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As distribution requirements are liberalized at many institutions, college science teachers are searching for ways to reach the increasing number of students who do not take science courses because they do not appreciate how basic science is important to their studies in the arts and humanities. This article describes a new interdisciplinary course taught jointly by a physicist (the author) and an English instructor that was attractive to a broad spectrum of Hiram College's liberal arts students and exposed them to a substantial introduction to physics and its influence on modern literature.

The author describes the physics and elementary mathematics of such systems for students.

At a pressure of 10^-9 Torr (0.13 mu N m^-2) a freshly exposed piece of surface takes a time of the order of 10⁴s to become severely contaminated by the gas around it. We are then into the realm of ultra high vacuum (UHV) in which surfaces remain clean and uncontaminated for times long enough for physicists to do experiments. This article does not discuss the methods of producing such low pressures but probes some of the interesting features clean surfaces reveal.

The author sets out some of the statistics derived and used in the development of the assessment of the Nuffield A level physical science projects.

The author briefly sketches the bootstrap philosophy from a very general point of view.

The project was interesting in that it demonstrated that vacuum gauges can be constructed and made to function satisfactorily with a minimum of resources. It also taught those concerned quite a lot about operating vacuum systems. It would be easy to extend this project and investigate the various factors (constructional materials, design geometry, etc) which affect the sensitivity of the gauges.

The author describes how formalised teaching is integrated with industrial experience in private firms and government institutions.

The tedious arithmetic of linear interpolation can be avoided by the graphical method described.

This class of fluids is characterized by the fact that, provided the temperature of the fluid remains constant, the shear rate depends only on the shear stress and is a single valued function of it. Newtonian fluids which have a viscosity that is independent of the shear rate are described. This behaviour is exhibited by all gases and, in general, liquids, and solutions of materials of low molecular weight. Fluids whose viscosity is a single valued function of shear rate are termed non-Newtonian fluids. Solutions or melts of high molecular weight, particular high polymers and suspensions of solids in liquids fall into this sub-group. This third subgroup described consists of fluids with Bingham plastic and plastic behaviour, shear-thinning behaviour and shear-thickening behaviour.

The authors describe the development of the physics syllabus particularly with respect to the relationship between physics and chemistry.

Quite frequently knowledge of the pattern of a magnetic field is of interest, for example when exploring rocks for their geomagnetic properties or when the space distribution of a magnetic field is required in a laboratory research investigation. Such needs can be met by a simple, lightweight, novel type of three dimensional probe, now commercially available (from Magnaprobe Limited), that is held in the hand and can be readily moved about. Basically the device consists of a small bar magnet, pivotably mounted so that it can rotate freely about two axes perpendicular to each other, both axes passing through the centre of gravity of the magnet.

The analogue enables the student to visualize for example the dynamics of an alpha particle in the electrostatic field of a nucleus by constructing an identical energy situation for a metal ball in the earth's gravitational field. In this article, the authors show how the full potential of this device can be exploited with the help of the computer terminal and how the difficulties of aiming the incident particle and of measuring the scattering angle may be simply overcome.

For magnetic materials such as iron, nickel or cobalt, dimensional changes occur when they are placed in a strong magnetic field, an effect called magnetostriction. The magnitude of these dimensional changes is only a few micrometres and in order to measure them an optical interference method was employed, relying on the formation of Newton's rings between a lens and a flat glass plate. This arrangement greatly facilitates the actual process of measurement, as well as allowing demonstration of the technique to large student groups.

The author discusses the history of the terms 'elastic modulus' and 'elastic collision'.