Phyphox: french translation

The Physics Reimagined team in collaboration with Ulysse Delabre (University of Bordeaux) and Julien Basset (Paris Sud University) led the French translation of the PhyPhox application. This free application, developed by the Aachen University, allows you to make physics experiments using the smartphone sensors. This makes it possible to rethink the teaching of experimental physics, and to take it out of the classroom, as we started doing in some of our courses here at Paris Sud University. This translation will allow a wider diffusion of these practices in France .

1896. Le jeune Piotr Zeeman profite des vacances de son directeur pour tenter une petite expérience. Ce qu’il observe va déboucher sur une incroyable épopée scientifique dans le champ de la physique quantique.

Les Mardis de l’Espace des sciences avec Julien Bobroff, Physicien expert de la physique quantique dans les solides, et enseignant-chercheur à l’Université Paris Sud.

Arduino is an essential tool for electronic projects in FabLab, but it can also be used for physics experiments. Discover these sheets to learn how to use Arduino and build original projects: incredible machines, physics measurements, games, scientific contraptions, your imagination will be your limit.

– Six “challenge” sheets to discover the essentials of Arduino boards.
– “Knowledge” sheets to expand on the basic concepts.
– “Tool” sheets to help you get to know the equipment.

These sheets are available in French and English.

You will find gathered on this page various information which will allow you to make experiments on the superconductivity including videos. The site supraconductivite.fr also proposes many useful information.

Attention, these experiments require the use of liquid nitrogen and powerful magnets, potential sources of danger. Take all precautions and, if possible, train initially with people who are used to handling liquid nitrogen.

Magnets

The magnets called “neodymium” are the most powerful and make the experiments more impressive, they are the magnets we use. Warning: these magnets can be dangerous when they are big (more than about 1 cm cube), because the forces they create become important.  There are many resellers of magnets on the internet. We use the site e supermagnet  that allows the payment of the orders by administrative order, after delivery, but we did not test all the resellers, far from it.

Superconductors

Here are the suppliers we use for our experiments. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, and does not claim to regroup the best sources of superconducting samples, only those we use (and which accept orders following the rules of French universities).

Superconducting Samples for Meissner Levitation
We buy them from can-superconductors.com. These samples are polycrystalline, and the vortices are weakly pinned. Magnets that can levitate on such pellets should be light (for example, a disc 1mm thick and 10mm in diameter, as on the video).

Superconducting samples for strong-pinning levitation

To produce trains for strong-pinning levitations, monocrystalline samples are required. The levitating magnets are then “locked” in position and can be heavier. These pellets are more expensive (up to several hundred euros depending on size).

We buy our pellets from ATZ. The standard thicknesses are 12 mm, but we realized that 6 mm samples were suitable for our needs: when ordering, we therefore ask that the pellets are cut in half in the direction of the thickness, so as to get two pellets for the price of one.

Here we ask for our trains:

1 HTS YBCO element, melt textured tile, single grain
Composition: Y1.65Ba2Cu3O7-x – bulk
OD 30 mm x > H 14 – 15 mm
Cut to OD 30 mm x H 6 – 7mm (2 pcs., passivated for protection)

The company can-superconductors.com also offers such pellets, but we have not tested them.

• Samples for intermediate-pinning levitation

These pellets pin the vortices sufficiently to let a fairly heavy magnet levitate (30 mm diameter and 5 mm thick) at a reasonable distance (1 cm), but the pinning isn’t too strong so that the magnet can be easily removed by hand, allowing easy and impressive demonstrations (but complicated to explain in detail!). We buy from ATZ. The standard thicknesses are 12 mm, but we realized that 6 mm samples were suitable for our needs: we therefore ask that the pellets are cut in half in the direction of the thickness, so as to get two pellets for the price of one. The quality of these pellets varies from one time to another, because they are fallouts of the production.

Here is what we ask for our demonstrations:

1 piece of HTS YBCO elements
melt textured tile, seeded / polycrystalline material
Composition: Y1.65Ba2Cu3O7-x – bulk
Medium quality for levitation effects
OD > 40 mm x H 10 – 12 mm

Cut to OD > 40 mm x H 5 – 6 mm into 2 pieces, and passivated for protection.

