Flying Circus of Physics

2012-01-19T14:59:00.000-08:00

January stories at the main FCP site: (1) Pouring tea on a rotating platform involves a noninertial frame and some fictitious forces that make the falling stream take on weird shapes. (2) A golf ball is sent skipping over water much like a stone, and then it remarkably hunts out the cup and falls into it. (3) Put trick: oil blobs in water take on strange behavior when salted. (4) Balance physics: a man balances over 3000 coins on a single American dime.http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2011-12-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

The December stories at the FCP site: (1) videos of tornados, including from within a tornado (yes, inside). (2) Why is the Moon white? Or is it? (3) Walter Wick's delightful balancing of toys on a single Lego block. (4) The link between football (soccer) headers and brain damage. (5) Pub trick of the month: getting a plastic straw to make a loud pop. (6) The Flying Circus of Physics essays written and produced by the students of Dr. Richard Barrans of the University of Wyoming. (7) My old article about using retroreflectors to remove distortion from a light beam. Oh, by the way, a few weeks ago I posted another video on the Facebook page for FCP.

2011-11-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

The November stories at the FCP site: (1) The third-order rainbow (illustrated at the left of my figure here) was rumored to have been seen several times in the last several hundred years but never confirmed. However, recently it was actually photographed, and then shortly later, the fourth-order rainbow was photographed (it too is at the left of my figure). (2) How to demonstrate that some types of breakfast cereals are magnetic. (3) Some amazing balancing acts by excavators as they climb off of or onto turcks and even railroad cars. (4) Pub trick of the month: how to convert a small beer into a large beer (or, more to the point, how you can be fooled into paying more for the large beer). (5) My old article about seeing a great many rainbows from a single drop of water.

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2011-10-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

October stories at the main FCP site: (1) Upside down racing, as in the first Men in Black movie (a screen capture is the image here). Can a modern race car be driven upside down on a ceiling? (2) Dangling donkey day. (3) Pub trick of the month: making grains of black pepper move over water. (4) Old article: How smoke plumes reveal the structure of the atmosphere. Also, at the Facebook site for FCP, I recently posted a new video: the teapot effect.

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

2011-08-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

September at the main FCP site: (1) Quicksand and how to escape it. (2) Pub trick: picking up a shot glass with only your palm. (3) The notorious instability of the three-wheeled Reliant Robin car, as seen on Top Gear---taking a turn usually means rolling the car over. Tough to get across town that way. (4) An animal with mineral eyes. (5) My 1989 article about the physics of inflating a balloon---why is the inflation initially so difficult?

http://flyingcircusofphysics.com/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

2011-07-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

August at FCP: (1) If you drop an object, it accelerates downward with the free fall acceleration g. Are there situations where it could have a greater acceleration? Yes, including one in which you may have been the falling object. (2) Pub trick: crazy raisin dance in champagne. (3) Physics in art: rays of Buddha in an 1856 painting by Tomas Seddon. (4) Can you balance a baseball bat on its head by tossing the bat into the air? Can you balance upside down on two fingers? (5) My old article that relates the snapping of pencil points to the fracturing of falling chimneys. www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2011-07-05T12:15:00.000-07:00

The latest video at the (public) Facebook FCP site is a news item I did for a television station in San Francisco about the shower-curtain effect. In this image from the video, I am showing the direction of the air flow by using a small candle. Perhaps surprisingly, the flow is into the shower, not outward.

The July stores at the main FCP site include: (1) visible shock waves in the ash plumes from a volcano and in clouds as a rocket climbs into the sky, (2) Tibetan singing bowls that not only sing but also produce water drops that are levitated above the water, (3) my old article about the mechanism by which such drops can be levitated, (4) pub tricks involving a hard-boiled egg, including how to separate it from the shell without peeling off the shell, (5) the first in a series of stories called "A Question of Balance."

Main site: www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

2011-06-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

June stories at the FCP site: (1) A circus act of balancing long rods is a dramatic example of center of mass. (2) Chladni singing, in which the voice shapes patterns of salt on a plate. (3) Footsteps momentarily dry out wet beach sand. (4) Pushing a drinking glass into sand flluidizes the sand. (5) Pub trick: inflating a long sandwich bag with one breath.

www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2011-05-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

Pub challenge of the month of the month: Break five toothpicks so that that the two halves are still hinged and then arrange them as spokes on a wheel. Without touching them directly and without using a tool such as a fork, can you get them to rearrange themselves into a five point star? The other stories this month include (a) the physics of a clown car and the general problem of dense packing of objects inside a container and (b) liquefaction in which ground shake turns solid ground into a fluid and allows buildings to slide into the ground.

2011-04-01T05:41:00.000-07:00

The April stories at the Flying Circus of Physics web site: (1) In a football (soccer) free kick, the ball must be kicked around a wall of opposing players and then into the goal. How do you get the ball to follow such a curved path? (2) A hangun fires a bullet into ice on the ground. Can the bullet really ricochet and end up spinning like a top on the ice, as shown in seveal videos? (3) Can you pour beer from a height of several meters without splashing, as shown in a recent video? (5) My old article about the physics behind pumping a playground swing to get it going. Come to www.flyingcircusofphysics.com .

