Monthly Archives: October 2012

Wikipedia as textbook

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Andy Rundquist

I’ve been kicking around some ideas to avoid (for the students) the incredibly high cost of the texts I was planning on using next semester in Modern Physics and Theoretical Mechanics. I wanted to get some of the thoughts down … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, teaching, technology | 49 Comments

Backwards on a train

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Andy Rundquist

I had quite an interesting experience on a train today. I almost missed it, so I was kind of out of it when I finally found a seat. I was facing backwards, but I didn’t put much thought into that. … Continue reading →

Posted in physics, teaching | Leave a comment

Matching students with projects

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Andy Rundquist

The 2012 Nobel Prize in economics went to Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley for work they did on market-matching theories. These theories work to optimize the matching of items from one list to items in another, especially when preference is … Continue reading →

Posted in mathematica, teaching | 9 Comments

Twirling hanging chain

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Andy Rundquist

If you take a hanging chain and oscillate the top back and forth, you can find that there are certain frequencies that give the chain a stable (though still oscillating) shape. These shapes are Bessel functions and the first few … Continue reading →

Posted in physics | 4 Comments