Joe Wolfe: educational pages 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 Pages for high school teachers and students My main research interests are in: the acoustics of musical instruments, the acoustics of the voice coding for cochlear implants and cryobiology.

Pages related to education and learning in general

• 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.
• 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.

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.
  • Filters.
  • Transformers.
  • Motors.
  • Drift velocity and Ohm's law.
  • Download notes on AC and safety, in .pdf format.

• Pages on Relativity
  • Time dilation, relativity of simultaneity and length contraction: an introduction using animations.
  • The principle of relativity: from Gallileo's and Newton's principle to Einstein's.
  • The Twin Paradox: Can symmetry be used to disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity?
  • The Pole Paradox: Another attempt to use symmetry to disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

• 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.

• 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.

• Pages on miscellaneous topics in physics
  • The electromagnetic spectrum.
  • FAQ for high school physics, collecting and answering many of the questions put by students in New South Wales to the
  • Bulletin Board for high school physics.
  • 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.
  • 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.

• France-Australia collaboration: a site for students or researchers.
• 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.

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.