Physlets and Open Source Physics for Quantum Mechanics: Visualizing Quantum-mechanical Revivals

In this paper we describe our five-year effort to create interactive curricular material for upper-level quantum mechanics courses. This material uses both Physlets and newly created Open Source Physics applets and applications to make the teaching of quantum mechanics visual and interactive. These exercises and tools address both quantitative and conceptual difficulties experienced by many students. Because the materials are Web based, they are extremely flexible and are appropriate for use with various pedagogies, such as the Just-in-Time Teaching technique. We briefly outline the features of Physlets and Open Source Physics programs and then describe our suite of Java programs that solve and visualize the problem of a wave packet in an infinite square well. The materials described in this paper can be found on the Open Source Physics Web site and on the MERLOT and ComPADRE digital libraries