While departments adapted to online courses out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, the return to the classroom has seen some departments slow their efforts to meet the needs of online students. Many online physics curricula focus on the concepts and math without hands-on lab components and student-to-student interactions. The Kansas State University Department of Physics has piloted a new approach to online introductory physics courses with physical lab components and required group work. The course is a hybrid of synchronous and asynchronous content, with a fully asynchronous option for students unable to attend synchronous sessions. We present on the design and implementation of this new approach to online introductory physics courses.  

In my first year of teaching, I incorporated active learning and formative assessment techniques into a calculus-based introductory physics course with 17 students. Each class begins with a 5-minute recap quiz to reinforce key concepts from the previous lecture, serving as a warm-up to engage students with new material. The first half of the session introduces new concepts, followed by a multiple-choice pop-up quiz where students self-assess their understanding (indicating answers from A to E). This is reinforced with problem-solving examples on the chalkboard. Next, students pair up for a 5-minute group discussion, reviewing the recap quiz, clarifying concepts, and sharing insights. The second half follows a similar structure: introducing new concepts, self-checking with a multiple-choice quiz, and concluding with examples and a summary. This approach fosters active engagement and promotes deeper understanding through peer discussion and interactive learning.

This presentation discusses the outcomes and behaviors of students in a newly revised, one-credit laboratory course for life science majors. The course, which can be taken alongside or after an algebra-based Newtonian physics course, includes activities on translational, rotational, and harmonic motion, as well as thermal physics and acoustics. Recently, the course was updated to emphasize modeling and experimental design, shifting from its previous focus on reinforcing conceptual understanding. To evaluate the impact of these changes, we conducted a comprehensive study involving observations of student and TA behaviors, interviews with both groups, and analysis of student work to assess improvements in modeling skills. Our findings, which highlight the effectiveness of the new course design, will be presented.

Angular displacement has historically been presented as a scalar quantity even though the time derivative of it is presented to be a vector. Since it is essential for angular velocity to be a vector to support the entire structure of rotational mechanics as well as higher physics topics, the understanding of the delimna presented by havethe time derivative of a scalr becoming (somehow) a vector. This poster pesents a vector definition of angular displacement that helps eliviate this apparent difficulty in introductory physics. 

I describe initiatives I have taken to weave the exciting field of quantum information and quantum technologies into an upper-division course in Quantum Mechanics. Within the framework of developing the formalisms of state vectors and the Dirac notation in classic two-level systems, I discuss the foundation and motivation of quantum computing and use examples of two-level qubits to illustrate the evolution of quantum states on the Bloch Sphere which I then use to discuss superposition, decoherence and coherence times. When I discuss quantum entanglement, I use the platform of a two-qubit system and discuss, in detail, the quantum teleportation of information between Alice and Bob and the quantum circuits and circuit diagrams for this experiment. I also discuss different physical approaches to quantum computing. To help students engage with real-world applications and issues in quantum information, students participate in a "Quantum Festival" at the end of the course through individual twenty-minute capstone presentations on topics they select from a list of quantum information-related topics. I report on the products of the course, assessment of quantum computing concepts via quizzes, and student feedback through blind surveys.

In some fields, wavenumber is in radians per meter, in others it is in cycles per meter, but in both cases only "reciprocal distance" units are cited^[1]. Planck's constant is in joule/Hz while h-bar is the same thing in joule seconds/radian. Angular momentum is most always in kg m^2/s per radian, rather than per cycle. Avogadro's number is now an integer number of molecules per mole, but no longer precisely the number of atomic mass units (or Daltons) in a gram. Boltzmann's constant k is in joules per kelvin per nat of correlation information. This makes temperature kT a measure of thermal energy needed per information unit of state uncertainty increase, and heat capacity Cv/k a multiplicity exponent e.g. in bits of uncertainty increase per two-fold increase in temperature. Thus, in some cases being explicit about dimensionless units can increase accessibility and provide insight into the assumptions behind rules of thumb, like the idea gas law, equipartition, and mass action.

The concept of time has eluded humanity since the start of written history.  I have written a book called “Time, Life, and the Mirrorverse” that fully explains how all occurrences of the Universe fit perfectly into a theory I call the “Mirrorverse!” The concept comes down to the simplistic idea that time is going one direction for our side of the “Mirrorverse,” and the other side of the Mirrorverse is going the exact opposite direction.  CPT symmetry and Supersymmetry are perfectly integrated into this theory since it explains how each works perfectly well if we see the Universe as actually being the Mirrorverse.  The Mirrorverse consists of two exact opposite Universes in which charge, parity, and Time are exact opposites.  This ensures the Mirrorverse will infinitely repeat the same exact course for the rest of time! The reason you are alive right now reading this is because to your viewpoint, you are always alive! The moment you die, time does not exist for you. If time does not exist when you are dead, you are always alive in your viewpoint, repeating the same hopefully great life infinite times!