Veritasium
Corn Flour Fireball
- Title
- Corn Flour Fireball
- Runtime
- 3:05
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Corn flour blown through a funnel produces an excellent fireball. This both looks cool and demonstrates some interesting science. In any chemical reaction, the reactants must mix with each other significantly in order to increase the rate of reaction. Here we demonstrate that corn flour on a spoon burns slowly, but blown from a funnel, the reaction is dramatic and violent. This is because the surface area where the reaction can occur is greatly increased.
HD Slinky Slow-mo http://bit.ly/TRa4sE
How to make solid nitrogen http://bit.ly/RqPw8l
Levitating BBQ http://bit.ly/SWgOWh
Electric Flame http://bit.ly/Q3enCb
As always, if you are planning to recreate this experiment, make sure you have appropriate supervision and take necessary precautions.
- Title
- World's First Electric Generator
- Runtime
- 3:49
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Huge thanks to the Royal Institution, Professor Frank James, and Katie Atmore for filming.
For the Sixty Symbols version of this experiment click http://bit.ly/RGfLY5
Michael Faraday created the first electric generator in 1831 using a coil of wire and a permanent magnet. When the magnet was moved relative to the coil, current was induced in the coil. A similar experiment can be performed with a copper tube and a magnet. Although copper is not magnetic, it is a conductor. As the magnet falls through the pipe, the magnetic field changes over different sections of the pipe. This induces swirling currents (called eddy currents), which create a magetic field that opposes the motion of the magnet. This means work must be done to move the magnet through the pipe. This work generates the electrical energy, which is then dissipated as thermal energy in the pipe. The same basic principle is used to generate electricity throughout the world: moving a magnet inside copper coils...
- Title
- How Trees Bend the Laws of Physics
- Runtime
- 7:23
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Hope this was worth the wait! So many people helped with this video: Prof John Sperry, Hank Green, Henry Reich, CGP Grey, Prof Poliakoff, my mum filmed for me in beautiful Stanley Park and Jen S helped with the fourth version of the script.
Prof John Sperry http://biologylabs.utah.edu/sperry/john.html
Hank Green (SciShow) http://www.youtube.com/user/scishow
Henry Reich (minutephysics) http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics
CGP Grey http://www.youtube.com/user/cgpgrey
Prof Poliakoff (Periodic Videos) http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos
Also thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte - they helped me with the whole vacuum pump setup in Paris. No, I could not actually suck water up 10m - I did about 4m, but the vacuum pump was easily able to do it and I saw spontaneous boiling on all of our various trials. Footage from this may end up on 2Veritasium.
Trees create immense negative pressures of 10's of atmospheres by evapor...
- Title
- What Now For The Higgs Boson?
- Runtime
- 8:00
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- For a report on ABC's Catalyst program (http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/), I visited the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to find out what is being done now that the Higgs Boson has been discovered.
Although its mass has been measured around 125-126 GeV most of the other properties of the particle remain unknown. Its spin appears to be 0 or 2 but more results are required to nail this down. If it is the standard model Higgs, the spin should be 0, resulting in a fairly symmetric distribution of decay products in the detectors.
We may know this year if it's not the standard model Higgs - this would be the case if it doesn't decay into specific particles with the expected frequency. However if it is the standard model Higgs, it may take many more years to be certain. The large hadron collider will be shut down in 2013 for upgrades so that higher energies up to 14 TeV can be tested. Right now the LHC is operating at 8 TeV. The next announcement is expected in D...
- Title
- Levitating Barbecue! Electromagnetic Induction
- Runtime
- 3:46
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- At the Palais de la Decouverte in Paris, they showed me this experiment where a 1kg aluminium plate is levitated above a large coil of wire that is being supplied with 800A of alternating current at 900Hz. This is by far the best demonstration of electromagnetic induction I have ever seen.
