Prof. Kyle Forinash, PhD.

Email: kforinas @ ius.edu Phone: My Office: (812) 941-2039 School of Natural Science: (812) 941-2284 SNS Fax: (812) 941-2637 Office: Physical Sciences 101B Office hours, 2012: I am on sabbatical; send me an email for an appointment. If my door is open, come on in! Mailing Address: School of Natural Sciences, Indiana University Southeast, New Albany, IN. 47150. Syllabi, : I am on sabbatical until Fall 2013 P201/P202 lab: Manual in PDF; Schedule of P201 Labs; Lab Homework (due 2nd lab period). P221/P222 lab: Manual in PDF; Schedule of P221 Labs. Other useful Resources/Class Notes. Suggestion box for comments or other feedback. IUS Physics Homepage. IUS Homepage.

Research and Creative Achievements:

Environmental Physics

Foundations of Environmental Physics; Understanding Energy Use and Human Impacts, Kyle Forinash (Island Press, July 2010). Available from Amazon: Foundations of Environmental Physics.

• Collected list of Environmental References for classroom use.
• Power Point talks:
• On energy: Ending the Fossil Fuel Addiction; What will it take?
• On Climate Change: What do we know about climate?
• Web page summary on Climate Change.
• Enviro Blog on environmental issues.

On-line, computer and cell phone teaching resources

Since the early 1990s I have worked with Ray Wisman and Bill Rumsey on the use of computers and web based material in teaching. The three of us set up the very first web servers for the IUS campus in 1994, establishing IUS as the first IU regional campus having a web presence. Ray and I have also spent significant time in finding easy and inexpensive ways to interface physics experiments and equipment to computers and cell phones. This includes providing remote access to, and control of, real physics experiments via the Internet. Over the past several years I have, using open source tools, created on-line simulations and tutorial materials for use at the introductory physics level. I have presented our explorations in many publications and presentations, both in the US and in Argentina (in Spanish) while on sabbatical in 2006-2007 and a Fulbright grant in 2010.

• On-line textbooks:
• Waves: An Interactive Tutorial (2011).
• Sound: An Interactive eBook (2012).
• Presentation: Teaching With Technology (summer 2011). Haz un clic en los últimos letras en los títulos para leerlo en español.
• Collection of free Internet resources for teaching physics: in English, in Spanish.
• Video of examples of using the iPhone/iPod for data collection (from our two articles in The Physics Teacher, 2012). Ray Wisman wrote the acceleration app and the temperature app. The temperature app accesses an external circuit through the headset port to collect data.
• Other on-line laboratory, computer interfacing, cell phone, distance learning, etc. projects.

Nonlinear dynamics

From 1990 until 2001 I worked with groups at Los Alamos and in Lyon France on simplistic computer models which model the collective behavior of a chain of point masses joined by nonlinear coupling forces or nonlinear on-site potentials. These kinds of simple models provide insight into nonlinear behavior in discrete systems (such as solids) in general and possibly point the way toward understanding the behavior of more complicated systems such as real biological polymers, for example DNA unzipping during replication. Publications:

1. K. Forinash, A. R. Bishop and P. Lomdahl; 'Nonlinear dynamics in the DNA Molecule', Physical Review B, vol.43 (1991) p10743.
2. K. Forinash and J. Keeney; 'A Double Chain System with Varying Interchain Potential', Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, vol. 25 (1992) p6087.
3. K. Forinash, M. Peyrard and B. Malomed; 'Interaction of Discrete Breathers with Impurity Modes', Physical Review E, vol.49 (1994) p3400.
4. K. Forinash, T. Cretegny and M. Peyrard; 'Local Modes and Localization in a Multi-component Nonlinear Lattice', Physical Review E, vol. 55 (1997) p4740.
5. K. Forinash, C. Lang ; 'Frequency Analysis of Discrete Breather Modes Using a Continuous Wavelet Transform', Physica D, vol. 123 (1998) p437. Figures for this paper.
6. C. Willis, K. Forinash; 'Nonlinear Response of the Sine Gordon Breather to an ac Driver'; Physica D, 2598 (2000) p1-12.
7. K. Forinash; 'Coupled multi-component systems: A Simple Membrane Model', Journal of Biological Physics, vol 28 (2002) 63-75.

Miscellaneous Projects

Collected notes, links, references, syllabi and other resources for courses I have taught.

• K. Forinash, J. P. Richie, T. Jones; 'Wind Chime Physics', American Journal of Physics, vol. 58, no. 1 (1990) p82.
• K. Forinash; 'Physics 100: Science Literacy', The Physics Teacher, vol. 29, no. 7 (1991) p448.
• C. Lang and K. Forinash; 'Time-Frequency Analysis with the Continuous Wavelet Transformation', American Journal of Physics, vol. 66, no. 9 (1998) p794. Figures for this paper
• K. Forinash, 'What is Science?' American Journal of Physics, Vol. 68, No. 9, pp. 787–788, September 2000.
• K. Forinash, W. Rumsey, C. Lang; 'Galileo's Mathematical Language of Nature', Science and Education, Vol. 9, No. 5 Sept. 2000, Kluwer Publishers.
• R. Wisman and K. Forinash: Wave Equation Workbench; a JAVA Applet simulation of linear and non-linear waves (Does not work at present).
• 'Skydiving and the CBL' with Chris Chudzinski (poster session at the January 2000 annual meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers, 1/18/00, Kissimee, FL).
• K. Forinash, T. O'Connor and H. Sibray; 'The IUS and Purdue ELF/ULF project'; Journal of Engineering Education July, 2001.
• K. Forinash, W. D. Rumsey: 'A First Course in the History and Philosophy of Science', European Journal of Physics Vol. 21 (2000) p 427.
• K. Forinash; Brownian motion. Invited talk, AAPT winter meeting, Albuquerque, NM 2005. Published in European Journal of Physics Vol. 23 (2002) p249-253.
• Mathematical Methods in Physics: Partial Differential Equations, Fourier Series, and Special Functions by Victor Henner, Tatyana Belozerova, Kyle Forinash (A. K. Peters, 2009).