"It was a wonderful experience interacting with you and appreciate the way you have planned and executed the whole publication process within the agreed timelines.”
Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
The book contains 29 ‘experimental problems’ (or experiments presented as problems) in Physics based on concepts and situations from mechanics, electricity, magnetism, optics, and electronics. The experimental problems have been developed over the last several years at the Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education (HBCSE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai, India, for training and evaluation of students in experimental physics under the Indian National Physics Olympiad Programme. The experimental problems, in our opinion are suitable for practical training in experimental physics at the Olympiads, higher secondary, and undergraduate levels and several of them can be performed in a high school, junior college, or undergraduate physics laboratory. In all our programmes over last several years, a large number of students and teachers have found the experimental problems interesting and really enjoyed performing the experiments and thus ‘solving’ the problems, as much as we enjoyed designing and developing them.
The book has been divided in four chapters. Each chapter describes a set of experimental problems from a specific area in Introductory Physics. Appendix A gives a list of useful books for training in Experimental Physics. This book is useful for students and teachers to work on and introduce innovative experimental problems at higher secondary and undergraduate levels or to prepare for Indian National Physics Olympiad.
Rajesh B. Khaparde, H. C. Pradhan
Rajesh B. Khaparde has been working at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai since 1995. His doctoral work in the area of Physics Education Research was focused on the development of ‘contents’ and ‘strategies’ for laboratory training in Experimental Physics and evaluation of skills and abilities related to Experimental Physics. He is currently the Academic Coordinator of the National Initiative on Undergraduate Science (NIUS) in Physics at HBCSE. He was the leader of Indian team for the 35th (South Korea, 2004) and 36th (Spain, 2005) International Physics Olympiads (IPhO) and a scientific observer for the 45th IPhO (Kazakhstan, 2014). He was the Coordinator for the experimental component of the 46th International Physics Olympiad held in Mumbai, India in 2015.
H. C. Pradhan holds the Doctorate in Theoretical Nuclear Physics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, He returned to India after three years of post-doctoral research experience in North America (McMaster University and University of Wisconsin, Madison). He has taught physics at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He joined Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai in 1988 from where he superannuated in 2011 as Centre Director, HBCSE. Actively interested in student talent nurture, he led HBCSE’s efforts in establishing laboratories for training students for International Olympiads. He was the leader of the first Indian team that ever participated in an International Science Olympiad (29th IPhO, 1998). His other interest include physics and mathematics education research, teacher training and popularization of science.