Back in London, I visited the magnetic lab of Michael Faraday in the basement of the Royal Institution. It was here that he did his groundbreaking work on induction. People had previously observed that current in a wire causes a compass needle to deflect, but more exciting was the prospect of using a magnetic field to generate current. Faraday created his famous induction ring by winding two coils of insulated wire onto an iron ring. When he connected a battery to one coil, a small pulse of current was induced in the other. When the battery was disconnected, current was induced in the other direction. This led Faraday to the conclusion that current was induced in the second coil only whe...
- Title
- Misconceptions About Falling Objects
- Runtime
- 3:00
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Yes, I have made a similar vid before. This is the Australian TV version for the ABC show Catalyst http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/
Misconceptions About Temperature http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDbMEdLiCs
The Mysterious Falling Slinky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAA613hqqZ0
Why Are Astronauts Weightless? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQOHRKKNNLQ
And for those of you wanting a more General Relativity based explanation. Don't worry, it's coming.
- Title
- Making SOLID Nitrogen!
- Runtime
- 4:43
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- What happens when you decrease the pressure around a liquid? It boils. Water boils at room temperature once the pressure is low enough. What is interesting is that this decreases the temperature of the liquid. The fastest molecules escape, leaving the slower ones behind.
Using this trick with liquid nitrogen, it is possible to create solid nitrogen at a temperature of -210C. We then poured the solid and liquid nitrogen mixture onto a tray of water. The surface of the water became so cold that CO2 solidified out of the atmosphere on its surface. Then, since CO2 does not pass through the liquid phase at atmospheric pressure, it was propelled on the water surface by jets of gas as it sublimed.
Huge thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte.
Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com (Mirage)
- Title
- What's In A Candle Flame?
- Runtime
- 2:41
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Microwave grape plasma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTjsRt0Fzo
Northern Lights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knwiWm4DpvQ
Nanodiamonds in candle flames: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzOkuGQC3Rw
Relight Candle Trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tXPVTIisl0
Is a flame really a plasma? Well it depends on your definition of plasma, but there are certainly ions in a flame, formed as molecules collide with each other at high speed, sometimes knocking electrons off of their atoms.
Special thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte for helping me perform this experiment. Using tens of thousands of volts on two metal plates, we created a strong electric field around the plasma. This pulled positive ions in one direction and negative ions in the other direction elongating the flame horizontally and causing it to flicker like a "papillon" (butterfly). Then we showed that much longer sparks can be made through the flame than through air since the io...
- Title
- How Can Trees Be Taller Than 10m?
- Runtime
- 4:16
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Answer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BickMFHAZR0
The longest vertical straw you can use is 10.3 m http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUmZrtiXDik
This is because the weight of water in the straw must be supported by the pressure difference at its two ends. At the bottom, the pressure is atmospheric, and at the top, the lowest pressure you can create is a perfect vacuum (pressure = 0). Atmospheric pressure can support a water column about 10m high - BUT with 0 pressure at the top, the water would start boiling. This is called cavitation and it obviously can't be happening in trees.
After I posted the straw video, I received a lot of questions about how trees could be taler than 10m. I assumed there was a simple answer because there are plenty of trees taller than that. But as I asked around and read articles about it, I couldn't really find an explanation I was happy with.
Maybe there is not a continuous water column inside the tree, so each section on...
- Title
- Misconceptions About Temperature
- Runtime
- 3:59
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Made for ABC TV Catalyst http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/ as an extended version of my Comparing Temperatures video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNGJ0WHXMyE
- Title
- How Does A Boomerang Work?
- Runtime
- 2:54
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- A boomerang can execute its unique roundtrip flight by making use of three fundamental physics principles: lift, relative velocity, and gyroscopic precession.
numberphile http://bit.ly/numberphile
efit30 http://bit.ly/O4CMme
appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
erikaanear http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ
whoisjimmy http://bit.ly/LtFzpW
minutephysics http://bit.ly/Muh6CC
1veritasium http://bit.ly/MrupzL
- Title
- In high jump, your centre of mass goes under the bar
- Runtime
- 4:43
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The strange thing about high jump is that the technique changed dramatically after 1968, when Dick Fosbury used his trademark flop to win the gold medal at the Olympics in Mexico City.
