Atwood’s machine is a device born in the XVIII century as an aid for teaching mechanics; a reduced and simplified version of such device still appears in physics textbooks, as an application of Newton’s second law. An Atwood’s machine interfaced to a PC by means of position and force sensors becomes a device for a detailed investigation on the motion of bodies subject to forces that change with position. […]
After some brief remarks about determinism and randomness, a simulation program is illustrated which points out how chance and necessity do coexist in classical physics. Actually, a gas of N = 1000 interacting disks in a box neatly head for the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution just in some ten collisions. […]
In this paper we present some of the results of a research project, carried on since 1990, to evaluate the potentiality offered by the new information and communication technologies, to the innovation of science teaching (physics in particular) in school. Eight Italian middle school classes, […]