Title

Cinema, Fermi Problems And General Education

Abstract

During the past few years the authors have developed a new approach to the teaching of physical science, a general education course typically found in the curricula of nearly every college and university. This approach, called Physics in Films (Efthimiou and Llewellyn 2006 Phys. Teach. 44 28-33), uses scenes from popular films to illustrate physical principles and has excited student interest and improved student performance. A similar approach at the senior/high-school level, nicknamed Hollywood Physics, has been developed by Chandler (2006 Phys. Teach. 44 290-2; 2002 Phys. Teach. 40 420-4). The two approaches may be considered complementary as they target different student groups. The analyses of many of the scenes in Physics in Films are a direct application of Fermi calculations - estimates and approximations designed to make solutions of complex and seemingly intractable problems understandable to the student non-specialist. The intent of this paper is to provide instructors with examples they can use to develop skill in recognizing Fermi problems and making Fermi calculations in their own courses. © 2007 IOP Publishing Ltd.

Publication Date

5-1-2007

Publication Title

Physics Education

Volume

42

Issue

3

Number of Pages

253-261

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1088/0031-9120/42/3/003

Socpus ID

34247492552 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/34247492552

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