Teaching Physics Using Virtual Reality

Savage, C. M.; McGrath, Dominic; McIntyre, Timothy J.; Wegener, Margaret; Paosawatyanyong, Boonchoat; Wattanakasiwich, Pornrat

doi:10.1063/1.3479848

Cited by 22 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Initial polls were already conducted on physics students to identify common misconceptions and problems encountered while learning Relativity. We are now in the process of designing VR experiments based on these findings [5]. It is foreseen that exams taken after these tests will show a significant increase of understanding and performance.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

A carom billiard to understand special relativity

Doat

Etienne

Vézien

2011

2011 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference

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Relativity, as introduced by Einstein, is regarded as one of the most important revolutions in the history of physics. Nevertheless, the observation of direct outcomes of this theory on mundane objects is impossible because they can only be witnessed when travelling at relative speeds approaching the velocity of light c. These effects are so counterintuitive and contradicting with our daily understanding of space and time that physics students find it hard to learn relativity beyond mathematical equations and to understand the deep implications of the theory. Advances in Computer Graphics and Interaction Technology now make it possible to actually experiment the effects of relativity in a 3D immersive environment. We propose a Virtual Reality framework to study and learn relativity as well as to develop some intuition of the relativistic effects and the quadri-dimensional reality of space-time. More precisely, an innovative rendering engine and a non-Newtonian physics engine are combined to compute relativistic effects. Experiments are proposed within a game-oriented carom billiard environment. Our work improves over previous efforts in the ability i) to render in real-time multiple relativistic objects, each moving with a different velocity vector ii) to enable interactions between objects and iii) to enable the user to interact with the objects and modify the scene dynamically. The originality of our 4D rendering engine lies in its capacity to efficiently store and retrieve non-simultaneous past space-time events that are visible by an observer at a specific location and at a given instant of his proper time

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 96%

A carom billiard to understand special relativity

Doat

Etienne

Vézien

2011

2011 IEEE Virtual Reality Conference

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“…They believe that they have learnt, and results from our concept tests and from formal examinations show that they indeed have -an optimistic sign that R T R can improve students' perceived as well as actual understanding of relativity. The learning outcomes, and how they were measured, are discussed in detail in McGrath et al (2010) and Savage et al (2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lessons learnt from the process of developing the RTR teaching package have since been applied to the teaching of another physics topic: To give students an experience of a world in which quantum mechanics is dominant, a prototype simulation, QSim, has been created using the same programming framework (Savage, McGrath, McIntyre, Wegener & Williamson, 2009). Tracking the initial stages of our development process, it was reviewed by the project team, then trialled by a small group of students.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Developing a virtual physics world

Wegener

McIntyre

McGrath

et al. 2012

AJET

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In this article, the successful implementation of a development cycle for a physics teaching package based on game-like virtual reality software is reported. The cycle involved several iterations of evaluating students' use of the package followed by instructional and software development. The evaluation used a variety of techniques, including ethnographic observation, surveys, student focus groups and conventional assessment. The teaching package included a laboratory manual, instructional support materials and the Real Time Relativity software that simulates a world obeying special relativistic physics. Although the iterative development cycle was time consuming and costly, it gave rise to substantial improvements in the software user interface and in the students' learning experience.

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“…The natural sciences have pioneered the use of Virtual Reality techniques to facilitate the learning of their subjects: chemistry [29][30][31][32][33], biology [34], physiology [35], physics [36].…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning Mathematics in an Immersive Way

Perri¹,

Simonetti²,

Tasso³

et al. 2022

Software Usability

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In this work we introduce a learning system based on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality for studying analytical-geometric structures that are part of the curriculum in mathematics and physics in high school classes. We believe that an immersive study environment has several advantages with respect to traditional two-dimensional environments (such as a book or the simple screen of a PC or even a tablet), such as the spatial understanding of the concepts exposed, more peripheral awareness and moreover an evident decreasing in the information dispersion phenomenon. This does not mean that our teaching proposal has to substitute the traditional approaches, but it can be seen as a robust tool to support learning. In the first phase of our research we have sought to understand which mathematical objects and which tools could have been used to enhance the teaching of mathematics, in order to demonstrate that the use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality techniques significantly improves the level of understanding of the mathematical subject being studied by the students. The system which provides for the integration of two machine levels, hardware and software, was subsequently tested by a representative sample of students who then provided feedback through a questionnaire.

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Teaching Physics Using Virtual Reality

Cited by 22 publications

References 23 publications

A carom billiard to understand special relativity

A carom billiard to understand special relativity

Developing a virtual physics world

Learning Mathematics in an Immersive Way

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