Welcome to Physics at Thurgood Marshall High School! 

Instructor: John Ciprian

(937) 542-6643

Jciprian@dps.k12.oh.us

Physics is an essential foundation for our technological society.  Students who complete senior-level physics courses are in an excellent position to pursue university studies in engineering, medicine, science and other professional areas such as patent and environmental law.

My goal is to help students to develop critical thinking skills while learning the concepts of motion, forces, energy, electricity, magnetism, waves and the other areas which comprise the physics curriculum.  The class is hands-on with an emphasis on inquiry, data analysis and mathematical modeling.

Physics Web Sites:

1. The Physics Classroom has a variety of excellent tutorials to learn and reinforce physics concepts.

2.  The Moving Man: Interactive motion Graphs that help you transpose from one representation to another. You must have Java loaded on your computer (link is available on the site).

3. Interactive Physics Simulations: Includes the Moving Man (above) and others.

About the Photograph

The picture above was taken on the NASA "Weightless Wonder" in August 2006, a C-9 cargo jet modified to dive 10,000 feet in 30 seconds to create a temporary state of zero gravity.  The Weightless Wonder is used extensively to conduct scientific research and to train astronauts. 

Four Dayton Public School students helped to design and construct an experimental apparatus to test the effectiveness of standard pressure-bandage first-aid practices to treat bleeding wounds in a zero-gravity environment.  The testing apparatus, a modfied CPR-trainer using air pressure at the "wound" site to simulate blood flow, is shown in the picture. Three Dayton Public School teachers and two staff members of the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery conducted the experiments on the plane, collecting data which was later analyzed by the students for their final report.  The project was a collaboration between Boonshoft and the Dayton Public Schools.

Thirty zero-gravity parabolas were flown over the Gulf of Mexico.  As a bonus, the pilot flew one parabola at one-sixth of "g", or the normal value of the acceleration of gravity on the Earth, to simulate the gravitational acceleration on the Moon, and one parabola at one-third of "g" to simulate the gravitational acceleration on Mars.

As the plane came out of each dive, it climbed from approximately 25,000 feet to 35,000 feet in 30 seconds to be in position for the next dive down.  During this time each passenger experienced about 1.8 g, meaning that his or her body weight was temporarily about twice its normal value.  You experience a similar phenomena when you are on an  elevator that is just starting to go up. As the elevator starts to go down, you experience a slight decrease in your body weight.