Physics Commons^™

Toy Blocks And Rotational Physics, Gabriele U. Varieschi, Isabel R. Jully

Gabriele Varieschi

Have you ever observed a child playing with toy blocks? A favorite game is to build towers and then make them topple like falling trees. To the eye of a trained physicist this should immediately look like an example of the physics of “falling chimneys,” when tall structures bend and break in mid-air while falling to the ground. The game played with toy blocks can actually reproduce well what is usually seen in photographs of falling towers, such as the one that appeared on the cover of the September 1976 issue of The Physics Teacher.1 In this paper we describe …

Intonation And Compensation Of Fretted String Instruments, Gabriele U. Varieschi, Christina M. Gower

Gabriele Varieschi

We discuss theoretical and physical models that are useful for analyzing the intonation of musical instruments such as guitars and mandolins and can be used to improve the tuning on these instruments. The placement of frets on the fingerboard is designed according to mathematical rules and the assumption of an ideal string. The analysis becomes more complicated when we include the effects of deformation of the string and inharmonicity due to other string characteristics. As a consequence, perfect intonation of all the notes on the instrument cannot be achieved, but complex compensation procedures can be introduced to minimize the problem. …

Toy Models For The Falling Chimney, Gabriele U. Varieschi, Kaoru Kamiya

Gabriele Varieschi

In this paper we review the theory of the ‘‘falling chimney,’’ which deals with the breaking in mid-air of tall structures when they fall to the ground. We show that these ruptures can be caused by either shear forces typically developing near the base, or by the bending of the structure which is caused primarily by the internal bending moment. In the latter case the breaking is more likely to occur between one-third and one-half of the height of the chimney. Small scale toy models are used to reproduce the dynamics of the falling chimney. By examining photos taken during …

Connecting Self-Efficacy And Views About Nature Of Science In Undergraduate Research Experiences, Gina M. Quan, Andrew Elby

Gina Quan

Attending To Scientific Practices Within Undergraduate Research Experiences, Gina M. Quan, Chandra Anne Turpen, Andrew Elby

Gina Quan