Thursday 30 June 2011

Laser Show

Music Laser Show
Difficulty: 5 out of a possible 10, may take some time

Materials:
·        Laser
·        Mirror
·        Speakers (medium or high powered works the best)
·        An Ipod or any other source of music connected to your speakers
·        A good base song (works the best)

Procedure:
1.     Get the speakers ready by pugging them in and connecting them to a music source (ex: Ipod)
2.     Attach a mirror to the speaker at an angle that points up. This mirror should be secured directly on top of the speaker, specifically where the music would come out of.
3.     Turn on your speaker and play your song on medium to high volume.
4.     Make sure there vibration coming from the speaker and moving the mirror.
5.     Turn off the lights and point the laser and the mirror.

Observation:
The laser should reflect onto a ceiling or wall. The laser bounces off a mirror attached to a speaker, then goes through a diffraction grating so the patterns will cover an area or a wall or ceiling.

Microwave Soap

Microwave Soap
Rating of difficulty: 1 out of a possible 10 VERY EASY and simple

Before you start make sure:
  • Do not leave the microwave unattended during the activity.
  • Although heating up soap in the microwave will not damage your microwave or the food you heat in it later, it will cause the microwave to smell like soap for a few hours and also your kitchen.
  • Make sure your remove the packaging and put ONLY the soap in the microwave
Materials:
  • Bar of Ivory® soap (none other work)
  • Microwave
Procedure:
  1. Place the soap on the plate (nonmetal) and put it in the microwave.
  2. Set the microwave for 2-3 minutes, turn it on, and watch the soap for the entire time.
Observation:
What you should see is that the soap has turned into a foamy looking substance but still remains a solid.
Explanation:
The soap company adds air bubbles in the soap to save material and make a bigger profit. When the soap is heated instead of melting the air bubbles expand and cause the soap to change into that form.

Additional information:
One can determine how much air is put into the soap but a simple floating test. Just put the soap car into a bucket of water. If it floats it has a high air content if it sinks very low air content.


Electric Rainbow

Electric Rainbow
Difficulty: 10 out of 10 VERY HARD to perfect. I have personally tried this twice and it did not work. If you are able to make this work PLEASE tell me what you did! Here’s the video for it:
Video : Watch Video HERE

Materials:
·        Alligator wire
·        2 paper clips
·        Battery
·        Water with Sodium Sulphate
·        Indicator solution
·        Magnet
·        dish
 Procedure:
1.     Put the paper clips on the side of a dish
2.     Add the water and sodium sulphate into dish
3.     Add indicator solution
4.     Connect the wires to the battery and the paper clips
5.     Observe what happens
6.     Add magnet
7.     Observe
Observation:
Hopefully, the sodium sulphate and water mix will change colour once electricity is added into the dish. Also once the magnet is added, one can see the flow of electrons.
Explanation:
Using an electric current and a powerful magnet, we can create a fantastic swirl of colours in a tray of water! This is yet another, unexpectedly colourful demonstration of the connection between electricity and magnetism.

We can break apart water molecules using and electric current. This produces hydrogen gas and oxygen gas. This changes the pH of the water, and we can make those pH changes visible by adding some universal indicator

What happens when we place a small, but powerful magnet into the water? The magnetic field is going to affect the electrical field, and that's going to affect how the colours appear in the water. It looks much better than it sounds, so watch this segment as we create an 'electric rainbow'


Crush Can

Crush Can
Difficulty: 4 out of a possible 10 easy
Materials:
  • One metal soda can (EMPTY)
  • Water in a container bigger than a soda can
  • Heat resistant gloves or tongs
  • Heating device (stove or hotplate)
  • Ice (optional)
Procedure:
1.     Put a small amount (about one tablespoon) of water in the empty soda can
2.     Heat the soda can on a hotplate (or any other heat source).
3.     Fill a large basin with cold water (adding ice would help).
4.     Once the water inside the soda can is boiling, grab the hot soda can with tongs , move it over the basin of cold water, and quickly flip it (so that the opening is inside the cold water)
5.      The soda can should quickly crumple in on itself.
If it did not work:
Try the experiment again, something went wrong. (Usually either the water in the can was not boiling hard enough, or the can was submerged too much or too little.)

