Joe Wolfe: educational pages   New: Physclips has won the Physics division of the 2007 Pirelli Prizes for Science Communication. Physclips uses animations and film clips to introduce basic ideas in mechanics. Relativity in brief - or in detail. Can relativity be understood by someone with little or no background in physics? "Einstein Light" uses animations and film clips to explain relativity at a range of levels. Review in Science; award from Scientific American.   I work in the School of Physics at the The University of New South Wales. With help from my colleagues John Smith, John Tann and George Hatsidimitris, I have written various educational web pages, of which this page is a partial catalogue. The educational pages are divided thus: Pages related to education and learning in general Pages on topics in physics Pages on sound, hearing, speech and music Miscellany Materials for high school teachers and students Materials for primary school teachers and students Teaching awards My main research interests are in: the acoustics of musical instruments, the acoustics of the voice coding for cochlear implants and cryobiology. I am also a composer and the next link is to some of my music for orchestra or for chamber music ensembles.

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Pages related to education and learning in general

• How to write a PhD thesis. Strangely enough, this is a big hit. Either there are lots of students writing theses, or lots of people procrastinating.
• How to survive a thesis defence.
• Hints for doing tests. All obvious advice, but it may help.
• Disappointed with your results in your intro physics test? These study hints may help.
• Tips for giving talks: some basic tips written for students who may not have given talks before.

Pages on topics in physics

• Pages on Electrical circuits. AC is an area in which animations really are helpful for understanding phase differences and phasor diagrams, so we made some.
  • AC circuits.
  • Power, RMS and 3-phase AC circuits.
  • Filters.
  • Transformers.
  • Motors.
  • Drift velocity and Ohm's law.
  • Download notes on AC and safety, in .pdf format.

• Relativity
  • Relativity in ten minutes - or ten hours. Can relativity be understood by someone with little or no background in physics?
    "Einstein Light" uses animations and film clips to explain relativity at a range of levels.

• Pages related to quantum physics
  • Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the musician's uncertainty principle.
  • The quantum mechanics of cricket.
  • Downloadable notes on Bohr and the hydrogen spectrum. A simplified account written for high school or introductory physics students.

• Pages related to thermal physics
  • Thermal radiation (and why clothes work).
  • Superheating and microwave ovens: why you should be careful boiling water in microwave ovens.
  • Boiling and freezing: the effects of solutes and of pressure: a simple, non-technical (biologist-friendly) account.

• Pages related to biophysics
  • Cellular Thermodynamics a chapter in the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (http://www.els.net), Nature Publishing Group, London.
  • Cryobiology and anhydrobiology The physical causes of cellular damage due to freezing and drying.
  • What is 'unfreezable water'?: a question asked by people working in cryobiology and anhydrobiology.
  • Membranes: homeostasis and regulation of area and tension: An area of membane mechanics that is suddenly fashionable again.

• Pages on miscellaneous topics in physics
  • PhysClips: a multi-media, multi-level introduction to mechanics.
  • The electromagnetic spectrum.
  • FAQ for high school physics, collecting and answering many of the questions put by students, mainly in New South Wales, to the
  • Bulletin Board for high school physics.
  • An introduction to Netwon's laws, gravity and the orbits of planets.
  • The Foucault Pendulum at the University of New South Wales. Does the earth go around the sun and how do you know?
  • What are coriolis forces and why do the major ocean currents and winds go clockwise in the Northern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the South?
  • The physics of speech, including helium speech and why it makes your voice sound funny.
  • Using a vanilla slice to demonstrate various material properties.
  • Cosmology, Teleology and Danish Grandmothers: a critical examination of the argument for design in the universe.
  • The physics of sailing: how boats can sail upwind, how they can sail faster than the wind, etc.
  • Wheels and rolling: why the rolling point of a wheel is stationary, and what part of a train goes backwards.
  • What is the green flash and what causes it?
  • How big is a meteor? A simple calculation to determine the size from its perceived brightness.
  • The monkey and the hunter. Featuring a slow motion video of this classic physics question.
  • A simple introduction to calculus. Some of the most important ideas that will be needed in first year physics.
  • Physics questions: a forum for discussing physics questions that fall outside the syllabi of most courses.