Previously the scissors and straddle had been the most common jumping technique, but after the introduction of safer landing matts, the new unorthodox Fosbury Flop became the jump of choice. There are good physical reasons for this - the style allows the jumper to pass over the bar while his or her centre of mass actually passes below the bar.
Huge thanks to Elly (Appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX ) for filming, editing, and music!
numberphile http://bit.ly/numberphile
efit30 http://bit.ly/O4CMme
appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
erikaanear http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ
whoisjimmy http://bit.ly/LtFzpW
minutephysics http://bit.ly/Muh6CC
1veritasium http://bit.ly/MrupzL
- Title
- How Does A Sailboat Actually Work?
- Runtime
- 4:37
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- How lift actually works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFO4PBolwFg
More with Canadian Olympian Hunter Lowden: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YVOPUkbu6g
How does a sailboat work? The standard idea is that the wind pushes the sails from behind, causing the boat to move forward. Although this technique is used at times, it is not the most efficient way to sail a boat (and it means the boat can never go faster than the wind). Lift is the key mechanism driving a boat forwards. As air flows over the sails, it moves faster over the outer side, creating lower pressure than on the inner side. This produces a force which is mostly to the side and a bit forwards. Lift on the centerboard pushes to the opposite side, cancelling the sideways force and adding a forward component of force to the boat.
numberphile http://bit.ly/numberphile
efit30 http://bit.ly/O4CMme
appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
erikaanear http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ<...
- Title
- How Does A Wing Actually Work?
- Runtime
- 2:51
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Lift is an important concept, not only in flying but also in sailing. This week I'm talking to Olympic Sailor, Hunter Lowden. But before I get to the physics of sailing I thought I would explain lift since it's generally poorly understood.
minutephysics http://bit.ly/Muh6CC
1veritasium http://bit.ly/MrupzL
efit30 http://bit.ly/O4CMme
appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
erikaanear http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ
whoisjimmy http://bit.ly/LtFzpW
numberphile http://bit.ly/numberphile
Music by Nathaniel Schroeder
youtube: http://bit.ly/pakJLE
myspace: http://mysp.ac/qtmZQj
- Title
- Veritasium & Team Record Gold Invade London
- Runtime
- 3:20
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- I'm going to London! And I'm leading a team of YouTubers. For the next few weeks we will all be doing videos themed around the Olympics so I'm tackling the science of sport and science in and around London.
The Team!
HOWRIDICULOUS: http://bit.ly/LtFzpW
APPCHAT: http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
ERIKAANEAR: http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ
MINUTEPHYSICS: http://bit.ly/Muh6CC
EFIT30: http://bit.ly/O4CMme
2VERITASIUM http://youtube.com/2veritasium
Music by Alankeys86 and Kevin McLeod (Incompetech.com)
For the London 2012 Summer Olympics creators from all over the world are taking over YouTube with the most awesome Olympics videos ever. Go to YouTube.com/CreatorHub to see all the amazing gold medal videos.
- Title
- Atomic Bonding Song
- Runtime
- 4:49
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Starring: Christie Wykes as Chlorine, Carbon, and Sodium
Director of Photography: Sean McCallum
Gravity (John Mayer Cover) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7KpH9_I2Dw
I'm Atoms (Jason Mraz Cover) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBjZz0iQrzI
Electricity (Jet Cover) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cY-kiddvAg0
Experiments A Cappella http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRbI_vPyOnc
- Title
- Free Higgs!
