Lab Manual Revisions and Demo Docs

We’re almost done taking the pictures for the next revision of our undergraduate lab manuals. This week, along with setting up and delivering 14 demonstrations to various physics classes around campus, we’ve been creating more demonstration documentations. Newly uploaded for this week:

• 4B10.10 – Water and Aluminum on Hot Plate
• 6D30.20 – Soap Film Interference
• 5C30.30 – Light the Bulb
• 5F30.10 – Capacitor and Light Bulbs

My favorite of the bunch would have to be the demonstration of Soap Film Interference. It’s such a beautiful demonstration of the interference properties of light being reflected from a thin film. Other colorful examples of this phenomena can be seen in the iridescent nature of peacock feathers, humming birds, oil spills and some insect wings.

LDP Website Updates

I know we’ve been neglecting our blogging duties. But that’s because we’ve been busy improving our main website offerings. So far we’ve focused on doing this in a number of ways:

• We’re trying to update our online listing of demonstrations (deleting some, adding others) so that it more closely matches the actual demonstrations on our shelves.
• We’ve categorize all of our home-made demonstrations so that they have a PIRA number associated with them (if possible).
• We’re taking pictures and writing concepts and procedures for all of our demonstrations. This is a huge task (we have over 300 demonstrations) but once finished, is should save us a lot of set-up time and enable us to maintain more reliable and consistent demonstrations. It will also make it much easier for demonstration users to know what to expect the demonstration to look like, how best to to perform it for a class and plan for the best way to integrate the demonstrations into their lectures.
• Finally, we’ve added a new Multimedia Links section with some of our favorite links to freely available demonstration simulations, animations, videos and tutorials. We’ve purposefully tried to keep the list short and focus on quality rather than quantity. However, if you have a favorite link you think we should add send us an email and we’ll check it out.

So head on over to our main LDP Program website and let us know what you think.

links for 2008-01-15

• eduMedia
  Interactive animations and simulations for science education
  (tags: science flash physics)

links for 2007-12-11

• Saturn’s ‘flying saucer’ moons built of ring material
  (tags: astronomy saturn space)

The Physics of Chuck Norris

I don’t think anyone has done this yet (in either book, lecture or film).  But I can pretty much guarantee it would be a huge hit.  To get you started I’ve got 10 Chuck Norris facts for you:

1.  When Chuck Norris does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.
2. The Big Bang was just Chuck Norris blowing off some steam.
3. If, by some incredible space-time paradox, Chuck Norris would ever fight himself, he’d win. Period.
4. Not even light can escape a black hole…but Chuck Norris can.
5. Chuck Norris is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
6. Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet with Chuck Norris.
7. Chuck Norris is the only human being to display the Heisenberg uncertainty principle — you can never know both exactly where and how quickly he will roundhouse-kick you in the face.
8. Scientists have estimated that the energy given off during the Big Bang is roughly equal to 1CNRhK (Chuck Norris Roundhouse Kick)
9. Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
10. Newton’s Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick.

links for 2007-12-05

• Science Videos Search Engine
  (tags: science physics)

links for 2007-12-04

• Resources for Physics from UNSW
  (tags: physics)

Buoyant Force On Area Object Equal To Weight Of Water Displaced

An area object partially immersed in a liquid was buoyed upward Tuesday by a force equal to the weight of the liquid displaced by that object, witnesses at the scene reported.

Buoyant Force On Area Object Equal To Weight Of Water Displaced | The Onion – Americas Finest News Source

links for 2007-11-17

• Evolving Thoughts
  This is a list of the Basic Concepts posts being put up by Science Bloggers and others.
  (tags: physics)

links for 2007-11-16

• Relativity passes new test of time
  Einstein’s famous tenet of special relativity — that time slows down on a moving clock — has been verified 10 times more precisely than ever before. The result comes from physicists in Germany and Canada, who have timed the “ticking” of lithium
  (tags: physics relativity modern_physics)
• Negative refraction ‘could trap rainbows’
  Since their invention in 2000, exotic materials called metamaterials have revealed many uses such as perfect lenses or invisibility cloaks. But now computer simulations performed by physicists in the UK suggest another application — slowing down a “ra
  (tags: physics optics refraction)