According to a recent article in The Guardian, there has been a significant boom in interest in physics in the past two years. The article discusses a number of possible reasons for the increase in interest, but the most unusual …
Continue ReadingThis week’s puzzle is more a question, wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in an enigma — like my daughter, due to this year’s first snowstorm, wrapped in layers, which hold her immobile and preserved as surely …
Continue ReadingIf you missed it, this week’s puzzle asked you to use basic physics formulas to transform: Of course, specific steps will vary, but here’s one way to do it: . Unfortunately, there were NO CORRECT ANSWERS to this week’s puzzle, …
Continue ReadingRecently, a group of physicists have been working to measure the neutrinos generated from a particle accelerator at CERN. This group discovered neutrinos arriving faster than would have been expected and they appear to be traveling faster than the speed …
Continue ReadingI have a confession: I didn’t actually know a whole lot about Richard Feynman. Well, okay, I knew a bit about his role at Los Alamos from a history class, and I knew a little about his outsized personality and …
Continue ReadingRecently, a group of physicists have been working to measure the neutrinos generated from a particle accelerator at CERN. This group discovered neutrinos arriving faster than would have been expected and they appear to be traveling faster than the speed …
Continue ReadingTemplar Books recently sent me two brand-new pop-up books which are both excellent, even though one deals with the imaginary and the other is non-fiction. Both books showcase some very nice tactile features, and are bound to entertain (and educate!) …
Continue ReadingIt turns out that Angry Birds is more than just an incredibly popular, highly addicting video game. It seems that, used in the right way, it has legitimate educational value. According to an article at eSchool News (registration required in …
Continue ReadingThe PHDComics site has a particularly good video up on the subject of dark matter. The video is done in a style similar to the wonderful RSA Animate video series in that a fascinating talk by experts is illustrated with …
Continue ReadingAh, the fame and fortune that is the life of a physicist! The wild parties, the private jets to Nîce and Bangkok and Budapest, the Russian oil heiresses and Brazilian soccer stars! What, you might ask, is the secret to …
Continue ReadingHere’s the gist: the SpectraSound is a little assemble-it-yourself kit that plugs into the audio-out port of your iPod or other audio device, and sends it to a small laser pointer. The device modulates the laser, which is then received …
Continue ReadingA lot of nonfiction for kids in upper elementary and middle school is what I think of as “book report books.” They’re packed with facts, but not presented in a way that makes them very interesting. They may consist of …
Continue ReadingEveryone knows billiards as the default example for teaching classical dynamics, but is ten-pin bowling a better choice, especially for getting kids interested? My wife (who is a primary school teacher) and I are always on the lookout for teachable …
Continue ReadingInspired by Kate McAlpine’s 2008 YouTube rap sensation about the CERN Large Hadron Collider, physicist and music aficionado Dr. Ben Kilminster of Fermilab felt as though America’s homegrown particle accelerator, The Tevatron located in Batavia, Illinois, deserved a lyrical tribute …
Continue ReadingAs a homeschooler, I tend to shy away from textbooks. And it’s not just because they’re boring. According to many experts, even newer textbooks often contain information that’s outdated or inaccurate. On the other hand, it’s very hard to get …
Continue ReadingQuick! You’re stranded in space, slowly spinning as you orbit endlessly around a planet. What do you do? Well, hopefully a rocket will come by to rescue you before they run out of air and fuel. Blast Off is a …
Continue ReadingAlthough our homeschool science for the year is physics, and we’ve been focusing on “the good stuff” – relativity, quantum mechanics, alternate realities – it’s been hard to get my kids to pick up a book about the subject. We’ve …
Continue ReadingIf you’re a long-time reader, you may remember the great leftover Easter Peeps microwave experiment. Well, today we’re going to be nuking leftover Valentine’s Day chocolate to demonstrate one of the constants of physics, the speed of light. Chocolate makes …
Continue ReadingLuther F. Davis III, a physics teacher at Lake Mary High School in Florida, likes to give his students memorable lessons. He has smashed cinder blocks over his chest while lying on a bed of nails to illustrate pressure and …
Continue ReadingYou’ve gotta love a book that follows “Chapter One: Matter” with “Chapter Two: Quantum Theory.” The Instant Egghead Guide: Physics by Brian Clegg and Scientific American does just that, and then continues on through chapters about Light, Relativity, Forces and …
Continue ReadingToday is Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday, as you know if you’ve been on Google’s homepage. In addition to laying out the Laws of Motion, he also did innovative work on the properties of light, as can be seen in this …
Continue ReadingHow do free-style skiers manage to twist their bodies while flying through the air? What’s it feel like going into a curve inside a speeding bobsled? If the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat isn’t enough to convince …
Continue ReadingIn a stunning piece of astronomical news, the planet Sol III — better known as “Earth” — has been completely obliterated. In connection with this sudden catastrophe, authorities have questioned a resident of neighboring planet Sol IV (Mars), who is …
Continue ReadingThe 2009 Physics & Astronomy Open House at Indiana University is an annual event aimed at exposing real world scientific concepts to K-12 students in southern Indiana. The fall event—which also includes tours of the Department of Astronomy’s 108-year-old Kirkwood …
Continue ReadingThere are lots of free online art tools, and lots of free online physics simulations. There are very few online tools that combine the two ideas, and fewer still that do it as well as Kinetic Sketch. Kinetic Sketch is …
Continue ReadingHere’s something fun for you physics geeks: my aunt in Taiwan has this bronze bowl with two handles. You add water, wet your palms, and then rub them on the handles. If you get the bowl resonating just right, then …
Continue ReadingAlthough I briefly flirted with the idea of going into science (before wisely coming to accept my inner English major), I never planned to become a science teacher. But I enjoyed reading about science in books written for popular audiences. …
Continue ReadingOn May 7 a total of 5,401 students gathered in Coors Field in Denver for what has been officially named the world’s largest physics lesson. Steve Spangler, an educator whose company specializes in materials for simple science demonstrations, provided nearly …
Continue ReadingI recently purchased a Cosmic Jet Racer kit for my 11-year-old son. He enjoys cars and science, so I figured that this would be a fun, educational toy, which (as it says on the box) demonstrates Newton’s Laws of Motion. Unfortunately, what this kit better demonstrated was frustration and lack of interest by my child. […]
Continue ReadingYou’d better read this today, because it’s possible the world will end tomorrow. Strictly speaking, the probability of doomsday isn’t any higher than it is on any normal Wednesday, but there’s been a fair bit of kerfuffle and hullabaloo over the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and whether it will create a black hole that […]
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