- Runtime
- 3:20
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- To celebrate the announcement of the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs Boson at the LHC, I took to the streets with Vi Hart to give out free Higgs. Now giving out a subatomic particle, especially the Higgs, would have been incredibly difficult so instead we gave out hand-drawn cards of the Standard Model, our current best theory of all matter particles in the universe and their iteractions (now with Higgs!). We also offered a hug with an integer spin, usually 1 or 2 (and in rare cases 0). This is a way of showing others that you care about the Higgs Boson.
- Title
- The First Meeting of EDUtubers! ft. CGPGrey, Vsauce, Smarter Every Day, Numberphile +more
- Runtime
- 3:03
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Back in 2012, we all met for the first time at BrainSTEM - a conference of science YouTubers, instigated by Henry of MinutePhysics (Thank You Henry!!!) bringing together the most awesome STEM personalities from around the world. People like Vsauce, John Green, Vihart, Destin from Smarter Every Day, CGP Grey, Brady Haran of Numberphile et al. I had an awesome three days hanging out with all the cool people in this video and hopefully this is only the start of many fruitful collaborations to come. Thanks everyone!!!
Now this happens to be video 100 for me. It's not really about science, but I think it's pretty awesome because it features all of my YouTube heroes.
- Title
- Northern Lights From 100,000 ft!
- Runtime
- 4:47
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- In April 2012, I was part of a team of scientists, teachers and students who travelled to Alaska to observe the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis. Our mission was a unique one - to launch weather balloons up to 100,000 feet loaded with experiments, tracking devices and HD cameras. This is the result of our trip, produced for Catalyst on ABC1 http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/
- Title
- Does a Falling Slinky Defy Gravity?
- Runtime
- 5:46
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- This is how a slinky falls in slow motion - it appears to defy gravity but the centre of mass is accelerating at 9.8m/s^2 meaning the top is accelerating faster than that and the bottom is not falling at all until the entire slinky collapses.
Read a pre-print of the physics paper here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.4629
Music by Kevin McLeod http://incompetech.com
Songs: Industrial Music Box, Heavy Interlude, Pale Rider, Decisions.
Slow motion photography courtesy of Questacon http://questacon.edu.au
The original goal of Veritasium was to show the beauty of science and I think the first minute and a half of this is the closest I've come. This is the last in a series of six videos about slinkies.
- Title
- Transit of Venus! Sydney 2012 Contacts, Contracts and Parallax
- Runtime
- 5:58
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Smarter Every Day Collaboration video: http://youtu.be/riwc3UgPaHw
The Veritasium treatment of the final transit of Venus this century. The weather behaved for some key moments allowing me to observe Venus passing across the disk of the sun. The transit of Venus is steeped in historical significance. Observations of the transit in 1769 led to the first really accurate calculation of the Earth-Sun distance (or one astronomical unit AU). Since Cook was in Tahiti he then mapped the East coast of Australia and parts of New Zealand.
- Title
- Spinning Disk Trick Solution
- Runtime
- 4:16
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- ZoggFromBetelgeuse's solution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwl-rBVbWAY
This is a preliminary solution to the spinning disk trick based on the commonly cited tippe top explanation. I have my doubts that it tells the whole story because the disk seems to tilt, so the argument about constant angular velocity is in doubt. I wonder if the weight of the disk plays a more important role in making it flip. Plus, I think the disk appears to roll without slipping while the lighter side is moving down. This violates one of the assumptions of the tippe top explanation. So why am I publishing this now? I feel bad it has been two weeks and I haven't posted the answer yet so let's consider this a starting point for a work in progress...
- Title
- How Does A Slinky Fall?
- Runtime
- 3:51
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Some months a go I filmed a slinky falling in slow motion. Now I have interviewed the public about what they expect to happen for ABC TV's Catalyst program and this is the result.
- Title
- Gyroscopic Precession
- Runtime
- 3:49
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- NOTE: This video will appear in a playlist on Smarter Every Day hence the references to Veritasium. Destin does lots of cool science stuff - check out his channel if you haven't already http://www.youtube.com/destinws2
We have been collaborating on rotational motion, which is timely for some of the videos I've been doing lately. In this video I talk about gyroscopic precession - the "wobbling" of a spinning top around its axis.
