A timely addition to the Hewitt Drew-It collection

With flat-Earthers on the rise, it's a good time to review reality. Paul Hewitt's here to help.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 149. Eratosthenes and the round earth
Hewitt presents an easy explanation on how Eratosthenes measured the diameter and circumference of the earth in about 235 B.C. Only simple geometry is used.



For a complete index of Hewitt Drew-It video lessons, start at
Hewitt Drew-It! PHYSICS Screencast Directory

There are quick lessons on virtually all topics covered in introductory physics, conveniently organized for easy access.

Hewitt Drew It screencast index page updated

Conceptual Physics author and good friend, Paul Hewitt, recently spent a few years producing 147 physics screencasts. I was overwhelmed at the sheer volume of these gems, so I organized a set of links to the screencasts in a way that was helpful to me as a classroom teacher.

Since I originally launched my index page, several more screencasts were produced. So today, I updated the index page to reflect the new screencasts. Newly indexed screencasts include several concerning special relativity and a couple on general relativity, as well as "appendix" screencasts on sailing into the wind and another about the exponential function (it's more captivating than you might think).

Hewitt Drew It Screencasts

New and improved video pages

New: An index page for Jearl Walker's Kinetic Karnival series, with links to the videos and links to question set worksheets for four of the six episodes. Oldies but goodies.

Also new, an index page for The Mechanical Universe episodes I use. It links to Annenberg's Learner.org Mechanical Universe page and to my question set worksheets are there for the College Editions. The high school adaptations don't yet stream, so you'll need to pony up to get the short and sweet versions stripped of the calculus. But links to my question sets are there. Is The Mechanical Universe growing long in the tooth? Perhaps. Is there a video series as solid on the fundamentals of physics? None that I know of.

Improved: I've update the burgeoning YouTube Physics page to include this video set, the Mount Tavurvur Volcano Eruption, the Victoria Phyz Falls Baird Bungee Bounce, and Bree's Color Subtraction videos, among others. Worth a visit if you've never been or haven't been in a while.

Classics: The Hewitt Drew It Physics Screencasts remain conveniently catalogued here.

Full Conceptual Physics Alive! Hewitt lecture videos are available for purchase on DVD or streaming from Arbor Scientific. My video question sets are also available at ArborSci. The videos and questions sets come in very handy for everyday lessons, and become golden in the event of unexpected absences (illness, jury duty, etc.).

Also classic: Cosmos. Cal Sagan's Personal Voyage and Neil deGrasse Tyson's Spacetime Odyssey.

Because there are so many flavors of video I like to have access to, I've created a separate index page (and removed most links from the phyz.org home page).

The Video Index Page of Phyz. Now how silly do you feel for squandering that ski week that's coming to an end?

Got a hot tip for a pedagogy-rich video clip or series? Let us know!

Hewitt Fest 2014 at Rio Americano

Conceptual Physics author, Paul Hewitt, was in Sacramento for a day so he could attend Pasco's 50th anniversary. (I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the event, which was great fun in celebration of an excellent company with solid corporate values.)

Hewitt, along with his delightful wife Lillian and ever-clever Evan Jones, was kind enough to drop in on my Physics classes today. He regaled the students with tales of the inverse square law, sunballs, college matriculation, and his path to physics.

After the lessons, the lunch time bell rang and my room became Groupie Shot City (or Selfie Central). My post to Facebook was, "An 82 year old textbook author visited my school today. The students mobbed him like he was a rock star."

Here are some images to prove it.

2014 05 Hewitt Fest at Rio Americano

Some readers might recall that Hewitt paid Rio Americano a visit on the last day of school, June, 2011.

Balanced Balloons - a new Figuring Physics

I am delighted to have developed some "Figuring Physics" ideas for The Physics Teacher columnist, Paul Hewitt over the years.

If you want a treasure-trove of Hewitt's "Figuring Physics" (a.k.a. "Next-Time Questions"), you're in luck.

Hewitt's Next-Time Questions at Arbor Scientific

We're in the midst of our study of electrostatics. Usually this brings torrents of rain to Northern California. This year's drought seems to be impervious to my machinations.

In any case, this little puzzle came to mind. It was preceded by the developments of Balancing Charges 1 and Balancing Charges 2 PhyzJobs. But I turned the concept into a standalone puzzle.

We begin with two helium-filled balloons that, when oppositely charged, are exactly balanced. They are attached to a massless bar that has a frictionless hinge at its midpoint.

I'll post the answer in the comments next week. It's a fun one to think through. Maybe it will make the cut for next year's round of "Figuring Physics."

Hewitt Drew It! screencast directory update

Paul Hewitt continues to produce screencasts. And I think I've final caught up with him on my simple, home-made directory.

Screencasts for Atomic and Nuclear Physics and Relativity have not yet been released. But there are over 120 Conceptual Physics screencasts out there right now!

