Article from March 1983
Traffic flow on a busy city route is like a fluid flow.
With a simple swirl of your hand, you can set up a vortex in a 1 liter bottle in order to quickly drain the liquid. But how about the Miller Lite vortex bottle? Does a vortex actually develop in it so that it too quickly empties?
Ice spikes
Sunday, August 01, 2010
What causes the upward spike that sometimes grows on a common ice cube, and why is the spike rare?
In a class about Einstein's theory of special relativity we see how to calculated the contracted length of an object moving past us. But what would we see in a high-speed photograph of such an object?
Here are some of the video links that I have added recently, either to the archived stories here at this FCP site or to the pdf files for the stories in the FCP book. Latest --- Close-up video of tornado. Janathan Trappe crosses the English Channel while strapped to a cluster of balloons. Amazing new trick basketball shots (and the video is real). Video shot by tornado chasers as the tornado passed over them. Meteor lights up the sky. Another video of "pedestrian throw" (but he is not seriously hurt). A blindfolded teacher manages to throw the basketball through the hoop in spite of being blindfolded, ruining the prank the students intended to play on him. The most amazing Rube Goldberg machine ever made, just stunning. Footage of a tornado ripping through structures. An old audio of me on "Quirks and Quarks" radio show with Jay Ingram. new lunar rainbow photo. World record car jump. Speed record for a steam car (yes, a steam car). Crane falls over, splitting a house in two. Meteor lights up the sky. Floor-to-ceiling storage of beer suddenly finds its center of mass beyond its support area. My student undergoing the final exam (a bed of nails). Stacking stones, one above the other, in an impressive display of balance. Most fantastic basketball shot ever. World record motorcycle jump. Human cannonball misses the net. Millions of bats fly into and out of a Texas cave without a single collision. A tightrope walker sets a new record by walking up a cable car wire. An airplane develops a hole in the fuselage, but no one is sucked out. Robbie Maddison makes a motorcycle jump over the Thames River. Record tight-rope walking. News report about teenager who was struck by lightning and survived. Lightning strikes to Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. Huge, thick waterspot. Video of skydiver who survives a fall from 6000 feet in spite of opening his parachute too late. Surfer in monster barrel roll, shot in super slow motion.
Flying Circus of Physics at Facebook.
The Chinese, Italian, Portuguese, German, French, and Korean translations, with more translations to come.
How to look inside the book for free.
How to send stuff to me.
Audio version of the book for the blind and physically handicapped.
Reviews of the book.
A building topples over because physics (and perhaps even common sense) is ignored.
Strangely, when a bullet enters a container with a liquid or a pliable material, some of the contents can be propelled back toward the weapon. Grimly enough, one historical example involves the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Flying Circus Projects for education majors
If you teach a class in the K-12 levels or for education majors at the college level, you might think about assigning projects based on the Flying Circus of Physics materials. For example, Dr. Richard Barrans (Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Wyoming) challenged his Physics 1090 class (physical science for elementary education majors) to develop Flying Circus of Physics projects. Here are a summary and also the link to where the projects are posted.
There have been many newspaper articles discussing the stories in The Flying Circus of Physics book. Here are links to the ones that can be viewed for free.
Stories and photos about what has happened to me since I introduced the bed of nails demonstrations to physics education and lured countless teachers into hurting themselves in front their students. New photo added on Feb 17, 2009
German translations of some of the Amateur Scientist articles that I wrote for Scientific American are now available on the web.
Books
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
I read through many good books that teach me a lot but some certain ones resonant with the spirit of The Flying Circus of Physics. Here, every now and then, I’ll post a description of one of these books that appeal to me on a personal level. To find more reviews and descriptions about them at Amazon.com, click on the Store button in the menu at the left and find the book image. Clicking on the image will take you to the description of the book at Amazon.com. If you, instead, click on the “Buy” button, you put the book into a shopping cart.