Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXVI
A qualitative question about work
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXVIA qualitative question about work
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXVIA questions about free-body diagrams
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXVA question about how force affects momentum
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXIVA question about systems and system boundaries and the Momentum Principle
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXIIIA question about vector computation
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXIIThis is the first in a series of sample questions I’ve used in oral interviews.
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXII just realized this is the thirtieth post in this series! I don’t know if anyone has found this series helpful, but I think these questions collectively might make a pool of original exam questions. That’s mainly how I see them anyway. This post is almost a word for word duplicate of the last post […]
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXXStudents sometimes see vector dot products in their calculus classes before they see them in their physics classes. Dot products are often presented with two seemingly unrelated definitions, one of which is geometric and coordinate free and the other is in terms of components in a particular basis. Yet, the two give exactly the same […]
Read More Conceptual Understanding in Introductory Physics XXIXTL;DR: Simple vector dot products and cross products may be “undone” using formal methods consistent with Gibbsian vector algebra. Writing the cross product and dot product of an unknown vector relative to a given vector in a canonical form allows a well known vector identity to be used to isolate the unknown vector. Special cases […]
Read More Vector Formalism in Introductory Physics VI: A Unified Solution for Simple Dot Product and Cross Product EquationsTL;DR: Solving seemingly trivial dot product and cross product equations leads to an astonishing result, namely that they have the same solution, which can be derived both geometrically and algebraically. Establishing this common solution is an important step in motivating formal Gibbsian vector algebra. In the previous two posts, I demonstrated that the simple dot […]
Read More Vector Formalism in Introductory Physics V: Two Equations, One Solution