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UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS Guest
2024-11-22 1:52 |
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2013 Meeting
Section: Physics Education
Title:
Using microsoft Excel in teaching and learning relativistic kinematics
Authors:
I. GRIGORE(1,2), Cristina MIRON(1), E.S. BARNA(1)
Affiliation:
(1) Faculty of Physics, University of Bucharest, 405 Atomstilor, Magurele-Ilfov, 077125, Romania
(2) “Lazar Edeleanu” Technical College, Ploiesti, Romania
E-mail
grigore_nl@yahoo.com,
Keywords:
spreadsheets, relativistic kinematics, Lorentz transformation, physics.
Abstract:
In his paper there are presented three instruments developed with Microsoft Excel that may be helpful in the process of teaching and learning the relativistic kinematics. The instruments devised complete other educational software that offers support to students in their efforts to overcome obstacles encountered when learn relativistic phenomena. The first instrument, named “Events analysis”, is used to the study of the spatio - temporal relationship between two events located in two inertial reference frames that are in relative movement one to the other. Particularly, this instrument helps us to check time dilation and simultaneity of the events, as well as the invariance of the spatio-temporal quadratic-interval between them. The second instrument is used for the relativist composition of the velocities, whereas the third calculates length contraction of a linear body in an inertial reference frame that is in motion to its own reference frame. The construction of these instruments is thoroughly explained together with the functions at the disposal of the Excel users, and the way in which these can be used in various situations.
There are also discussed the advantages of using spreadsheets in the modeling of physical phenomena, especially of the relativistic ones.
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