Double Slit Experiment: easily reproducable

I know....one of my favorite hobby horses this one.  But I truly love experiments that screw with our perception of our environment.  One of the fundamental ones deals with our perception of frequencies in the visible light band.

The famous dual slit experiment which showed that light was a wave was first put forth by Thomas  Young in the early 1800.  In this video, we are shown that complicated machinery to demonstrate the phenom.  

Check out the video.

Super Sonic Ping Pong Ball?!

You read that right! On Brain Waves at Purdue University, here is a fascinating demonstration  about the physics of a supersonic air gun.  Towards the end a demonstration of a supersonic ping pong ball shooter. The amount of energy that they are capable of packing into such a small sphere with simple air pressure is truly amazing. Check it out.

The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam"

Now here is something you don't see everyday (I'd say, it's something you don't ever 'want' to see)

I caught this on Make's blog about a test demonstrating the hell on electronics deep space can be.

A web camera is placed into a particle beam to show visually the affects of space radiation on electronics. This video shows the particles striking the camera along with streaks due to high angle impacts. In addition particles striking the audio circuit can be heard and the damage to the camera CCD is illustrated at the end of the video.This video was produced as an Education and Public Outreach product for the CRaTER Instrument (http://crater.bu.edu) that will fly on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission (http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/).

How To Measure the Speed of Light... Using Chocolate!

I have been a fan of the instructables web site for like forever. They are a quirky "how to" page that is part mythbusters and part demented Mr. Science. (yeah I watch way to much cable tv) by that I mean they are always building neat stuff from crap hanging around and in the process you learn some neat science!

So this week I come across how to measure the speed of light using chocolate and a microwave. Sound like BS? Nope! You take the chocolate, start warming it in the microwave, when you see melty places you stop and measure how far between the melties. Now you have the wave length. Next you have to find out the frequency of the microwave. It might be on the unit, or you might be able to look it up on the internet, if not, the instructable gives you ball parks for the average unit. Now knowing that speed is a factor of frequency and wave length times two, you simply do the math and vola!

You thought you couldn't do real science! And you get to eat your experiment!

<check out the instructable>