This is caused by the torque due to the object's weight. The big idea is that the torque vector increases angular momentum in the direction of torque. So if there is no angular momentum initially, it will cause the system to swing in such a direction that it is rotating with new angular momentum in the direction of the torque. However, if there was angular momentum to begin with, the torque will change the direction of that angular momentum by causing precession.
- Title
- Spinning Disk Trick
- Runtime
- 1:51
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Objects hang heavy side down, but what happens when you spin an asymmetrically weighted disk - well the heavy part actually rises to the top. Why is this?
- Title
- Why Are Astronauts Weightless?
- Runtime
- 3:41
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/team/default.htm
I have been working with Catalyst on ABC1 to bring some Veritasium to Australian TV. In this segment I ask why astronauts in the space station are weightless. The most common answer is because there is no gravity in space. But of course there is gravity in space, especially where the space station is located (only about 400km from Earth's surface). So astronauts still experience a gravitational pull - it's just that they and the space station are in free fall so they are accelerating together towards the Earth. The space station doesn't crash into the Earth because of its orbital velocity - it's going 28,000 km/h so as it falls, the Earth curves away from it.
- Title
- Where Does The Sun Get Its Energy?
- Runtime
- 6:01
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The sun has been producing light for about five billion years but where does all its energy come from? The most common idea is that the sun is burning gas - like a giant fireball in the sky. If this were true, the sun would have gone out long ago. So how is the sun actually fuelling itself? It is converting its own mass into energy. By combining protons (the nucleus of hydrogen) into helium, it squeezes some mass into energy - 4.3 billion kg per second. It is Einstein's famous E=mc^2 which gives us the quantitative relationship between mass and energy, where c is the speed of light.
- Title
- What Causes The Northern Lights?
- Runtime
- 4:56
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- The aurora borealis or northern lights is one of the most spectacular natural displays on the planet. Theories about its origins have been debated for centuries and common misconceptions persist that the aurora is the sun's rays scattered off ice crystals in the high atmosphere. In truth, the light is created more than 100km above Earth's surface as high speed electrons and protons ejected from the sun in a solar flare or coronal mass ejection collide with air molecules in the upper atmosphere. The charged particles from the sun excite air molecules which then de-excite by emitting light. The display is most common around the north and south poles because the Earth's magnetic field deflects the solar wind from the equator to the poles. Here the magnetic field dips towards the Earth's surface, channeling the charged particles into the atmosphere.
Music is by Kevin MacLeod http://incompetech.com, the song is called Mirage
- Title
- Destination: Alaska
- Runtime
- 4:09
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- More about the Alaska Trip: http://education.projectaether.org
Channel 10 Breakfast: http://www.tenbreakfast.com.au (6-9am weekdays in Australia)
March 26 segment on live TV talking about solar storms and my upcoming trip to the Great White North. As you watch this I will probably be on a plane high over the pacific.
PS a student recently told me that my hair to beard ratio is a bit off and watching this clip I tend to agree. However, it is still -20 C at night in Alaska so I'll need all the insulation I can get.
- Title
- Why Do You Make People Look Stupid?
- Runtime
- 3:21
- Date posted
- 14 years ago
- Description
- Raw interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dcw98B2Nzg
The question has arisen often enough that I thought I'd answer it. If you hold views that are consistent with the majority of the population, does that make you stupid? I don't think so. Science has uncovered a lot of counterintuitive things about the universe, so it's unsurprising that non-scientists hold beliefs inconsistent with science. But when we teach, we must take into account what the learners know, including their incorrect knowledge. That is the reason a lot of Veritasium videos start with the misconceptions.
Want to read my PhD? You can download the full text here: http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/pdfs/research/super/PhD(Muller).pdf
- Title
- Where Do Trees Get Their Mass?
