Showing posts with label MRI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MRI. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Murphy: 2009 AAPT Apparatus Competition

Investigating the effect of the magnetic field from a wire on a compass

Sytil Murphy

This apparatus has two primary applications. The first is in teaching the concepts of resonance in the context of magnetism, which can be applied to the teaching and understanding of magnetic resonance imaging. The second investigates the direction of the field around a current carrying wire and the superposition of magnetic fields. The compass deflection angle can be measured as a function of the distance from the wire and compared to theory.

Murphy, McBride, Gross and Zollman: PERC 2009

Probing Students's Understanding of Resonance

Sytil Murphy, Dyan McBride, Josh Gross and Dean Zollman

Resonant phenomena play a crucial role in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a widely used medical tool in today's society. The basic features of the resonance in MRI can be taught by looking at the resonance of a compass driven by an electromagnetic field. However, resonance in a oscillating magnetic field is not a phenomenon that is familiar to most students. Thus, as a precursor to creating instructional materials, we investigated how students applied their learning about resonance as traditionally taught to this novel system.