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Easy Physics Demos?
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by osaka-chan
on 2007-04-30 15:50:52
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For my physics class, I have to perform a demo and explain the physics concept behind it. It can illustrate any basic physics topic, such as electrostatics, Newton's laws, momentum, waves, thermal properties, gas laws, etc. I've been looking online, but am having difficulty coming up with a demo that can be reproduced easily using materials that are commonly available. Does anyone remember seeing such a demo, or know a good resource for finding one?  |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by SuicidopoliS
on 2007-05-01 10:03:54 (edited 2007-05-01 10:04:19)
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Well... Just open up a ( full ) bottle of champagne/sparkled water/soda/..., and notice some white cloudy thing escaping ( read: cold gas ), as well as the bottle suddenly cooling down. That's called the Joule-Thompson effect. Or you can try the famous iron filing that shows you the lines of the magnetic field of a magnet, or Newton's apple, or stick a pencil into water and notice how it seems broken due to the different diffraction coefficients of water and air, or show light falling through a prism, or osmosis, or... There's loads of stuff! .oO° Life's THE CURE, the rest are details! °Oo. |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by
on 2007-05-04 13:54:03 |
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errr... use balls for kinetic theory... put them in a box. For gas, put lesser, for solid pack the whole thing... ok not helping  A friend of today is an enemy of tomorrow. I am an empty shell. I don't feel loved at all |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by
on 2007-05-05 20:04:41 |
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You could do the can crush thing...you know, take an empty soda can, heat it up a bit, and then stick it in an ice-water bath. It takes some playing around with. You can demonstrate charge polarization by rubbing balloons and then sticking them on the walls...bio is my forte, not physics, but those are my .02. |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by
on 2007-05-05 20:20:59 |
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The one I used when I was in High school was a simulated eye ball. What it is is a spherical container with water (and some dye in it to make look cool). Then (this is the hard part) you find the right concave lens so that you can focus a beam of light from far away to the edge of the spherical container, much like your eyes would. Then you can go on and explain what near sightedness is by changing different lens so the focal point of the beam moves with the spherical container. My physics teacher thought it was the coolest demo he have seem in his entire career. ^__^  |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by
on 2007-06-10 21:15:54 |
my high school physics teacher used a hockey puck and a ruler to explain inclined plane and what not. i think it was when we were learning about newton's laws, vectors..uh...momentum..can't remember..it was a long time ago.. 
So I drove into a parking lot one time and saw this person pull into a handicap parking spot. When you think handicap, you think wheelchair and whatever, right? So it just ticked me off when I saw the guy come out of the car perfectly fine. So then I ran him over. |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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Maglev trains are always good. I built one for my physics study unit, but it failed, only because I got lazy and built it on paperboard instead of wood. If you build it right, it's pretty amazing. to build one, follow these vague instructions. 1. Set the train's base dimensions:L x W 2. Create a U shaped guide way so that when you look on the track from 1st person of the train, it will be like |_| Make sure the width of guideway is only a bit bigger than the width of the train. Also use sturdy unbendable material, wood highly suggested, even thick cardboard won't do. 3. Buy a bunch of permanent magnets that have distinct poles. Stack them in one pile and bring a marker to mark one side. That one side are either all south or all north. 4. Lay the magnets and glue two lines of them on both sides of the guideway. 5. Place complementary magnets on the bottom of the train, and then the train should work because the permanent magnets would repel. Ok, since I have never created a working model before, ask someone who has, or google for more specific instructions. good luck |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by
 
on 2007-06-27 17:29:42 |
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Demonstrate loops of stationary waves on a piece of string with one fixed end, over a pulley on the side of a table..use a generator to create vibrations We did it recently & thought it was pretty cool u could actually see those vibrations on the string (as in fundamental resonance, 2nd harmonic etc etc) _____________________ use a plastic pipe and place it in a large measuring cylinder filled with water (to find speed of sound) it's an experiment involving using tuning forks to determine the loudest note heard by placing it above the column of air above water (i love striking the tuning fork on the table lol) or you can use a signal generator where u can involve the audience by asking them the max & min frequencies they could physically hear up to themselves^^  |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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| to demonstrate the presence of air pressure, you can do this - have a long and this plywood piece and place part of it over a table. do a karate chop and send this plywood piece flying. nothing will happen to it. now later place a piece of newspaper over it and ask students what they think will happen. since part of the wood is sticking out of the paper, do another karate chop. this time the wood splits. the air pressure acts on the newspaper causing a force to act on the wood, holding the wood down. hence the wood can snap! |
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Re: Easy Physics Demos?
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by
on 2007-08-06 19:14:49 |
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Lol, I may sound like an idiot, but for my high school physics project, me and a couple of people actually did fighting (like karate and wrestling) to represent forces. For example, I punched one of my group members (with padding on) to explain static friction and we actually calculated the amount of force required to send my group member flying. Seriously, basically everything around you can be explained with physics so just be creative.
There are plenty of fish left in the sea, but wait a sec. Why are we talkin bout fish? I want a girl!
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