ScienceCasts: The Sound of Earthsong

A NASA spacecraft has recorded eerie-sounding radio emissions coming from our own planet. These beautiful "songs of Earth" could, ironically, be responsible for the proliferation of deadly electrons in the Van Allen Belts.

   

Happy 58th Birthday CERN

CERN is 58 years old on Saturday 29 September 2012. This video showcases some original footage from the 1950s to say happy birthday CERN!

 

Effects of water pressure

This clip illustrates the effects of water pressure on a ball filled with air. The same compression happens to the air inside the human ear, which is why we have to equalize the ears when freediving.

 

NOvA Neutrino Experiment Installs First Detector Block

Time lapse of Fermilab's NOvA neutrino experiment installing the first of 28 detector blocks in Ash River, MN. Each block is 51 x 51 x 7 feet and when installed will weigh 500 metric tons.

 

Spinning Magnet - Sixty Symbols

Rotating magnet in levitation.

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Solid Nitrogen, Vacuum Cooling and Dry Ice

What happens when you decrease the pressure around a liquid? It boils. Water boils at room temperature once the pressure is low enough. What is interesting is that this decreases the temperature of the liquid. The fastest molecules escape, leaving the slower ones behind. Using this trick with liquid nitrogen, it is possible to create solid nitrogen at a temperature of -210C. We then poured the solid and liquid nitrogen mixture onto a tray of water. The surface of the water became so cold that CO2 solidified out of the atmosphere on its surface. Then, since CO2 does not pass through the liquid phase at atmospheric pressure, it was propelled on the water surface by jets of gas as it sublimed. Huge thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte. Music by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com (Mirage)

Other Veritasium videos

Animal Magnetism: How Animals Navigate

Hank tells us about new research into the question of how animals navigate from place to place - while the problem is still unresolved, we do have some hypotheses, and they all involve something called "magnetoreception."

Other Sci-Show videos

Hewitt-Drew-it! 16.Newton's Laws of Motion

Paul enlists Nellie Newton to illustrate Newton's three laws of motion.

Other Hewitt-Drew-it! videos

Mechanical Universe 05 - Vectors

Unfortunately, this video has been deleted.

CERN News The Higgs or not the Higgs? Spin will tell... PART 1

Following the announcement of the discovery of a new particle made at CERN on July 4, this piece of videonews from CERN explains what is missing to declare that the new boson found at the LHC is actually the Higgs or not and that to finally answer that question precise measurements of the spin of the newly found particle have to be made. Contains interviews to CMS Higgs Searches co-convener, Christopher Pauss and theoretician John Ellis.

How to Measure the Width of a Hair With a Laser!

Exactly how small is a hair's breadth? Measure it for yourself with nothing more than a laser pointer and a tape measure!

Other Frostbite Theater videos

Secrets of the Dark Universe: Simulating the Sky on the Blue Gene/Q

An astonishing 99.6% of our Universe is dark. Observations indicate that the Universe consists of 70% of a mysterious dark energy and 25% of a yet unidentified dark matter component, and only 0.4% of the remaining ordinary matter is visible. Understanding the physics of this dark sector is the foremost challenge in cosmology today. Sophisticated simulations of the evolution of the Universe play a crucial task in this endeavor.

 

Electric Flame

Is a flame really a plasma? Well it depends on your definition of plasma, but there are certainly ions in a flame, formed as molecules collide with each other at high speed, sometimes knocking electrons off of their atoms. Special thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte for helping me perform this experiment. Using tens of thousands of volts on two metal plates, we created a strong electric field around the plasma. This pulled positive ions in one direction and negative ions in the other direction elongating the flame horizontally and causing it to flicker like a "papillon" (butterfly). Then we showed that much longer sparks can be made through the flame than through air since the ions increase the conductivity.

Other Veritasium videos

IDTIMWYTIM: Equinox (Stupid Latin!)