• Samples for resistance measurements

We buy them from ccan-superconductors.com. These samples have electrical contacts already prepared, and have a transition temperature around 100 K. The practical details allowing this measurement as well as the necessary electronics are described in the project “Ohm’s law in a superconductor”

Here is a little book that offers a quirky look at quantum physics. In a dozen experiments, among the most staggering of modern physics, you will discover funny labs, crazy inventions and physicists as brilliant as handymen…

We tested twice a new way of teaching experimental physics using an immersion in a fiction scenario. We have proposed to twenty undergraduate science students to live a fiction for 3 days non stop. They had to help a starship exploring a comet at a distance. This new way of teaching has made it possible for students to develop creativity, group management and autonomy, and to enable them to apply their knowledge to actual situations outside the usual lab rooms. We offer you a feedback and how to do it yourself if you are interested.

Due to a problem at the European Space Agency central hub, an emergency procedure is triggered and students, here playing the role of space engineers, must suddenly stop everything and take over communications to help a spaceship at distance. This ship is just landing on a strange and unknown comet he must explore. But this ship has, as a result of technical problems, only very basic basic scientific equipment. The engineers on Earth (the students) have the same equipment: they communicate with the ship to help him explore the comet, suggesting what to make and how to do it after testing it themselves. There follows a succession of short missions to help the ship, and analysis of the data coming back from the ship in real time.

The scenario foresees various evolutions according to what the engineers propose on Earth, until a final with a little surprise!

This immersion aims first at the development of experimental physics skills: use of sensors via smartphones and Arduino boards, creation of experiments from scratch with open solutions, tests, data analysis, production of protocols. It also develops several transversal skills: group work and self-management, work independently with time constraints, creativity and design, communication.

We interviewed the students on different points asking them to give their feelings on a scale from 1 to 7 (anonymous survey conducted among all participants). Here are some of the results.

• What did you think of immersion? Students highly appreciated the experience (average of 6.6 on a scale of 1 to 7). “I just hope that other groups of students will have the opportunity to live this fabulous experience,” “I loved these 3 days, we start again when ??! “.
• What did you think about not giving notes? The students favored this lack of note (average 6.5 / 7) despite initial reluctance.
  “It just allows us to focus on the essentials: learning, understanding, solving. We can try and miss without worrying about the consequences, and it works “,” No fear of failure “,” Less stress, more natural, more initiative, more collaboration “,” It has allowed to be more creative and try to do things that may not necessarily work but can. “
• What did you think about the fact that teachers never play their own role? Students again praised this choice (average 6.3 / 7). “There is freedom because teachers have roles. It forces us to question ourselves, “” Frustrating but good. It pushes us to surpass ourselves, to find the info by ourselves “.

• The fiction: all the elements of “scenery”, audio, video, badges, convocations, participate to really create a fictitious universe likely. We believe in it and we play the game thoroughly.
• A place outside the usual buildings enhances immersion (another building or even cottage in the countryside).
• Open questions and problems without a single solution leaving students completely free.
• No ratings: students are not graded, but they are evaluated by several returns during the immersion and at the end. The absence of notes “distresses” students, allows them to create and innovate without fear of failure, and also relaxes some constraints and tensions between students in groups.
• The teachers never play the role of teachers: again, it shows the students that there is not a “good solution” and that their work is really open.

This device offers a new way to show contemporary content and science. It is composed of nine cubes, the nine rooms of a museum, which we discover one after another in an intimate and interactive relationship. The first exhibition, “Quantum Matter”, gives to see and understand the matter and the atoms that compose it, the recent researches in the field and the concrete applications. Among other things, it uses the creations of young designers produced in collaborations with physicists to show this quantum material and its spectacular properties, such as superconducting levitation.

From 9/10/2018 to 7/11/2018 at the Quai des Savoirs in Toulouse, opens the exhibition SUPRA!

Coming from our collaboration with designers, this exhibition offers an astonishing and sensitive visit where design is popular, fun, imagine the future and showcases the world of physics and superconductivity. The visitors appropriate the notions of physics, participate in a surprising workshop on levitation, discover many creations from the meeting between physicists and designers.

Co-produced with La Rotonde, the CCSTI of École des Mines Saint-Étienne and the Cité du Design of Saint-Étienne, this exhibition is based on the meeting between physicists and students of art and design schools: ENSCI – Les Ateliers and École Estienne and their achievements.