Physics 162: Useful and Interesting Links

Links Important for the Course

• Duke Community Standard.
  • Short-term Illness Notification. Use one of these forms to inform Duke and me that you are unable to attend class, complete a homework or take a quiz or test because of a short-term illness.
• Physics Department.
• Sakai webpage
• Piazza
• MasteringPhysics
• Physics for Scientists and Engineers Plus Modern Physics, Third Edition by Randall Knight.
• Logger Pro lab software (used in the 162 labs).
• WolframAlpha, powerful free web program that knows about many physical parameters and scientific data, that can answer informal technical questions posed in English, and that can evaluate complex numerical and symbolic expressions. Look at the Examples webpage, also take the tutorial.

Online Physics Lectures, Tutorials

• Professor Walter Lewin's MIT Electricity and Magnetism course, with video lectures.
• Duke Professor Larry Evans online Physics 54 notes, with many good insights for 162 students.
• Duke Professor Rob Brown's Physics 162 online book. He also has a useful set of 162 review problems.
• KhanAcademy, many videos related to introductory physics and related mathematics.

Journals

• American Journal of Physics.
• Physics Education
• Physics Teacher.

• Nature.
• Physical Review Letters.
• Physics Today.
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).
• Physics, "spotlighting exceptional research".
• Science.
• Scientific American.

Miscellaneous:

• American Physical Society.
• Connextions, educational modules.
• Electricity in Europe, practical information about using American electrical devices in Europe, where the voltage is 220 V (rms) at 50 Hz, versus the American values of 120 V (rms) at 60 Hz. Especially watch out for electric clocks (which run more slowly in Europe) and devices using transformers (which can overheat in Europe, can you understand why?).
• Hyperphysics, use of concept maps to understand connection between various concepts and applications of physics.
• Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics.
• Irregular Webcomic, many photo-based "comics" with a science theme, e.g., see Maxwell's equations; electromagnetism; speed of light.
• MERLOT physic links. MERLOT is a web resource for online multimedia learning and teaching.
• MIT Opencourseware undergraduate physics courses.
• Nobel Prizes in Physics.
• PhET, Physics Education Technology site for interactive software physics demos.
• Physics Source, resources for introductory physics courses.
• Polarization
  • Frizion, website of art created by photographing polarized light passing through ice crystals.
  • Polarization.com, many interesting applications and anecdotes about polarization.
• Science museums:
  • Morehead Planetarium and Science Museum at UNC, Chapel Hill, NC.
  • Museum of Life and Science, Durham, NC.
• Science puzzles and questions:
  • Duke Physics Challenges.
  • U. of Maryland "Physics Question of the Week".
• Videos:
  • NASA video of water droplets orbiting charged plastic knitting needle/a>.