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CD Players in space and rotations of a rigid body
I saw this video on several places. It shows an astronaut playing with a CD player. I wish I were an astronaut. I would probably not stop throwing up though. It would still be worth it. You can only...
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Friction Demo with a meterstick
This is one of my favorite demos. Easy to do and doesn’t really require any equipment. The basic idea is that you support a meter stick horizontally with two fingers. Slide your fingers in and they...
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Moment of Inertia Demo
When I was talking about balancing a stick, I mentioned the moment of inertia. Moment of inertia is different than mass, but I like to call it the “rotational mass”. What does mass do? Things with...
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The physics of Michael Jackson’s moonwalk
Was the moonwalk fake? No, not the Apollo landings. I am talking about Michael Jackson’s moonwalk. You got to admit, he had a big impact on a lot of stuff and this is my way to give him respect –...
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Slate’s Explainer has an answer and question post about moonwalking. Here is one of the very good questions answered there. Would it be easier to moonwalk on the moon? The Explainer says “absolutely...
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Angular Momentum Example
I showed this demo in class and I was surprised at how cool the students thought it was. They actually thought it was some kind of trick. It is not a trick. Instead, this is an example of the angular...
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RP 2: The Physics of Fantastic Contraption
One of my students showed me this game, Fantastic Contraption. The basic idea is to use a couple of different “machine” parts to build something that will move an object into a target area. Not a bad...
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Yo-Yo: Rolling, sliding, pulling
This is actually been sitting around for a while waiting for me to post it. Here is another short Christmas-toy demo. I am going to pull this yo-yo at different angles and on two different surfaces....
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Apolo Ohno Physics
It is winter Olympics time and time for physics. The event that I always gets me thinking about physics is short track speed skating. It is quite interesting to see these skaters turn and lean at such...
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Oak Trees are awesome
In this part of the world, we have oak trees. Technically they are called live oaks – but I don’t get it. Of course they are alive. I was at a soccer game and this is the tree I always look at. Look...
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