Explore Science - Latest News

I'll be heading out to the AAPT Winter Meeting in Anaheim, CA for next week. If you happen to be there, keep an eye out for me. I'll be at a "Cracker Barrel" Session Wednesday afternoon from 3 to 5 pm

This site was chosen as a Site of the Week by Entertainment Weekly magazine - both in printed form (Dec 4, 1998) and on-line. Here is a direct link to the review and the site is below.

Where does time go? I've been here in CT for a bit more than two months and getting familiar with a new location has certainly kept me busy (if there are any Director users in the New Haven area, feel free to drop me a line and we could do lunch). I still haven't found an internet provider that has a stable connection or reasonable transfer rate. I'm rather disappointed.

If you want to see a bit of the work I did over the summer you could take a peek right here, but the page will be moving in the near future so don't expect it to stay in the same location forever (and with the web, forever is a very nebulous thing). I'm currently working on a few other projects (have to pay a few bills every now and then) that are geared towards the high school level - stay tuned for more information.

I'll be at the Regional AAPT Meeting on Nov. 6-8 at Yale, so if you'll be there, look for me.

I added a few new items to the site, including some improved instructions on the download page, the answer to some common questions, and two new modules (Center of Mass and Monkey Shooter). On the download page I added another Density Lab Handout that was sent to me, along with a handout that lets people "Explore Newton's Law on the Internet."

I've moved out to Connecticut to start my faculty position at the University of New Haven, and am still working on getting settled in, so I currently have limited internet access. Thus, if you send me a message, it may take awhile for me to get back to you. And now, on to some actual news...

As a kid I used to love reading through Popular Science magazine, and in this month's issue this site was included among their "Best 50 Sites of 1998." When I looked at the rest of the sites they had listed, it made me feel pretty good to be included among them! If you want a good listing for some educational sites, be sure to check out the issue (or their web site).

I think there may be a few mistakes on the ReadMe that is included with the download of this site, and I'll try to correct any errors as soon as I get my computer set up in my new office.

This has been one busy summer for me, and the site has had a few visitors as well. One thing that I've been working on was updating parts of the IPPEX site. I finished a new version of the "Learn About Matter" module. Feel free to visit it on the web at this location. I'm also working on the "Intro to E & M" material and hope to have that completed in the next few weeks.

The site has gotten a few nifty awards in the past few months, however, sometimes no one lets you know about them - so I find out when people drop me a line, or when I'm web browsing and discover it myself!

On March 19th this site was a USA Today Hot Site, in June the site was listed in a ZDNet article entitled "Search for Intelligent Sites on the Web," and that same month this site was listed in Popular Science magazine in their Web Watch section. This coming weekend (I believe) the site will be in the www.4kids.org part of the Sunday Comics in ~ 150 newspapers across the country!

On a personal note, I'm starting to pack up everything I own so I can move out to Connecticut in two weeks, so there may not be many updates for awhile as I get settled in to a new job, new town, etc. Wish me luck - I hope my good old 11 year old car gets me from here to there :)

I have the new version of this site available on the download page. I fixed (hopefully) the serious problem in the floating log simulator.

Every year or so I feel the need to update the overall look of this site, so feel free to drop me a comment or two about this new look. If I find time I'll update the look on all the older simulations, but for now, just future experiments will have the "new" look. However, I have a feeling I'll run through and update many things this summer since there are a few changes I would like to make to several modules.

I've added two new modules - a histogram builder, and a phased array (relatively early version, fast computer a good idea).

It was a busy month. A new mirror of my site was set up (thanks Taha). You can find the link on the mirrors page. A visitor to my site pointed out several bugs to me. One major one was (and still is) on the floating log module. I'll be working on that one during May - it is rather old so needs a bit of rewriting to get it up to modern standards :) The density module also had a few smaller problems related to changing the density of the liquid in the pail. I posted a new version of that today and hopefully all the problems have been fixed.

As for the stand-alone PC version, there are still some problems I'm trying to correct.

I got this message earlier in the month: "Your site--Explore Science--has been chosen as a selection for the Scout Report (April 3, 1998), the premier weekly collection of useful Internet sites for discerning Internauts. Care is taken in the selection of items included in the Scout Report. Basic criteria include depth of content, author, information maintenance, and presentation. The content of each resource is briefly described."

Happy birthday to my sister! This site was Blueberry's Chilled Site of the Day on Saturday. Without a doubt one of the strangest looking blueberries I have ever seen :) It was also given a "Top Ten" ranking from a Kids Review. The Yahoo review (which seems very "Twilight Zone-like" is listed on the History page.

I added a module that lets your students see if they can correctly determine the minimum, maximum, and current temperatures from a min/max thermometer. I posted several updates in the past week on the download page (thanks to those that let me know of the problems). More ideas keep popping into my head for new stuff, but finding spare time is always a challenge. Just remember, if you ever have any ideas, pass them along, and if any multimedia developers out there ever want to contribute to this site, please drop me a line. Also, if you have created a publicly accessible mirror of this site, please let me know.

I am still working on the stand-alone windows version (it's in my pile of things I want to get done soon).

The server problems have continued a bit, but problems seem to be mostly under control. The HD on our server died during the 3/1-3/9 week and it took us a bit of time to realize it was going. With the new HD a lot of the software was upgraded, so there are still a few crashes occurring. I made a small change to the orbit simulator that should take care of one main problem (that one will be rewritten this spring/summer).

On a personal note, I was recently hired by the University of New Haven, and will join their Physics Department this coming fall. I'll also be at the Joint APS/AAPT meeting next month in Columbus, OH if you want to chat about any of this fun stuff.

I noticed that this site was a Yahoo Pick of the Week earlier in March and will post their icon on my site in the next few weeks when I find some time, along with the rather entertaining review they had posted on their site.

I apologize for the server problems this past week. Bookmarking my mirror sites (see updated list) might be a good idea - but hopefully that problem is over with for at least a bit. I added a new module under optics which lets you see if the quickest way to get from Point A to Point B is really a straight line. I made several small changes to a few things, so please download the update if you want the latest "stuff."

The site has won several other awards. Please check out the history page if you are curious (gifs are there with the links to the award sites). My UM mirror site is still under construction due to the fact that I haven't been able to get more HD space here at our fine National Championship institution...actually, I'm still trying to get a computer at my desk...working on my site with my 28.8 modem is getting more and more time consuming (ok...I'll stop complaining now).