response.

9:45-9:50

• Take-fives: Roger Malcolm

9:50-10:00 - Break

10:00-10:50 - Plenary session - Little Theater

"Biophysics at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source" Dr. Tom Irving Biology Division, BCPS Department Illinois Institute of Technology Nature, 398, 33-34 (March 4, 1999). Veronica James, John Kearsley, Tom Irving, Yoshiyuki Amemiya and David Cookson. We have studied the structure of partially ordered biological molecules, complexes of biomolecules, and cellular structures including muscles and hair. Using fibre X-ray diffraction studies with synchrotron radiation we have found that hair from breast-cancer patients has a different intermolecular structure to hair from healthy subjects. These changes are seen in all samples of scalp and pubic hair taken from women diagnosed with breast cancer. All the hair samples from women who tested positive for a mutation of the BRCA1 gene, which is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer, also show these changes. Because our results are so consistent, we propose that such hair analyses may be used as a simple, non-invasive screening method for breast cancer.

11:00-11:25 C1 - Little Theater - Session chair: Roger Reeves

• Nuclear Fusion in Nature and Technology. John J. Dykla, Loyola University, Chicago, IL 60626. Nuclear fusion has diverse important roles in nature. One example is cosmic nucleosynthesis, which dominated when the universe was about 3 minutes old and produced the cosmic abundances of deuterium, helium, and lithium. Another example is fusion in stars, which yields the outward pressure balancing gravity in stable stars shining for billions of years, as well as the power source of the most violent super novae at the ends of the lives of the heaviest stars. The roles of fusion in human technology are just beginning to be appreciated. The first "application" was to thermonuclear weapons. Experiments on controlled fusion hold the promise of energy generation on an industrial scale free of the undesirable side effects of current means of energy generation. In the future, our descendants may explore deep space in craft propelled by interstellar ramjets, scooping up the sparse hydrogen atoms between the stars and using fusion reactions as their power source.

11:25-11:50 C2

• Extrasolar Planets: Detection and Description. Joseph L. Spradley, Wheaton College, Wheaton, IL 60187. Indirect methods of observation using basic principles of Newtonian mechanics and the Doppler effect have revealed the existence of more than a dozen planets orbiting other sunlike stars. These extrasolar planets have surprised astronomers by their differences from the planets in our solar system, and have led to new theories about planet formation. This new evidence suggests the uniqueness of our own solar system.

11:50-12:05 C3

• Moore's Six Ideas That Shaped Physics: Feedback. David A. Cornell, Principia College, Elsah, IL 62028. We decided to use Moore's new paperbacks (published by WCB/McGraw -Hill) this year. Our decision was based in part upon the new and appealing teaching techniques recommended by Moore, by the professional level of presentation, and by the desired to explore the "less is more" hypothesis. So far we have presented the units on conservation laws, Newtonian mechanics, special relativity, and electrodynamics. During the present term, we are teaching the quantum and statistical units. We share experience, opinions, and outcomes from use of the new text.

12:05-12:25 C4

• Spreadsheet Physics: The Course. Eric Peterson, Highland Community College, Freeport, IL 61032. Evolving from DOS based Quattro to Excel 7.0, the usefulness of computer spreadsheets to massage, analyze and display attendant data will be explored via several class examples.

12:25-12:30

• Take-fives: David Cornell - Heating a Long Nichrome Wire

Last update: April 16, 1999