- Runtime
- 4:10
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- Complete unedited interviews: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dcw98B2Nzg
Trees can weigh hundreds or even thousands of tons, but where do they get this mass from? A few common answers are: the soil, water, and sunlight. But the truth is the vast majority of a dry tree's mass comes from the air - it originated as carbon dioxide
- Title
- Spinning Tube Trick Answer
- Runtime
- 0:48
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- The solution to the question posed in the spinning tube trick video, that is - what would you see if looking at the spinning tube from below a glass table. The explanation of why only the X or O is visible will be the subject of the next video.
- Title
- Spool Trick
- Runtime
- 1:18
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- Right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS9OXzSRBMQ
Left: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWQ-HJ4oGKQ
It Depends: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3GHiMOHEy8
What happens when nylon rope is wound around a spool and pulled horizontally to the right? Will the spool go to the right, to the left, or does it depend on how the rope is pulled?
- Title
- Spinning Tube Trick Explained
- Runtime
- 3:40
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- When a tube spins with an X and an O labelled at either end, why do we see only one letter during the rotation?
- Title
- Spinning Tube Trick
- Runtime
- 3:20
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- To see what this looks like from under a glass table, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9WUaBGH7_I
- Title
- Are You Lightest In The Morning?
- Runtime
- 7:54
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- Are you heaviest at night before you go to bed and lightest in the morning? I tried to tease out the factors to figure out what really causes weight gain and loss during the day, and what causes daily weight fluctuations.
- Title
- World's Longest Straw
- Runtime
- 7:21
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- What is the longest drinking straw that you can actually drink out of? Well in this video, we put the theory to the test. We started off with a one metre long straw made out of drinking straws taped together. We moved on to two pieces of plastic tubing, each 6 metres in length with different diameters. Then we tried a 10.5 metre tube over a cliff's edge. The maximum we achieved was about 7 metres though theoretically up to 10.3 metres is possible if a perfect vacuum is created.
- Title
- The Science of Curveballs
- Runtime
- 4:07
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- For more info, please see http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross
In baseball and cricket the best pitchers and bowlers know how to make the ball move due to the effects of aerodynamics. If one side of the ball is rough, the ball swings towards that side because turbulent air 'clings' to that side of the ball and is deflected. Although baseballs and cricketballs appear symmetric, they can be made to fly through the air with a smooth or rough side by judicious angling of the seams combined with the axis of rotation.
- Title
- Koala Encounters
- Runtime
- 2:15
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- I saw my first wild koalas while driving on the great ocean road. Generally their days are not very exciting. They spend most of their time sleeping and the rest of the time eating eucalyptus leaves. The eucalyptus leaves are tough to digest which explains their consumate napping. Plus they require bacteria in their gut to help them break down their food. This bacteria must be passed down from mother to child through the mother's poo. It's a tough start to life for koalas!
- Title
- What Is The Coastline Paradox?
- Runtime
- 2:16
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- How long is the coastline of Australia? One estimate is that it's about 12,500 km long. However the CIA world factbook puts the figure at more than double this, at over 25,700 km. How can there exist such different estimates for the same length of coastline? Well this is called the coastline paradox. Your estimate of how long the coastline is depends on the length of your measuring stick - the shorter the measuring stick the more detail you can capture and therefore the longer the coastline will be.
- Title
- Candle Trick
- Runtime
- 1:35
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- How to light a candle without touching a flame to the wick. A common misconception is that a candle burns by burning the wick. What is actually burning is wax vapour which is drawn up through the wick. When you blow a candle out, wax vapour continues to rise off the candle so you can light this vapour which burns back down to the wick, relighting the candle.
- Title
- How To Make Graphene
- Runtime
- 3:41
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- My entry to the techNyou Science Ambassadors competition, visit www.facebook.com/talkingtechnology and www.youtube.com/technyouvids to find out more about these guys.