Hewitt Drew It! Screencast Directory

Figuring Physics: EQUIVALENT RESISTANCE

This month's The Physics Teacher (TPT) includes my most recent contribution to Paul Hewitt's "Figuring Physics" panel. Figuring Physics questions are not easy to develop, and many good questions are not good Figuring Physics questions.

Here's a link to the page that will give you access to downloading a PDF of the panel.

January 2014 Figuring Physics

Apparently TPT now waits a month before revealing the answer panel. So you're on your own for now.

Progress on the Hewitt Drew It! screencast index

I've updated my Hewitt Drew It! screencast index page. The following sections are fully connected (or as connected as they can be):

MECHANICS
PROPERTIES OF MATTER
SOUND
ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM
LIGHT

Here's the page:
Hewitt Drew It! Screencast Index

I still need to connect the HEAT pages to their screencasts. Screencasts for ATOMIC AND NUCLEAR PHYSICS and RELATIVITY are still in production, as are some of the screencasts for LIGHT. There are already more than 100 Hewitt Drew It! physics screencasts in the wind.

Stay tuned for more!

In which I attempt to wrangle the Hewitt Drew It! screencasts

Paul Hewitt is on a screencasting rampage, and no topic in Conceptual Physics is safe!

He's been producing and releasing short video lessons for over a year, and he isn't finished yet. They're going up on YouTube, and I haven't been able to keep up with the proliferation.

By the way, he's currently working on one in which he hopes to show the cover of the original Conceptual Physics: The High School Physics Program textbook (Addison-Wesley, 1987), but doesn't have a copy on hand. Neither do I. If you do, please contact him at pghewitt@aol.com and let him know. I couldn't even find an image of the CP1 high school textbook cover using my image search Google-fu. Second edition? Third? Fourth? No problem. First? A bit of a problem.

Anyway, Paul Hewitt is loading YouTube up with these 5-10 minute physics lesson gems, but I was finding them difficult to incorporate in my curriculum. I'm not keen to show them during class, but I do want students to see them. And I want to be a bit more helpful than to say, "Watch that one Hewitt Drew It about Newton's Second Law."

What I needed was a convenient directory, like a table of contents, for the Hewitt screencasts. So I started to create one. I aligned it, to the best of my ability, to Conceptual Physics 11/e, but that's not a critical issue.

On one web page, I list all the topics covered in Conceptual Physics. Each topic listed is a link to a page that collects all the screencasts relating to that topic.

The work is very much "in progress". But I'm done with Part One: Mechanics. The topics include
Newton's First Law
Linear Motion
Newton's Second Law
Newton's Third Law
Momentum
Energy
Rotational Motion
Gravity
Projectile and Satellite Motion

This gets me through my entire first semester. I'm guessing it will do as much for you.

My next goals will be parts four, five, and six: sound, E&M, and light. I'm indicating which topics are "connected" by showing them in boldface type. Topics listed in regular (roman) type are, as yet, not yet finished.

Hewitt Drew-It! PHYSICS Screencast Directory

Hewitt-Drew-it! Torque

We drop in on Paul's class as he discusses the concept of torque.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 39.Torque

Hewitt-Drew-it! Centrifugal Force

Paul talks about centrifugal force using bicycle tires, ants and other examples

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 38.Centrifugal Force

Hewitt-Drew-it! Centripetal Force

Paul talks about centripetal force, banked curves and tangential velocity.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 37.Centripetal Force

Hewitt-Drew-it! Energy of Acrobats

A problem solution, nicely simplified, to acrobats Ari, Bari, and their dog Bo.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 36. Energy of Acrobats

Hewitt-Drew-it! RR Wheels

Paul links the linear-rotational speed relation to an explanation of why railroad trains stay on tracks via tapered wheel rims.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 35. RR Wheels

Hewitt-Drew-it! Circular Motion

Paul discusses his father working as a ticket collector in a merry-go-round and ties this to a Burl-Grey problem involving circular motion.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 34.. Circular Motion

Hewitt-Drew-it! Machines and Energy

No fooling!

Paul shows how a simple lever lifts a load, and how Nellie Newton lifts loads with a pulley systems.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 33. Machines and Energy

Hewitt-Drew-it! Ballistic Pendulum

Paul explains how the classic ballistic-pendulum problem cannot be solved with energy conservation alone.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 32. Ballistic Pendulum

Hewitt-Drew-it! Conservation of Energy

In this screencast, Paul extends the block of ice on a ramp to a bead sliding down a wire, to the motion of acrobats Ari, Bari, and their dog Bo.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 31. Conservation of Energy

Hewitt-Drew-it! Work-Energy Theorem

In this screencast, Paul enlists Nellie Newton to illustrate the work-energy theorem to solve a motion problem.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 30. Work-Energy Theorem

Hewitt-Drew-it! Potential and Kinetic Energy

In this screencast, Paul derives kinetic energy from Newton's second law, and illustrates energy transfers for a block of sliding ice.

Hewitt-Drew-it! PHYSICS 29. Potential and Kinetic Energy