Page 2 - Physlets and Open Source Physics for Quantum Mechanics:

undergraduate’s conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics and a graduate
student’s conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics [1]. Recent advances in
computational power, however, have made many heretofore inaccessible topics in
theoretical and computational quantum mechanics more accessible to teachers and
their students. We have created many exercises for studying energy eigenstates (so-
called stationary states) which have been reported elsewhere [2,3]. This paper
describes the technology and pedagogy of a suite of Java programs that explore the
dynamics of quantum-mechanical wave packets in an infinite square well.

Computer-based Pedagogy

Physlets

By now it is hard to imagine a teacher who has not heard the call to ‘teach with
technology’ as it has resounded through educational institutions and government
agencies alike. However, teaching with technology, just for the sake of teaching with
technology, has often resulted in the development and use of tools that are not
pedagogically sound [4,5]. Into this environment, we introduced Physlets®, a collection
of interactive computer simulations [6] and accompanying curricular materials [7-11]
designed with a sound use of pedagogy in mind [12-15]. The aim of Physlets is to
provide a resource for teaching that enhances student learning through interactive
engagement [16-18]. At the same time, Physlets are flexible enough (all Physlets can
be set up and controlled with JavaScript) to be adapted to a variety of pedagogical
strategies and local environments. Physlets are free for noncommercial use and are
based on HTML and open internet standards (Physlets run on any platform: Macintosh
OSX Panther, Windows, and Linux, with Java-enabled browsers that support Java-to-
JavaScript communication such as: Safari, Internet Explorer, or Mozilla). Physlet-
based curricular material is easy to translate into other languages and Physlet Web
sites can be found throughout the world [19]. While we have focused on topics from
physics, such as quantum mechanics, Physlets can be used to create exercises for
many other fields such as mathematics, chemistry [11], biology, and economics [2].

Figure 1: An exercise from time-
independent quantum mechanics showing
the flexibility of the Physlet paradigm.
Shown are the wave function for the n = 3
energy eigenstate, the energy spectrum
(with the red line showing the current state),
and the energy diagram.