- Title
- What Causes The Phases Of The Moon?
- Runtime
- 4:33
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- What causes the phases of the moon? The common incorrect answer is the shadow of the Earth. The phases of the moon are actually just a result of our perception of the moon's half-illuminated surface. When the moon does pass through Earth's shadow the result is a lunar eclipse. This can be spectacular as the moon turns a deep shade of red.
Images courtesy of NASAimages.org and Geoff Wyatt, Senior Astronomy Educator Powerhouse Museum
- Title
- A Human Being Is A Part Of The Whole
- Runtime
- 1:57
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- A quote by Einstein: A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe", a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
- Title
- What Is The Magnus Force?
- Runtime
- 3:47
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- Whenever an object spins through the air it experiences a 'Magnus Force' due to friction between the air and the object's surface. This force was originally identified while studying the trajectories of cannon balls (though earlier observations of this effect exist). The Magnus force is essential in most ball sports including golf, cricket, tennis, and baseball.
At the end the ball demonstrations were conducted with a 100 mm diam polystyrene ball and the launcher was made by bending a long, thin, aluminum rod and bolting the ends to a block of wood as a handle.
Music was provided by Kevin McLeod (incompetech.com) Scissors and a stock clip from FCP.
- Title
- Atomic Rant
- Runtime
- 2:58
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- How should we depict an atom? Like a solar system with electrons orbiting the nucleus on hula hoop orbits? That idea is so last century! Bosi takes us into the quantum world, where an electron's position and velocity aren't well defined - all we can calculate are the probabilities e.g. of finding an electron at different points in space. When we do that, we find electrons do not neccessarily occupy circles or spheres in space. Rather their probability densities make all sorts of interesting shapes from the dumbell to the peanut with the donut around it.
- Title
- Can You Go the Speed of Light?
- Runtime
- 4:13
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- Einstein's classic thought experiment involves sitting on a train travelling at the speed of light. If you hold a mirror in front of your face, will you see your reflection in a mirror? How could light from your face reach the mirror if the mirror is travelling away from you? But it would be a pretty spooky train if you couldn't see your reflection so Einstein felt this solution wasn't realistic. On the other hand if you could see your reflection, it would mean light was travelling at the speed of light inside the train. But that meant the same light observed from outside the train would be going twice the speed of light. This again seems inconsistent. So Einstein resolved that you must see your reflection but that light must travel at the same speed inside and outside the train. The only way this is possible is if space and time are perceived differently by observers inside and outside the train.
- Title
- Physics Nobel Prize 2011 - Brian Schmidt
- Runtime
- 7:13
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- The Nobel Prize for physics in 2011 was awarded to Brian Schmidt, Adam Riess, and Saul Perlmutter for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. This finding was completely unexpected because it was thought that gravity should slow the expansion of the cosmos. The best current explanation of why the universe is accelerating is that there is some energy tied to empty space which pushes matter apart. This 'Dark Energy' makes up 73% of the universe but is very difficult to detect. Images courtesy of NASA/NASAimages.org and Maritza A. Lara-Lopez
- Title
- Nobel Prize Winner Brian Schmidt - Physics 2011
- Runtime
- 2:40
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- The Nobel Prize for physics in 2011 was awarded to Brian Schmidt, Adam Riess, and Saul Perlmutter for discovering that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. This finding was completely unexpected because it was thought that gravity should slow the expansion of the cosmos. The best current explanation of why the universe is accelerating is that there is some energy tied to empty space which pushes matter apart. This 'Dark Energy' makes up 73% of the universe but is very difficult to detect. Hopefully a better understanding of it will lead to a unification of our theories of gravitation and quantum mechanics.
Images courtesy of NASA - NASAimages.org
- Title
- Supersized Slow-Mo Slinky Drop
- Runtime
- 3:03
- Date posted
- 15 years ago
- Description
- What happens when a super long slinky is dropped?
