Matter & Interactions

Major articles

The following articles describe key aspects of the Matter & Interactions curriculum. The first four are copyright American Journal of Physics and provided by permission.

Chabay, R. W., & Sherwood, B. A. (1999). Bringing atoms into first-year physics. American Journal of Physics, 67, pp.1045-1050. pdf abstract

Chabay, R. & Sherwood, B. (2004) Modern Mechanics. American Journal pdf abstract

Chabay, R. & Sherwood, B. (2006) Restructuring the introductory electricity and magnetism course. American Journal of Physics, 74(4), pp. 329-336. pdf abstract

Chabay, R. & Sherwood, B. (2008) Computational physics in the introductory calculus-based course. American Journal of Physics, 76(4&5), pp. 307-313. pdf abstract

Beichner, R., Chabay, R., & Sherwood, B. (2010) Labs for the Matter & Interactions curriculum. American Journal of Physics, 78(5), pp. 456-460.

Detailed article on all aspects of M&I; a chapter from an on-line volume Research-based Reform of University Physics, edited by Redish and Cooney.

Other articles

A book review by Joe Heafner appeared in the December 2003 issue of The Physics Teacher.
A post-use book review by Aaron Titusappeared in the April 2006 issue of The American Journal of Physics.

Tale of two curricula: The performance of 2000 students in introductory electromagnetism, by Matthew A. Kohlmyer, Marcos D. Caballero, Richard Catrambone, Ruth W. Chabay, Lin Ding, Mark P. Haugan, M. Jackson Marr, Bruce A. Sherwood, and Michael F. Schatz.

A unified treatment of electrostatics and circuits by Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay, an unpublished manuscript dealing with the role of surface charge in electric circuits (pdf). Related material: Images from a computer model of surface charge on a circuit, by Prof. Norris Preyer, College of Charleston, South Carolina, http://galaxy.cofc.edu/circuits.html.

Refraction and the speed of light, a note by Bruce Sherwood (pdf).

Talks

Fundamental principles in introductory physics and A more coherent topic sequence for E&M, talks presented by Ruth Chabay and Bruce Sherwood at the 2004 International Conference on Physics Education, Durban, South Africa (pdf).

Choice of system and the energy equation, a talk presented by Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay at a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Sacramento CA, August 2004 (PowerPoint).

Sparks, a talk presented by Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay at a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Madison WI, August 2003 (PowerPoint).

The zero of potential energy is not arbitrary, a talk presented by Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay at a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in Rochester NY, July 2001 (PowerPoint).

The point-particle system, a talk presented by Bruce Sherwood and Ruth Chabay at a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in San Antonio TX, August 1999 (pdf).

Overview: Volume 1 (Modern Mechanics) (PowerPoint)

Overview: Volume 2 (Electric & Magnetic Interactions) (PowerPoint)

Electric Fields, Cell Towers, and Wi-Fi, a video of a talk presented by Bruce Sherwood for staff of the Santa Fe NM city government to help them in their discussions with citizens and vendors:

First half (32 minutes)

Second half (32 minutes)

The talk was given on June 26, 2008 and was recorded on DVD. The mpeg editor VideoReDo TVSuite was used to edit the video and to produce both a new DVD version and two 1 GB mpeg files which were converted to Flash video using Sothink Video Encoder.