From Cool Research to Cool Teaching Labs

Physicists are often drawn into research when the physical world offers phenomena that show uncanny symmetry or elegant mathematical structure; a puzzling intricacy that is irresistible not to figure out; or even just plain awe at “cool” phenomena that display the beauty of the natural world. These are compelling factors that motivate investigation. Why not have instructional labs with such motivating factors? In this talk I will present some of my efforts to convert the investigation of a motivating physical problems into curricular offerings. It includes optical beams that carry puzzling structures, such as mathematical singularities, symmetrical shapes and puzzling mechanisms. Another initiative that we have worked on involves labs on the quantum mechanics of entangled photons. We have developed a suite of experiments that explore the quantum mechanics of situations involving this source of light. They let students confront counterintuitive but real manifestations of quantum physics. More recently we have been exploring a problem that hopefully will become a new lab: using light to simulate the quantum mechanics of the simple pendulum.