The Physics Illuminations Project (PIP)

Current Version -- 4b (26 June 2004)

The primary long-term goal of this project is to put together a collection of on-line, automatically-graded conceptual homework that can be used with no more effort than currently required to assign end-of-chapter problems. Current Physics Illuminations in the areas of Kinematics, Dynamics, Energy, and Vectors may be found at http://rlgreene.org/illum.html. The project was partially funded by an NSF grant (DUE-0088695) and is under active development. A paper describing the philosophy behind Physics Illuminations and class-test results in three of my courses appeared in the September 2001 issue of The Physics Teacher. An earlier, somewhat expanded version of this paper can be obtained at http://rlgreene.org/rlg/illum-tpt.pdf.

Open Source

I found the arguments for open source discussed in The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Steven Raymond compelling, and have decided to make PIP open source under the GNU General Public License. You can download the most recent zip archive of the applets and underlying classes (as well as the complete binaries) through the link at the top of this page.

Participate!

If you have any interest in on-line conceptual homework, please join the project. There is room for both programmers and non-programmers.

Non-programmers:

Class-testers - algebra- or calculus-based introductory mechanics

Bug Finders - perhaps the most important members

Designers - send me suggestions for conceptual, self-testing applets in Kinematics or Dynamics

Java Programmers:

Debug or otherwise improve my code

Write your own applets to add to the project

Contact Ron Greene for more information.