Pages on sound, hearing, speech and music

• Music acoustics home page
• Voice acoustics home page
• What is a decibel?
• Measure your own hearing response curve.
• What are interference beats and Tartini tones?
• Helmholtz resonators: How do whistles work? Why does blowing across a bottle make a note?
• Chladni patterns: what are they and what causes them?
• Bows and strings. How bows interact with strings in musical instruments.
• Waves in strings, reflections, standing waves and harmonics.
• How do woodwind instruments work?
• What is a sound spectrum?
• Pipes and harmonics. Why do closed conical instuments (like the oboe and saxophone) have the same set of resonances as open cylindrical instruments (like the flute)? (This seems to be one of the most FAQs in music acoustics.)
• How harmonic are harmonics?(A more subtle FAQ in music acoustics.)
• Note names, MIDI numbers, frequencies and keyboard positions, and translating from one to another.
• Harmonic singing vs normal singing. How sygyt or xoomi singers (from Tuva, Mongolia and elsewhere) make those high, whistling tones.
• An introduction to flute acoustics.
• An introduction to clarinet acoustics.
• An introduction to saxophone acoustics.
• An introduction to brass acoustics.
• An introduction to guitar acoustics.
• An introduction to violin acoustics.
• An introduction to didjeridu acoustics.
• An introduction to shakuhachi acoustics.
• An introduction to our work on signal processing with cochlear implants.
• The Science of Music: a series I made for the ABC featuring Dene Olding, Nigel Westlake, Paul Plunkett, Paul Dyer and Colin Piper as guest artists.

Miscellany.

• One Night in Afghanistan: an Australian traveller's account.
• Venice: an acoustical paradise. The Sydney Morning Herald, June 16, 2001, p1 of the travel section.
• Cool Scientist. A story about Joe by Stephen Luntz in Australasian Science, March 2006, p47.

Material for high school physics students and teachers.

• Interesting and inexpensive experiments for high school physics. Written for teachers and students using the New South Wales syllabus, but more widely applicable.
• FAQ for high school physics. Originally set up for teachers and students using the New South Wales syllabus.
• A Q & A bulletin board for high school physics problems. Originally set up for teachers and students using the New South Wales syllabus.
• A resource exchange forum for physics teachers.
• HSC: 'The World Communicates'. Some information for students and teachers in New South Wales dealing with this syllabus.
• HSC: 'Electric motors and transformers'. Some information for teachers and students in New South Wales dealing with this syllabus.

Material for primary school physics students and teachers.

• Glimpses of science for primary schools. A set of investigations and kits may by Jacinda Ginges, George Hatsidimitris and me.

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Joe Wolfe / J.Wolfe@unsw.edu.au, phone 61-2-9385 4954 (UT + 10, +11 Oct-Mar).

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Music Acoustics home page
Joe's scientific home page
Joe's music site

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Awards for university and web teaching

• Physclips has won the Physics Prize of the 2007 Pirelli Prizes for Science Communication.

• Australian College of Educators Award for University Teaching, 2006.

• Scientific American Science & Technology Web Awards 2005 The editors of Scientific American chose Einstein Light for one of these awards.

   

• Scientific American Science & Technology Web Awards 2005 The editors of Scientific American chose the Music Acoustics website for one of these awards.

   

• Review of Einstein Light in the journal Science, 17 June, 2005.

   

• The MERLOT Editorial Boards chose the Music Acoustics website as 2005 Editors' Choice Award for exemplary online learning resources.

• Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT). 2004 award for Physical Sciences and Engineering.

• Acoustical Society of America Award The ASA awarded its 2002 Science Writing Award for Professionals in Acoustics for Introduction to clarinet acoustics.

• ViceChancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence, 2002.

• Review of Music Acoustics website in the journal Science, 30 November, 2001.

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  The Music Acoustics website has also been recommended by a range of other organisations, journals and web directories, including the Exploratorium, Physics Today (Feb, 2000), the National Science Teachers Association (USA), the Australian Academy of Science, Librarians' Index to the Internet, Psigate etc.

  Einstein Light has also been recommended by a range of other organisations, journals and web directories, including the Australian Institute of Physics, the Sydney Morning Herald, Yahoo (pick of the day, 22/10/2005) etc.