CoolStuff Newsletters

 
Teaching the spectra of visible light can be an engaging classroom activity. But, it’s always been challenging to find ways to go beyond simple passive demonstrations.
 
Hand-held diffraction “rainbow” foil (sometimes mounted in cardboard glasses) can be fun. But students often have difficulty even spotting the spectrum. “I can’t see it!” is the common complaint. And [...]

Although the problem of why coffee spills might seem trivial, it actually brings together a variety of fundamental scientific issues. These include fluid mechanics, the stability of fluid surfaces, and interactions between fluids and structures (we’ll set aside the biology of walking for now). The SpillNot is a cool tool for getting your students interested in the everyday physics behind why drinks spill while we’re carrying them and what has to happen to prevent spillage.

What can you do with a plasma ball? We get this question a lot! Check out these simple, cool demos using everyday lab items like fluorescent lamps, LEDs, neon gas tubes, and even your own body! You’ll be amazed at how easy and fun teaching and learning about electrostatics can be.

Students often underestimate the force of friction despite friction stopping their school buses and cars everyday. In this video 2 phone books are interwoven page by page and the friction between these thin peaces of paper are put to the ultimate test.

Standing waves are a common phenomenon usually shown through the vibrations of bridges or springs. Horizontal standing waves are produced in a lab by students shaking cords, springs and bungee cords. However, standing waves can also be produced in a vertical fashion by a single student. Using the new nylon Spring Wave, students are able to produce vertical standing waves easily and calculate the speed of the spring. This is a great little "twist" on the age-old standing wave lab that you have in your arsenal.

On October 8th, 2012, magician David Blaine performed a seemingly life-threatening stunt subjecting himself to a whopping one million volts of electricity while wearing a 20-pound chain metal suit. The public was shocked by the performance, a demonstration that seems to define the basic laws of science. Or did it?

It was 8:45 AM in Florence and I was waiting for one of the highlights of my 2012 Italian family vacation the chance to see the original creations for one of the greatest minds of the 17th century, Galileo. Take a tour of the Galileo Museum with me and see the classic Physics demos as they were in the 1600's.

In the late 1700s, Italian scientist Luigi Galvani stumbled across one of the most important discoveries of all time. He found that frog legs would contract when some of the muscles and nerves were connected – even when the frog was dead! Galvani attributed this phenomenon to the idea that animal and human brains produce [...]

The link between electricity and magnetism finds its legendary roots back to Hans Christian Orsted when he supposedly found that electric current affected his compasses during a student lecture. That piece of scientific history may be one of exaggerated legend, but the marriage of electricity with magnetism has been widely known for over a century, later to be given a full mathematical explanation by Lord Kelvin and James Clerk Maxwell. The concept of electron movement causing the production of an ensuing magnetic field is a fundamental model used in describing electromagnets, generators, transformers and electric motors.

In the video clip, you see the Super Springy stretched out a distance of 24 feet. By adjusting the frequency of the waves, the wavelength may be manipulated so that different numbers of loops can be formed.  As with all standing waves, the length of one loop is one-half wavelength. You can find the wavelength (λ) of the standing wave by dividing its total length by the number of loops to get the length of one loop, and then doubling it.