Over the summer of 2014, Soft matter theory PI Tim Atherton and grad student Chris Burke designed a brand new course on Computational Physics, i.e how to use computers to solve physics problems. Unlike traditional classes, this adopted a radical new strategy: teaching computing through a sequence of carefully designed group projects. To ensure the […]
Every year, students in my Physics 12 General Physics II class make video projects about electromagnetism. Here are this years amazing videos:—
Jordan, Alex, Matthew, James “Shocking how good this project is”
Patrick, Dylan, Rory — Magnetic braking
Clara, Tanya, Stasia — Tesla coil
Emily, Emily, Jingyi, Ken — Electroreception in […]
I‘m delighted to announce that our new paper, “Predicting the influence of plate geometry on the eddy-current pendulum” has just been published in the American Journal of Physics. This journal publishes material related to physics education and our paper concerns a familiar classroom demonstration called Van Waltenhofen’s pendulum (or the Eddy Current pendulum) […]
The Tufts Department of Education has been creating a number of resources for faculty to help them develop their teaching practices, and has recently launched a set of video interviews with faculty who use a student-centered approach to pedagogy. Softmattertheory PI Tim Atherton and his Physics 12 General Physics II class was selected as […]
A signature component of Tim Atherton’s introductory classes for several years now has been the incorporation of Digital Storytelling video projects. Students in my General Physics II class at Tufts were asked as a final project to collaboratively create a short YouTube video explaining a topic within the scope of the class to a high school audience. This […]
Softmattertheory’s Andrew DeBenedictis stopped in at the Museum of Science on Friday to join the panel of volunteer judges for Fenway High School‘s Senior Science Fair. The event, held annually at the museum since 1997, showcased the experimental research work of 71 Fenway High seniors. Their research covered a wide range of topics including […]
A signature component of Tim Atherton’s introductory classes for several years now has been the incorporation of Digital Storytelling video projects. Students in my General Physics II class at Tufts were asked, as a semester long project, to collaboratively create a short YouTube video explaining a topic within the scope of the class to a high school audience. […]
I was asked last year to write a review for Physics Today magazine of famous entomologist Edward O. Wilson‘s book “Letters to a Young Scientist”. Wilson is emeritus faculty at Harvard University and is famous for his Pulitzer prize winning book “The Social Conquest of Earth”, as well as his television documentary “Lord of […]
I was delighted to spend the morning today at the Boston Museum of Science judging high school senior science projects from Fenway High School. I was really impressed by the high quality of the projects and the number of students who showed both aptitude and interest in studying science further at university; I was […]
A couple of years ago, as part of my efforts to use interactive visualizations as a learning tool, I wrote a Mathematica notebook for the Introductory Physics class to allow one to visualize the electric field lines and equipotential surfaces from a collection of point charges. Charges could be added or removed, moved around […]
Questions/Feedback
Email us at timothy.atherton@tufts.edu