Quickphysik

Experiencing and understanding physics

Experiential Learning – Contributions to a phenomenological physics

Experiential learning places sensory perception at the center of the process of knowledge acquisition and explores physical phenomena in their embodied, sensuous presence—through seeing, hearing, touching, or smelling. This approach fosters an embodied form of understanding in which physical knowledge emerges from one’s own lived experience. The phenomenological perspective thus opens up an approach to physics that is not only cognitive, but also aesthetically and bodily grounded.

Measuring the Sun

Solar image with shadows Imaging the Sun with a pinhole camera is a familiar school experiment. But would you expect that it can even reveal the Sun’s annual variation in apparent size? read more

Strange Shadows?

Illustrative image of shadow phenomena Although shadows are usually considered a simple phenomenon, they are still capable of surprising us again and again. Have you ever seen the shadow of a lamp? read more

Rings of Light

Illustrative image of a light ring When a candle is viewed through a glass sphere, an unusual ring of light appears around the flame—an instance of multiple imaging produced by a virtual caustic. read more