Abstract: Although a survival blanket is a well-known object, it is not obvious which side, silver or gold, should be put outside in order better to protect against cold. This paper sums up the reasons why this problem may be instructive, beyond its practical implications: Common ideas and instructions for use share a restricted analysis, limited to the high reflective power of the silver side. An analysis and a solution of this problem are proposed, and some activities with students are suggested. 

Download the full paper.

More info
Website of the EPS Physics Education Division
MUSE project

26 June 2014 - A new European science magazine was launched this week. Technologist is the fruit of a partnership between independent journalists and universities. It is available in three languages and is sold in 20 countries in Europe.

More info
www.technologist.eu

Read the second issue of the ERA newsletter here. 

Several topics dealt with in the MUSE files posted on this web-site are also analysed in a book : Thinking in Physics The pleasure of reasoning and understanding, by Laurence Viennot. This book is mainly aimed at teachers and teacher trainers. It relies on the same principles as those which inspire project MUSE.

Thinking in Physics
The pleasure of reasoning and understanding
By Laurence Viennot
Hardback, 182 pages
Springer 2014

The book has three parts:
•    making sense of special scientific ways of reasoning (words, images, functions)
•    making connections between very different topics, each illuminating the other
•    simplifying, looking for consistency, and avoiding incoherent over-simplification

Table of Contents
Part I    Learning to think:  words, images and functions
- Essential tools for comprehension
- Some surprising invariances
- Analysis of functional dependence: a powerful tool
- Putting things into practice
Part II   Physics: Linking factors
- Links between phenomena in terms of type of functional dependence.
- Te relationships between different approaches to the same phenomenon
Part III  Simplicity:  ruin or triumph of coherence?
- Optimising simple experiments
- Popularising physics: what place for reasoning?

Read more
Download the leaflet
Visit the PED website
Info about the MUSE project

The new issue of ALICE MATTERS is now online. Click here to read it.

Read more about the Phase 1 ALICE Upgrade plans, the ALICE results presented during Quark Matter 2014, the installation of new TRD modules and the new PMTs for the ALICE V0 detector.

Read also about the ALICE contribution to the new LHC mock-up tunnel and the first ALICE Masterclass at Warsaw University of Technology. These and many more stories in the new issue.