Author Archives: Dr. Russell Harkay

We will use funnels, soda bottles, and a toy called a Tornado Tube to explore the concepts of moment of inertia, rotational motion, angular momentum, kinetic and potential energy, and air pressure in an attempt to discover and explain the physics of a rather complex hydrodynamic system.

One characteristic or property of all solids and liquids is something called the Specific Heat, abbreviated as Cv. This quantity represents the amount of heat required to raise or lower a given quantity (a gram or a Kilogram) by one degree. Water has an extremely high Specific Heat (1 calorie per gram per degree C). A rule of thermodynamics (the study of heat and heat transfer) is that when two objects are placed in contact, they will eventually reach thermal equilibrium. Energy (heat is a measure of energy in a substance) flows from the warmer object...

We might ask why Nature chooses to arrange things according to certain patterns. In this exercise, you will be messing about with some special marbles. Let’s call them “concentrically constructed dipolar spheroids” for now. Your task is to determine how they “work”, how to test for stability of assembled structures, and to determine which structures are the most stable. You will also take a look at the forces between the marbles and groups of marbles when they interact.

Students will use three simple toy instruments to explore fundamentals of sound and frequency in this inquiry exercise. Boomwhackers: Students will share a number of colored plastic tubes of various lengths.

We will explore magnetic field configurations and field strengths for permanent magnets in this inquiry exercise. Students will observe the curved field lines around a permanent magnet, and explore how field strength varies with distance. They will observe the magnetic field created by a current-carrying wire, as well as the current created in a wire when a magnet moves past it.