🚀 go-pugleaf

Thanks everyone for your response to my and Chris Hirata's "Work (?) done
by a B field" question.  Chris and I are still digesting all the answers
received via PHYS-LIST, PHYSHARE, personal e-mail, and FAX.

To the suggestion that I nominate Chris for the Physics Olympiad, I
certainly intend to do so prior to his graduation from high school (He is
still in Junior High).  One of my former students, Josh Winn, was a member
of the Physics Olympiad team that went to Brussels in 1990 and came in 11th
(?) out of about 40 schools.  Josh indicated that many of the foreign
competitors seemed much older than the U.S. team.  Josh got his M.S. in
physics at MIT in 1994 and has studied mathematics at Oxford during the
past year.  I thought Josh was my once-in-a-lifetime student and now Chris
!!

Chris's paper at the Chicago Section of AAPT  on the period of F= -|kx^n|
harmonic motion went extremely well but Chris was at his best and most
impressive when answering unanticipated questions.

Ludwik,  a copy of Chris's paper is on its way.  The period equation can be
solved exactly for n = -3, -2, -1, 0, & 1 (of course).  It can be
approximated by the use of gamma functions for n = 2  & 3  or it can be
calcuated on a TI-82 or TI-85 by integrating from 0 to 0.999999 since 0 to
1 will create a division by zero error.

Again, thanks everyone !  I've been on the lists for less than two weeks
and I already have a half-dozen good demo ideas for my teaching and for our
local physics teachers sharing group, PHYSICS NW

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David Thiessen
Science Department
Deerfield High School                      FUN + PHYSICS = PHUN
Deerfield, IL 60015
Home phone (815) 337-2883                    PHYSICS IS PHUN !!
School phone (708) 405-8488
Voice Mail (708) 374-3811 then *610
School Fax (708) 945-0970

dtheissn@nslsilus.org
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