Phun with Physics

May 1, 2005 8:52 PM

Mad Physics dot com has experiments and demonstrations that teach physics principles in strange and more interesting ways. Examples: demonstating Hooke's law with a 13 year-old kid and explaining efficient light emission with Glowsticks! Great for geeks.
posted by afrooz (8 comments total)

demonstating Hooke's law with a 13 year-old kid

Am I a bad person for at first thinking this meant measuring the spring constant of a kid by stretching him/her out a few inches on a rack? Yes? Ok, off I go then.
posted by fatllama at 9:38 PM on May 1, 2005

Am I a bad person for at first thinking this meant measuring the spring constant of a kid by stretching him/her out a few inches on a rack? Yes?

Yeah - I thought that too. But then I decided that a human body wouldn't obey Hooke's law, anyway, and so using a 13 year-old would be dumb.
posted by kickingtheground at 9:41 PM on May 1, 2005

Actually on a small scale the human body does follow Hooke's law to great precision. ACTIN and other proteins that hold your cells together stretch to accommodate movement. Unfortunately this has small effect on the macroscopic scale.

You should have seen the first set of 13 year-olds!
posted by afrooz at 4:14 AM on May 2, 2005

wowza - those kids are incredible.
posted by rokabiri at 6:02 AM on May 2, 2005

err...i mean, afrooz, nice work!
posted by rokabiri at 6:06 AM on May 2, 2005

Met a researcher last month who studies neck and spinal injuries. Being a smart ass I asked if her work was on simulation or the world's coolest crash dummy. Turns out she does it by administering calibrated impulses to cadavers while filming with a high speed camera. Almost as cool as pushing them down stairs.
posted by fatllama at 6:42 AM on May 2, 2005

Glad you guys like it. Suggestions are more than welcome!
posted by afrooz at 4:05 PM on May 2, 2005

Um, I thought self links were not permitted.
posted by MonkeySaltedNuts at 7:21 PM on May 2, 2005