Explanation:

The ideal gas law PV=nRT, where P=pressure, V=volume, n=number of moles (amount of gas molecules/atoms), R is a constant at 8.314, and T is temperature helps us answer this question. Once the soda can was sealed, the volume inside it, and the amount of gas molecules, were held constant. The temperature of the air inside the can dropped because it was originally heated up by boiling water, but then cooled by the ice water. Because the temperature dropped, and everything else was kept constant, the pressure inside of the can also dropped. The pressure OUTSIDE of the can, from normal air, remained constant. Without the inside air pressure pushing back as forcefully, the outside air pressure collapsed the can.

Chocolate chip Microwave wave lenght

Chocolate chip wave
Difficulty: 2 out of a possible 10 very easy!
Materials:
Chocolate chips
Cardboard
Microwave
ruler
Procedure:
1.      Cut the cardboard to fit inside the microwave perfectly
2.      Place the chocolate chips all over the cardboard
3.      Place in the microwave for 20-30 seconds
4.      Take out and measure the distance from the high areas and low areas
Observation:
The chocolate chips should have melted in a wave like pattern showing the wavelength that the microwave produces. This should be around 6 cm.  
Explanation:
Chocolate chips are perfect for measuring the distance between melted spots. The heat does not spread as quickly through them because they are not uniform. This means the melted spots will be smaller and you will have more time to measure before they all start to melt.
We now know the frequency of the microwave and can presumably measure the length of the wave, but how are they related to the speed of light? Simple. Electromagnetic waves propagate through free space (like that in a microwave) at the speed of light. Therefore, their length is related directly to the speed of light by λ = c / f where λ is the wavelength, c is the speed of light, and f is the frequency of the microwave. Solving for the speed of light, c = λ * f.
The true speed of light is 2.9987×108.





Balancing Forks

Balancing Forks
Difficulty: 4 out of a possible 10 easy but may take some practice
Materials:
·        Two forks
·        One toothpick
·        One glass filled with water
Procedure:
1.     Start by pushing the forks together (technically referred to as wedging the tines of the forks).
2.     Balance the forks on your finger to find the middle point. This is where the toothpick should be inserted between the fingers (tines) of the fork.
3.     Carefully rest the toothpick on the rim of the glass. Just slide the toothpick back and forth along the rim until you think you've found the perfect balancing point. Slowly pull your hands away to reveal the amazing balancing fork contraption.
4.     You can add another step by lighting the tooth pick on fire.
Observation:
The forks should balance on the glass, this picture is a much better indication of what should happen:

Even after the tooth pick is gone (Because of the fire) the forks should still remain balanced!
Explanation:
Center of gravity: The center of gravity of any object is the point about which you can balance the object as if all the masses were concentrated or gathered at this point. In other words, it's the point at which the object balances from left to right, front and back, and top and bottom. In your balancing fork act, the center of gravity is directly below the spot where the toothpick rests on the rim of the glass. If you look closely at your balancing fork-art, you'll notice that the fork handles are positioned below the toothpick. This actually puts the center of gravity directly below the point where the toothpick is balanced (called the pivot point). Here's where it gets really strange: the center of gravity, where the forks balance front and back, left and right, top and bottom, is actually hanging in mid-air.


Physics Demonstrations!

Physics Demonstrations
Hello everyone, here is my blog for physics demonstrations! I would like to keep this introduction very simple and say that majority of these demonstrations I have seen done personally. There are very few which I would consider difficult or haven’t seen personally. Along with how to do the demonstration and explaining its results I will give the demonstration a ration out of 10 on how hard it was to execute (1 being very easy and 10 being difficult). These demonstrations come from a variety of places, from classmates, text books and some I have come across from TV shows.

Anyways, hope this blog helps you !