Magnetic Moment - Sixty Symbols

Check out Professor Bowtell's dodgy compass in this film explaining magnetic moments.

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Parabolic mirrors

An optical illusion with parabolic mirrors. The image of the object is produced in the focus of bottom parabolic mirror.

Electrons - Sixty Symbols

The electron: wave or particle?

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Yale: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, Lecture 19

ASTR 160 - Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics
Professor Charles Bailyn
Spring 2007
Source: Yale University, Open Yale Courses

Omega and the End of the Universe



Omega is the actual density of the universe divided by its critical density:  if it is greater than 1, there will be a big crunch; if it is lesse than 1, the universe will expand forever.  Evaluating omega is not easy, partly because of dark matter (WIMPs:Weakly Interactive Massive Particles, and MACHOs:  Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects).

Other lectures from this course

Three Incorrect Laws of Motion

Newton's Three Laws of Motion are a landmark achievement in physics. They describe how all objects move. Unfortunately most people do not really understand Newton's Laws because they have pre-existing ideas about the way the world works. This film is about those pre-existing ideas. By recognizing what people are thinking, it becomes easier to describe the correct scientific concepts of Newton's Three Laws and how they differ from this 'intuitive physics'.

Other Veritasium videos

Conductivity of Solutions

We look at the conductivity of several solutions. Substances include tap water, distilled water, sodium chloride, hydrochloric acid, sodium hydroxide, sugar, vinegar, ethanol, and barium sulfate. The solutions are mixed to approximately the same ratios. The tester is a pair of stripped copper wires at line voltage in series with a 25W incandescent bulb. The probe is rinsed in distilled water between each test.

Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

Muon Man - Backstage Science Q & A

Philip King from the Muon Group at ISIS tells us a little more about himself and his work.

Other Backstage Science videos

MIT 8.01 Classical Mechanics Lecture 29

MIT Physics Course

Professor Walter Lewin

8.01 Physics  I: Classical Mechanics, Fall 1999

Examen review:  collisions, rotation, Kepler's laws, Doppler shift, rolling objects.

See other videos in this series.

Dust Bunnies and Fractal Dimensions - Sixty Symbols

From fern leaves to lightning bolts, fractal dimensions are all around us... They're even under our beds.

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Other videos about fractals

Proton Therapy - Accelerating Protons to Save Lives

Here's a very nice application of particle accelerators (unfortunately, the sound quality is awful!).

In 1946, physicist Robert Wilson first suggested that protons could be used as a form of radiation therapy in the treatment of cancer because of the sharp drop-off that occurs on the distal edge of the radiation dose. Research soon confirmed that high-energy protons were particularly suitable for treating tumors near critical structures, such as the heart and spinal column. The precision with which protons can be delivered means that more radiation can be deposited into the tumor while the surrounding healthy tissue receives substantially less or, in some cases, no radiation. Since these times, particle accelerators have continuously been used in cancer therapy and today new facilities specifically designed for proton therapy are being built in many countries. Proton therapy has been hailed as a revolutionary cancer treatment, with higher cure rates and fewer side effects than traditional X-ray photon radiation therapy. Proton therapy is the modality of choice for treating certain small tumors of the eye, head or neck. Because it exposes less of the tissue surrounding a tumor to the dosage, proton therapy lowers the risk of secondary cancers later in life - especially important for young children. To date, over 80,000 patients worldwide have been treated with protons. Currently, there are nine proton radiation therapy facilities operating in the United States, one at the Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute. An overview of the treatment technology and this new center will be presented.

Speaker: Dr. Cynthia Keppel, Hampton University Proton Therapy Institute
Date: October 25, 2011

Other lectures from Jefferson Lab Science Series

Deformation of Continuous Media

Analysis of a circle becoming an ellipse:  deformation (lagrangian specification) and deformation rate (eulerian).

Produced in the sixties by the National Committee for Fluid Mechanics Films.

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What is Antimatter?

Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes antimatter and its properties. He also explains why antimatter, though a reality, doesn't pose any current threat to our existence!

Other Fermilab videos

Julius Sumner Miller - Projectiles

Falling bodies and projectiles.

Other physics demonstrations by Julius Sumner Miller

Afterschool Universe: A Black Hole in Your Neighborhood

Kinesthetic activity about black holes.

Other Afterschool Univervse videos

The coffee-powered engine - Sixty Symbols

In this video about work, the Sixty Symbols team shows a small Stirling engine which can run on hot coffee or water ice.

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Expansion of the Universe and Red Shift of Cosmic Background

As the universe expands (represented by the expanding balloon) the cosmic background (represented by the wavy line) gets stretched out to longer and longer wavelengths (distance between peaks on the wavy line).

