How Do Rainbows Form?

SciShow explains how three important ingredients -- sunlight, water, and you -- interact to create the illusion of a rainbow. The colorful details are inside!

 

How to See Without Glasses

A pinhole can replace a lense.

 

What Does Sound Look Like?

You can actually see sound waves as they travel through the air thanks to a clever photographic trick: Schlieren flow visualization

Schlieren Optics

Demonstration of an optical technique that allows us to see small changes in the index of refraction in air. A point source of light is reflected from a concave mirror and focused onto the edge of a razor blade, which is mounted in front of the camera. Light refracted near the mirror and intercepted by the blade gives the illusion of a shadow.

Seen here are the heated gases from a candle flame and a hair dryer, helium gas, and sulfur hexafluoride gas. 

More information on our setup.

 Note that this version of the setup uses a white LED flashlight instead of an automotive light bulb.

 

How to Melt Cars and BBQ Pigeons - Sixty Symbols

Geometric Optics - discussing the Walkie Talkie skyscraper and the Nottingham Sky Mirror.

 The Walkie Talkie, or Walkie Scorchie (?), is a new building in London which has been reflecting light in a rather hazardous way! The Sky Mirror is a sculpture at the Nottingham Playhouse. This video features Professor Mike Merrifield from the University of Nottingham.

 Visit our website at http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

 

MIT 8.02 Electricity and Magnetism Lecture 29

Snell's Law, refraction, total feflection, dispersion, prisms, Huygens's Principle, the illusion of color, the weird Benham top, Land's famous demo.

 

Why is light slower in glass? - Sixty Symbols

Professor Merrifield largely "uncut" discussing refraction.

 

Microscopes: How They Work

An explanation of how microscopes work, using a ray tracing diagram.

 

Total internal reflection breakdown

This experiments show total internal reflection at the boundary between wax and air. When we place a drop of water at the surface the conditions changes and total internal reflection disappears.

 

Refraction & Total Internal Reflection

A beam of light from a helium-neon laser is directed at a tank of water and is refracted as it enters the water. The outgoing angle of refraction is smaller than the incident angle. Next, the laser is directed from below the water's surface. At a certain critical angle, the beam is totally reflected at the surface, there is no outgoing refracted beam.


See other MIT physics demos

Mirages - Sixty Symbols

What causes mirages?

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Using Refraction to Make Things Invisible

Movement of light through different media with the same indices of refraction.

Other videos by St-Mary's High School

Science off the Sphere: Lenses and Vortices

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit takes advantage of the weightless environment aboard the ISS to do diffusion and lens experiments with pure water. Distributed as part of a collaboration between NASA and the American Physical Society.

Other Science off the Sphere videos

Total Internal Reflection

Professor Bowley demonstrates a few tricks involving waves and prisms, with visible light and microwaves.

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Concave Mirror Demo

Image formation by a concave mirror.

Whiter than White, Blacker than Black and Greener than Green: The Perception of Color - UWM Science Bag

What do we mean when we say that a geranium is red, an orange is orange or white white? When, in fact, and why is white white, and what is color? Answers to these and other intriguing questions about the nature of light, the color of common objects, and the way in which the human eye perceives color can be found in this program.

Other UWM Science Bag videos

World's Biggest Telescope - Sixty Symbols

We discuss the diameter of telescopes and plans to build one with a truly enormous mirror.

Other Sixty Symbols videos

Myopia, Hyperopia & Astigmatism Explained

Learn about how the eye sees and why myopia, hyperopia and astigmatism can cause your vision to appear blurry.

Parabolic mirrors

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

How to make fire from ice

Convergeing lense made from ice...