In this edition of IDTIMWYTIM, Hank explains why the common understanding of "equinox" is wrong, what the equinox actually is, and then rages a little against astronomers and their stupid confusing Latin terms.

Other Sci-Show videos

Science Xplained: Topspin Doctor: How Physics Serves Tennis

Physics, anyone? In this segment, Dr. Ainissa Ramirez discusses how the strings in a tennis racket--often made of synthetic or natural materials--make the important topspin shot possible. She shows how knowing physics can give your game an advantage.

 

Hewitt-Drew-it! 15. Tennis-Ball Problem

Paul shows the solution to finding the maximum velocity of a horizontally-moving tennis ball that barely clears the net to remain in the court.

Other Hewitt-Drew-it! videos

Mechanical Universe 04 - Inertia

Unfortunately, this video has been deleted.

MIT 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism Lecture 21

MIT 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism, Spring 2002

Professor Walter Lewin

Magnetic Materials, diamagnetism, paramagnetism, and ferromagnetism.

Other lectures from the same course

Hewitt-Drew-it! 14.Ball Toss

Paul shows how the motion of a ball tossed by Phil Physiker can be carefully analyzed, with interesting distinctions.

Other Hewitt-Drew-it! videos

IDTIMWYTIM: Schrodinger's Cat

"I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means" examines scientific theories that have taken on a life of their own in popular culture & we help you understand what they really mean in scientific terms. Today we take on Schrodinger's Cat, the famous thought experiment by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger.

Other Sci-Show videos

Feynman Diagrams - Sixty Symbols

Feynman Diagrams help physicists understand what happens when particles collide. More videos at http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

Other Sixty Symbols videos

NOvA: Exploring Neutrino Mysteries

Neutrinos are a mystery to physicists. They exist in three different flavors and mass states and may be able to give hints about the origins of the matter-dominated universe. A new long-baseline experiment led by Fermilab called NOvA may provide some answers.

There is a live feed of the first detector block being moved at http://www.fnal.gov/pub/webcams/nova_webcam/index.htm

 

Build an Electric Motor

This video demonstrates how to build a simple electric motor. Includes a discussion of some of the science behind electric motors.

 

Hewitt-Drew-it! 11. Velocity Vectors

Paul extends a televised classroom lecture on vectors to explain the resultant velocities of airplanes in wind.

Other Hewitt-Drew-it! videos

"The Future of the Highest Energy Accelerators" by Frank Zimmerman (CERN)

The Large Hadron Collider is famous for its size (17 miles in circumference), its cost (more than 7 billion euros), and accomplishments (the discovery of the Higgs boson chief among them). SLAC's two-mile-long linear accelerator could be considered the LHC of its day -- 50 years ago.

In this video, recorded during the Aug. 24, 2012, symposium commemorating those 50 years, Frank Zimmerman of CERN gives a crash course on the history of particle colliders, from the first cyclotron, built by Ernest Lawrence and his graduate student Stanley Livingston in 1931 (that could fit in the palm of a hand), to CERN's nation-spanning behemoth. He also lets the audience in on his own secret master plan for ever more powerful accelerators -- not just at CERN, but at SLAC.

Tuning Forks: Resonance & Beat Frequency

Two identical tuning forks and sounding boxes are placed next to one another. Striking one tuning fork will cause the other to resonate at the same frequency. When a weight is attached to one tuning fork, they are no longer identical. Thus, one will not cause the other to resonate. When two different tuning forks are struck at the same time, the interference of their pitches produces beats.

See other MIT physics demos

Mechanical Universe 03 - Derivatives

Unfortunately, this video has been deleted.

IDTIMWYTIM: Radiation

Hank explains the whole story about radiation - the good, the extremely helpful, and the bad.

Other Sci-Show videos

Hewitt-Drew-it! 13.Sideways Drop

Bullseye Bob drops a bullet while firing another horizontally, then analyzed in Paul's televised classroom, followed up with vertical and horizontal motion independence.

Other Hewitt-Drew-it! videos