Other animations by Penn State Schuylkill

Chladni's Plate - Sixty Symbols

We showed Chladni's plates before, but this video has explanations too...

Other Sixty Symbols videos

MIT 8.01 Classical Mechanics Lecture 28

MIT Physics Course

Professor Walter Lewin

8.01 Physics  I: Classical Mechanics, Fall 1999

Hydrostatics - Archimedes' Principle - Fluid Dynamics - What Makes Your Boat Float? - Bernoulli's Equation

See other videos in this series.

What's new @CERN? number 2: LHC performance

In this second episode: LHC performance, a journey to the particle source and this past month's news. Guests: Steve Myers and Yves Schutz.

Other "What's new @ CERN" videos

Musical Nails: How Musical Instruments Work - UWM Science Bag

This is no ordinary music lesson. The familiar out of the unfamiliar..."weird and wonderful things"...a magician pulling sounds out of the air...a heightened sense of physical principles and possibilities—all of these, and more are at play in "The Clarinet, The Washtub, And The Musical Nails: How Musical Instruments Work." Physicist Robert Greenler uses an eclectic set of materials and an abundance of spontaneous humor to explore the basic elements in the creation of music.

Other UWM Science Bag videos

Liquid Nitrogen Experiments: The Superconductor

What happens when a magnet is placed on a superconductor?

Other Frostbite Theater videos

MIT 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism Lecture 9

MIT 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, Spring 2002

Professor Walter Lewin

Current, resistivity, Ohm's law.

Other lectures from the same course

Julius Sumner Miller - Liquid Nitrogen

Demonstrations with liquid nitrogen by Julius Sumner Miller.

Other physics demonstrations by Julius Sumner Miller

Vectors - Sixty Symbols

Rulers, hammers and a piece of string - what could possibly go wrong in this film about vectors?

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Is There Gravity In Space? (Why Are Astronauts Weightless?)

If you've seen footage from the International Space Station or any of the space shuttle missions, you know that astronauts float around as they orbit the Earth. Why is that? Is it because the gravitational force on them is zero in space? (Or nearly zero?) The truth is that the strength of the gravitational attraction is only slightly less than it is on Earth's surface. So how are they able to float? Well, they aren't floating - they're falling, along with the space station. They don't crash into the Earth because they have a huge orbital velocity. So as they accelerate towards the Earth, the Earth curves away beneath them and they never get any closer. Since the astronauts have the same acceleration as the space station, they feel weightless. It's like being in a free-falling elevator (without the disastrous landing).

Other Veritasium videos

Burning wirewool with a 9 volts battery

A simple wirewool wisp starts burning as soon as it touches both poles of a 9v battery.

More info here.

Yale: Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics, Lecture 18

ASTR 160 - Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics
Professor Charles Bailyn
Spring 2007
Source: Yale University, Open Yale Courses

Hubble's Law and the Big Bang

Other lectures from this course

Surface Tension

Surface tension in the kitchen sink. At Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry, scientists study surface tension to understand how molecules "self-assemble." The coin trick in the video uses the re-arrangement of water molecules to seemingly create order out of disorder. The same principle can be used to create order in otherwise hard-to-handle nano materials.

Scientists can then transfer these ordered materials onto surfaces by dipping them through the air-water interface, or (as we've recently shown) squeeze them so that they collapse into the water as two-molecule-thick nano sheets.

I found this one on the Physics and Physicists blog.

Afterschool Universe: Life Cycle of Large Star

Kinesthetic activity about the life cycle of a large star (learning astrophysics while dancing?).

Other Afterschool Univervse videos

Eulerian and Lagrangian Descriptions in Fluid Mechanics

The National Committee for Fluids Mechanics Films, 1968.
John L. Lumley , Pennsylvania State University.

Other videos from this series

3 shorts animations about superconductivity

Conductor vs superconductor:



Meissner effect:



Formation of a superconducting state:

Liquid Nitrogen Experiments: The Film Canister

What happens when liquid nitrogen is trapped inside a sealed container?

Other Frostbite Theater videos

The Professor's Brain - Sixty Symbols

Magnetic resonance imaging.

Other Sixty Symbols videos

NASA | Solar Cycle

The number of sunspots increases and decreases over time in a regular, approximately 11-year cycle, called the sunspot cycle. The exact length of the cycle can vary. It has been as short as eight years and as long as fourteen, but the number of sunspots always increases over time, and then returns to low again.

Afterschool Universe: Stellar Fusion Demonstration

Stellar fusion, from hydrogen to iron.

Other Afterschool Univervse videos

Salman Khan: Let's use video to reinvent education

Salman Khan talks about how and why he created Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in seversl subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

OK, there is no physics in this video...but using videos to teach something is the goal of this blog...

Other TED Talks