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Windows
ISBN 1-56396-511-9
Mac CD-ROM
ISBN 1-56396-513-5
Single copy $275.00
High School Site License $750.00
10-copy lab pack $1,200.00
"PEARLS should definitely be of interest to physics teachers. The interface is beautiful, and you can run most programs without consulting the manual."
-Robert Ehrlich, George Mason University
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PEARLS 3.0-Win
4.0-Mac

Peter Cramer
Case Western Reserve University

VERSION 4.0 for the Macintosh, boasting full compatibility with Mac OS 8, includes five new simulations in sound and electromagnetism covering sine waves, sound wave addition, Lorentz force, LRC circuits, and radiating charges. Users will appreciate the enhanced sound and graphics while still enjoying all of the features that make PEARLS 3.0 so popular.

Do you remember how useful those old single-topic film loops were? You could address one difficult concept in just a few minutes of viewing and discussion. But they had their drawbacks. If the animation didn't get the point across, you had to look elsewhere for enlightening material, and some students just slept through the loops anyway!

PEARLS is a set of thirty-five independent simulations and animations that comprehensively address topics usually found in the introductory physics course. Like a film loop, each simulation addresses a single topic. However, a set of controls allows you or your students to explore the effect of various initial conditions and views. Most quantities can be graphed easily, and simulations can be replayed or paused for clarity.

Unlike the old film loops, PEARLS simulations require your students to interact with the software - they control the simulation's appearance and conditions. You can pose questions to be answered by a virtual experiment and set parameters to match a real experiment in your laboratory. And conveniently, PEARLS simulations are ready to go. No programming and no extensive preparation! They're all set for lecture demonstration or student assignments.

With thirty-five independent, interactive simulations, this package has a lot to offer:

Curvilinear coordinates will become second nature to your students after they work with three separate simulations addressing Cartesian, cylindrical, and spherical coordinate systems.

Many students need extra help with vectors; four short programs on vector components, addition, cross products, and relative motion will keep them on target.

How about free-body diagrams? And motion down an incline? PEARLS offers eight programs dealing with mechanics that will help get your class through this central area. Simulations include center of mass, collision, circular motion and circular orbits, harmonic oscillator, resonance, and stress and strain.

Static diagrams in a textbook can't convey the motion of a wave, but four separate PEARLS applications address the concepts behind traveling waves, wave mixing, and Fourier Series representations. An unusual simulation of the Michelson Interferometer makes this important experiment resonate with your students.

Topics in fluid mechanics are difficult to illustrate in the laboratory, but this versatile package contains three programs to help you address buoyancy, continuous flow, and viscous flow.

The interactive ray diagrams and images included in PEARLS' four optics programs are particularly valuable. Dispersion, refraction, spherical mirrors, and thin lenses simulations help to illuminate the study of geometrical optics. A special feature allows you to rotate the optics set-up. Misconceptions induced by principal ray tracings quickly vanish as an image of a notched green leaf is viewed from any angle.

The equations of special relativity leave most students confused. However, four interactive simulations make clear the Doppler effect for both light and sound, time dilation, and the bizarre behavior of "simultaneous" events in various reference frames.

Modern physics topics are often missing in computer simulations. PEARLS gives you five major modern physics concepts often discussed in introductory courses. Blackbody radiation, the Bohr atom, and Brownian motion address basic quantum effects. The Compton effect and radioactive decay round out these must-cover topics.

Because the thirty-five simulations are independent programs, you can run several simultaneously. You are limited only by the capacity of your computer. Run the same simulation with different initial conditions for comparison, or compare a billiard-ball collision with the electron-photon collision of the Compton effect.

A picture is worth a thousand words - maybe two thousand if they're as interactive as the pictures in PEARLS. Pick one for your next lecture.

Includes a 34 pp. User's Manual.

System Requirements:
Macintosh Version 4.0
Your computer system and hardware configuration should be any Macintosh computer with a 68030 or higher CPU with the following features:

  • Minimum RAM of 2 MB
  • Hard disk with a minimum of 22 MB of space available for installation or a CD-ROM drive
  • System 7.0 or later
  • Color monitor in 256 color mode (recommended)
Windows Version 3.0
Your computer system and hardware configuration should be any PC computer with a 386 or higher CPU with the following features:
  • Minimum RAM of 4 MB
  • Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later
  • Color monitor in 256 color mode

Windows - Version 3.0
ISBN 1-56396-511-9
 
Mac CD-ROM - Version 4.0
ISBN 1-56396-513-5

Single copy $275.00
High School Site License $690.00
10-copy lab pack $1,100.00

© 1996 by Physics Academic Software Publishing Organization. All rights reserved.

 Part of the ACROSS THE CURRICULUM SERIES
AWARDS
 
Computers in Physics
Award for Educational Software
REVIEWS
 
"The software serves as a 'virtual laboratory' in which users can run experiments, take measurements, and plot graphs. Users can also perform what Albert Einstein called Gedanken experiments-'though experiments' that are impossible to conduct in a real laboratory."
Computers in Physics, March/April 1997
 
"Some of the simulations even show the 'experimental set up' as a three dimensional representation that can be viewed from any angle. This provides a great deal of flexibility."
Alastair Gillies and Bruce Sinclair, Physics World, July 1997
MORE PICTURES
 
Coordinates
Vectors
Incline plane
Collision
Circular motion
Resonance
Waves
Buoyancy
Spherical mirrors
Thin lens
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