It has been a while since my last list post, and I feel like focusing more on my mission for this blog. With this in mind, I would like to share a list of my favorite resources for physics teaching and physics education research (PER). Hopefully some of these are familiar, and if you use [...]
Archive for the ‘physics’ Category
Physics Education Resources
Posted in college, open access, physics, teaching, tagged education, physics, research, teaching on November 8, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Octave on Mac
Posted in college, computing, links, matlab, open source software, physics, teaching on October 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I have been interested in GNU Octave for a while, although never bothered to play much since I had access to recent Matlab releases while I was at Duke. Now that I am managing my own software budget, and trying to keep it to $0, I have a new found appreciation for Open Source Software. [...]
Sustainable Electronics
Posted in college, physics, teaching, tagged design, electronics, physics, sustainability on August 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
This fall Physics 364 (Electronics) will have a project component. Pacific has chosen Sustainability as a campus-wide theme for this academic year, and with this in mind, I will encourage the class to consider projects that explore the application of technology (electronics, physical computing, etc.) to improving sustainability. This can be challenging as technology is [...]
Academic Productivity » CiteULike + BibDesk
Posted in physics on July 4, 2009 | 1 Comment »
A brilliant tip on how to mash up CiteULike and BibDesk (two of my favorite tools). It helps that my article-search workflow is identical to the author’s. If you browse and post to CiteULike, this is a great way to bring those articles into BibDesk.
Academic Productivity » CiteULike + BibDesk: Sync your references and live [...]
Physics Viewpoint
Posted in physics, tagged atoms, fiber, switching on May 19, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Take a look at physics.aps.org for my Viewpoint article on Efficient All-Optical Switching Using Slow Light within a Hollow Fiber by Bajcsy et al. The work demonstrates an all-optical switch that was built by inserting cold Rubidium atoms into the hollow core of a photonic-crystal fiber. These fibers have been used in a wide range [...]
It’s not you, it’s my funding
Posted in college, physics, teaching on May 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I am wrapping up my first year and recently faced the most difficult decision of my time here. Of course, there have been easy decisions and hard decisions all year, but they were all things that I expected from deciding to fail a smart student who turns in no homework to how do I respond [...]
Teaching with Arduino
Posted in computing, open source software, physics, teaching, try this at home, tagged arduino, demo, teaching on April 25, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I’ve decided to use the Arduino in my electronics class this fall. The Arduino is an “open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software.” Even from the description it sounds like just what an electronics course needs. I finally had some time to tinker with it today, and after a few minutes [...]
Physics of Sound and Music
Posted in physics, teaching on April 13, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Over the next few months I am hoping to develop a course on the Physics of Sound and Music. Although this course isn’t on the books yet, it has been offered in the past, and it would fit into the new core model at Pacific. We have adopted a program that replaces the old “pick [...]
Squirt Sunset
Posted in experiments, optics, physics, teaching, try this at home on January 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Last semester, in Waves and Optics, we discussed Rayleigh scattering. I described some simple examples, including the famous blue sky, and orange sunset. Earlier in the semester, I had coincidentally noticed that Squirt soda in a clear glass tends to be a little blue in hue, and not surprisingly, looks orange if held in front [...]
Opinion Paper
Posted in more about me, optics, physics, tagged papers on December 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I was recently invited to contribute an opinion on a paper by Stefan Schumacher et al. that extends some of my research on pattern-based all-optical switches to semiconductor systems. The paper appears in the January issue of Physica Status Solidi and should be available online now.
Download a PDF copy: A.M.C. Dawes, Towards a single-photon all-optical [...]
