Chemistry and Physics Faculty Articles
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2-17-2021
Publication Title
European Journal of Physics
Keywords
Astronomy data visualization, Stellar mass function, Initialmass function, Interdisciplinary astronomy, Pareto distribution, Massratio
ISSN
1361-6404
First Page
1
Last Page
12
Abstract
We promote the teaching of mass functions as an integral part of an interdisciplinary science education. Mass functions characterize the frequency distributions of objects with different masses on all cosmic scales. We intend to enhance experiential learning of this concept with a creative LEGO brick experiment for a diverse student audience. To our surprise, the LEGO mass function is not only qualitatively but also quantitatively comparable to mass functions found across the universe. We also discuss the relation between gravitation and mass distributions as a possible explanation for the continuity of the universal mass function.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
NSUWorks Citation
Kautsch, S. (2021). The pedagogical representation of mass functions with LEGO and their origin. European Journal of Physics, 1 - 12. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6404/abe75c. Retrieved from https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cnso_chemphys_facarticles/287
DOI
10.1088/1361-6404/abe75c
Comments
This project was generously funded by the President’s Faculty Research and Development Grant 335510 of Nova Southeastern University. DV gratefully acknowledges the support of the STFC via an Ernest Rutherford Fellowship (grant ST/P003850/1). We would like to thank the three anonymous referees and the Editor-in-Chief for their comments, which were very helpful in improving the impact of this study. We also appreciate the support from Prof. Dr. Diego Castano and Prof. Dr. Vehbi Paksoy (Nova Southeastern University, U.S.A.) for assisting us in the work process through intellectual conversations. The graphs were made with gnuplot,http://www.gnuplot.info. The sun image is from NASA. The comet, head, brick,and shuttle visuals are fromhttps://Piktochart.com. LEGO is a trademark of The LEGO Group,https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/lego-group/.