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Physics laboratory demonstration videos
Daniel W. Koon

• Mechanics:
  • The cycloid, the fastest path between two points. (Part 2)
• Periodic motion, rotation and acoustics
• The rattleback: it knows which way it wants to spin.
• Is it a spring or a pendulum? Yes.
• Chladni plates: Watch how the pattern of sand on a plate changes as you change the driving frequency. The pattern shows how the plate oscillates at its various resonant frequencies.
  • Square plate. (Meter shows frequency in kHz.)
  • Circular plate. (Meter shows frequency in kHz.)
• Electricity and Magnetism
• Capacitors:
• A parallel plate capacitor.
• The dielectric constant of water.
• Magnetism:
• Lorentz force on a wire.
• Lorentz force: motional Emf.
• Magnetic Induction:
• Magnetic damping.
• Back EMF on an inductor.
• The Meissner effect. Watch a magnet float above a superconductor. What's this have to do with Faraday's Law?
• Optics:
• Frustrated total internal reflection: Watch how an evanescent wave can be detected in the region where geometrical optics says there should be no wave because of total internal reflection.
• Visible light.
• Microwaves.
• Time decay of a lightbulb's intensity. How long does it take for a lightbulb to get dark? And who was 'Cool Papa' Bell?
• Butterfly thin film optics. The iridescence of some butterfly and moth wings as a result of thin film interference.

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