[300 Creative Physics Problems With Solutions.pdf
Ainoha Sistek
This collection of exercises compiled for talented high-school and undergraduate-level students encourages creativity and a deeper understanding of ideas when solving physics problems. This book features almost three hundred problems and solutions worked out in detail, dealing with classical physics topics such as mechanics, thermodynamics, electrodynamics, magnetism and optics. Posed in accessible language and requiring only elementary calculus, these problems are intended to strengthen students' knowledge of the laws of physics by applying them to practical situations in a fun and instructive way. These problems and solutions challenge students of physics, stretching their abilities through practice and a thorough comprehension of ideas.
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Problem solving is a complex process valuable in everyday life and crucial for learning in the STEM fields. To support the development of problem-solving skills it is important for researchers and curriculum developers to have practical tools that can measure the difference between novice and expert problem-solving performance in authentic classroom work. It is also useful if such tools can be employed by instructors to guide their pedagogy. We describe the design, development, and testing of a simple rubric to assess written solutions to problems given in undergraduate introductory physics courses. In particular, we present evidence for the validity, reliability, and utility of the instrument. The rubric identifies five general problem-solving processes and defines the criteria to attain a score in each: organizing problem information into a Useful Description, selecting appropriate principles (Physics Approach), applying those principles to the specific conditions in the problem (Specific Application of Physics), using Mathematical Procedures appropriately, and displaying evidence of an organized reasoning pattern (Logical Progression).
Rubric scores from (a) 160 student solutions and (b) 159 solutions written by an instructor or taken from a textbook solution manual. This rubric was identical to the final rubric but used a maximum score of 4.
Graph of score agreement (weighted kappa) for two raters as a function of number of solutions scored for eight problems. The solutions were scored sequentially in time. The ninth data point is a rescoring of the first problem initially scored as the first data point.
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I enjoy chess and golf. When I first started publishing books, I made these to help master the art of publishing before publishing my math and science books. I wrote these books for myself, but others have found them helpful, too.
Hi Chris,
We are having a great time with Algebra Essentials Practice Workbook and enjoy all the examples. But we are stumped by Example 3 on page 111. We understand how to calculate the answer and check the right side of the equation. However we are getting stuck on checking the left side of the equation. It seems like there may be some intermediate steps that we are missing. Can you clarify? We have worked a ton of problems on the subsequent pages and want to be able to check answers without having to refer to the answer key immediately.
Thanks!
Here is another way to look at it. If the drive force exceeds air resistance, the car gains speed. If the drive force is less than air resistance, the car slows down. If drive force equals air resistance in magnitude, the speed is constant, which is the case here.
I would recommend my calculus-based study guide workbook, vol. 1-3. These introduce the main concepts, include fully solved examples, provide practice problems, and include answers as well as several hints to walk students through the solutions. (If the hints are not enough, but full solutions are desired, my 100 instructive physics examples books are actually the solutions to the study guide workbooks.)
Hi Chris, I love using this book with my daughter. I though have just lost the answers to the book. is their any where where you can get the answers for it? (the book is algebra essentials practice) I really just want to make my duagter the best kid she can be.
That book only has the answers available. If there is a particular problem you would like to see worked out, I could post a solution when I get some free time. (A few of my other books provide more than just the answers in the back to offer more help with the solutions.)
I am a homeschool mom of 4 kids. My son will be a senior in the fall and plans to take the AP Physics C: Mechanics exam (and maybe the Elec. & Mag. exam) next spring. He worked through a standard high school physics course this year almost independently. I have a BS in mechanical engineering and was a licensed professional engineer, but I quit to be home with my kids 21 years ago, and I last took physics 30+ years ago. Would your Essential Calculus-based Physics Study Guide Workbooks Volumes 1 & 2 be sufficient to learn and study for the AP exam, or would I be better off purchasing something like University Physics by Young and Freedman ( -Physics-Hugh-D-Young/dp/0135216117) and helping him work through that while using your books as a supplement? Thanks for your help.
Mr. McMullen,
I am curious if there is a listed order your math books should be introduced to a child? Due to the recent school issues, it has come to my attention my grandson is not performing at an appropriate grade level. I endeavored to start him on your Fractions, Decimals, and Percents Math Workbook, which thankfully has been a great success. Since we will be together full-time for the summer and part-time thereafter, I figured we would continue on through the rest of the materials you have produced thus this inquiry.
Thank you for your time and any recommendations.
Thank you for using my books and taking time to provide feedback. I have one book on logarithms and others on trigonometry, which are a large part of precalculus. Someday, I would like to make a dedicated precalculus book.
If you decide that you would like a lot more practice with factoring and a few other basic skills, Beginning Algebra offers a lot of such practice exercises. For students who need a lot of practice with just the most important topics, Algebra Essentials has ample practice to build fluency. For students looking for graphing practice, I have a basic graphing book (like y=mx+b).
Dr. McMullen,
I am searching for an accessible, self-teaching guide-like book on partial differential equations and have not had any luck. I was wondering if you had any recommendations for such a book?
Thank you for your response. Based upon my extensive searching for PDE books of the nature that I described and comments that I have received from folks such as yourself, it seems to that there is a niche for the type of PDE book that I described that is unfilled and therefore an opportunity for someone to publish such a book. Given that there are hundreds, if not even thousands of the obtuse-style PDE books, we certainly do not need yet another of those. I really do not understand the desire among some in academic circles, to write books for student use, that are almost useless to most students. If it is about maintaining rigor, there are very obvious ways to write in which one can maintain technical rigor, while still presenting material accessibly. I have read several PDE books, in which I was following the concepts fine, only to be thrown off of the track because the author decided to introduce a notation scheme, that they barely explained and never provided a justification for making the change. Yes, the notation was a little bit shorter, but in reality all that it did was add yet another layer of material that the reader needed to translate, in order to understand the text. What I see in this behavior is pomposity for the sake of pomposity. During a period in which the academy is under attack by a significant portion of our citizenry and therefore many politicians, it seems to me that we should be striving to make our work more accessible rather than more opaque. By the way all of this is presented as a person who was a tenured faculty member at a Carnegie Research Level 1 university for more than 25 years, and who published my fair share of peer-reviewed papers. So I am looking at this problem from both sides of the equation.
If you want to practice applying algebra to word problems, the word problems book will help with this. I have another word problems book without the word algebra in the title that is more basic and offers more variety.
Wow. Thank you for reporting this. The Kindle book with sideways pictures is actually a PIRATED book and has been reported to Amazon; it should be removed soon. This book is currently only available in paperback. If you search the ISBN 1941691374, you should find it.
Been 30 years since Calculus I & II. I am preparing to take University class in Linear Algebra, that expects experience in MultiVariable Calculus. I want to buy copies of your books but I am not sure how far back I need to go in math. Maybe Geometry to Calculus III?
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