Category Archives: Physics

Can You See the Sound?

Posted on by

Musical NotesI really love music. Bing says I’m good for making a lot of noise, but he just doesn’t appreciate my vocal talents.

Anyway, on the Tiny Planet of Sound we’re able to see sounds floating in the air with the aid of our special sound shades. But on Earth it’s not very easy to see sounds.

Scientists regularly use oscilloscopes to measure and visualize the way that sound looks.  It looks kind of boring to people who aren’t professionals.

So you can imagine my happy surprise when we stumbled upon this really cool video that demonstrates the beauty of sound, especially at the higher notes.

Enjoy!

Create Polarized Light with Aurora

Posted on by

Polarized Light with Aurora LipperAurora’s still touring your galaxy, but she swung by Home Planet to drop off a really cool activity for you.  Let’s see what she says:

Ever notice how bright the moon is during full moon, and how dim it is near new moon? This is a problem for astronomers when using a telescope. The moon is sometimes too bright to look at!

Astronomers use a rotating polarizing filter to adjust the amount of light that enters into their eye. You and I use polarizers everyday in sunglasses to cut the glare so we can see more detail.

In this activity we‘re going to twist light using polarizers to reveal colors we didn‘t see before. Continue reading →

Time to Take It to the Net (Force)

Posted on by

Tug-A-WarFrom last week’s discussion, you now understand (I hope) that it is very rare, especially on Earth, to have an object that is experiencing force from only one direction.

Remember our friend Billy from last week? He was the bicycle rider who was putting up a good fight against:

  • The force of air friction pushing against him.
  • He also has to fight against the friction between the gears and the wheels.
  • He has gravity pulling down on him.
  • His muscles are pushing and pulling inside him and so on and so on.

Here’s an activity will make this all this net force stuff clearer (I promise!): Continue reading →

Science Jim Presents: The Net Force

Posted on by

No, no, I’m not talking about basketball (sorry guys!) The word “net”, in this case, is like net worth or net income. It’s a mathematical concept of what is left after everything that applies is added and subtracted.

Let’s talk about how much net force our friend in the picture there experiences while he’s riding that bike of his.

A bicycle rider has the force of air friction pushing against him. He has to fight against the friction between the gears and the wheels. He has gravity pulling down on him. His muscles are pushing and pulling inside him and so on and so on. Continue reading →