2011-03-01T07:12:00.000-08:00

Stories at the main FCP site for March 2011: (1) audience scanning, in which lasers are directed into the audience to illuminate the spectators, and the use of hundreds of laser pointers in a Flaming Lips concert. It all started when Blue Oyster Cult got their hands on a powerful laser. (2) A current television commercial shows an athlete first buried in sand on a beach and then leaping up to land on the beach. Is that physically possible? (3) St. Elmo’s fire is display of electric sparking that can occur on sharp objects when the atmospheric electric field is very strong. On a bush, it gives the appearance of the Biblical “burning bush.” (4) Pub trick of the month: Can you light a candle with a match without putting the wick in the flame of the match? You can if you know the physics. (5) Article of the month: my article explaining the physics and chemistry underlying the charm of a candle flame. The latest video posted on the FCP site in Facebook is about what happens to helium balloons in a closed car when the car undergoes an abrupt turn. (I am slammed in one direction; they float in the opposite direction.)

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/

2011-02-01T05:03:00.000-08:00

The February 2011 stories at the main FCP web site: (1) The body armor worn by Alexander the Great and his army was made of linen, not metal, and yet it could stop a sharp blade or an arrow, something that the modern-day body armor Kevlar cannot do. The image here shows modern-day investigators of the linen body armor: student Scott Bartell, wearing a reconstruction of the linen body armor has been shot by fellow investigator Professor Gregory Aldrete of University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. This image is from the web site of Aldrete, given below. (2) What causes the “singing” of wires (such as power-line wires) in a wind, as sung by Glen Campbell in the classic Wichita Lineman? (3) Icicle formation is not well understood. Less understood are why ripples form on them and slowly migrate upward. (4) The pub trick of the month: Push a ketchup packet into a water bottle; screw the top back on the bottle. How can you make the packet float at any level in the water? (5) My old article about strategies of finding your way thorough a maze, whether simple or complex.

Aldrete's web site: http://www.uwgb.edu/aldreteg/Linothorax

FCP main site: http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ (stories, links, references)

FCP facebook (public) site: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts (my photos and videos)

2011-01-05T14:44:00.000-08:00

Jan 2011 The stories this month at the Flying Circus of Physics web site are: (1) cars on ice, the 2010 video collection, but also the challenge about the physics of what you see, (2) liquid origami, in which a water drop causes a small plastic cutout to fold up to enclose the drop, and the parchment-paper effect (this may be a brand-new effect) in which kitchen parchment paper curls up and then uncurls when placed on water, (3) the putt-putt boat, the very old toy that involves a complex oscillatory motion, (4) the pub trick of the month in which you can make the paper sheath of a common straw momentarily crawl along a table, (5) my old article about the patterns that develop in seemingly random cracks in mud and other materials. At the Flying Circus of Physics Facebook site, I have posted the video where I explain putt-putt boats to Jay Ingram, the host of "The Daily Planet" show on Discovery Channel Canada.

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

2010-12-01T13:46:00.000-08:00

The December stories at the main Flying Circus of Physics web site include:
(1) The viral video showing a rowdy young man riding a fire extinguisher down a subway aisle as the fire extinguishing material is shot out the rear of the extinguisher.
(2) Reflections on the appearance of mirrors in two famous oil paintings.
(3) The sport of camel jumping in which a young man jumps over side-by-side camels, up to five or six at a time.
(4) Pub trick of the month---can you pick up an open container of uncooked rice by using a common wood rod? This is a tricky puzzle that can win many pints.
(5) My old magazine article about the curious physics that can be seen in a cup of coffee or tea, the subject of many publications, including one by Albert Einstein.
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/

At the Facebook site for Flying Circus, I’ve just posted another of my appearances on The Daily Planet show of Discover Channel Canada. This video has to do with the pub trick of picking up an open container of uncooked rice by using only a wooden rod (a common wooden spoon).
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cleveland-OH/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

2010-11-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

Here are the November stories at the main Flying Circus of Physics web site:
1. “Powers of Ten” was the most dramatic physics film I ever saw, taking us from a common picnic outward to intergalactic space and then back again into the hand of a sleeping man, down to the quarks in a proton in a carbon atom.
2. Pub trick of the month: Outside on a hot, dry day, how can you cool the beer bottles without ice or any type of refrigeration?
3. Domino amplifiers have made it to video: A tiny domino is toppled with a cotton swab. It knocks over a second domino that is scaled up by 1.5 in all dimensions. The second one knocks over a third domino. And so on, until the 13th domino is knocked over and lands with a thud that shakes the floor.
4. Anamorphic art is a style of distorted art that is almost meaningless when viewed at most angles but which makes perfect sense from a certain range of angles. That art has long been a novelty but now it is used to control traffic speeds in West Vancouver, Canada.
5. My old article from June 1984 discusses the physics of curious kitchen gadgets.
www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2010-10-12T13:19:00.000-07:00

To prepare for the anniversary show of The Daily Planet (Discover Channel Canada), we mixed up water and well over 2000 pounds of corn starch, using portable cement mixers. My intent was to walk over the top of the water-corn starch mixture in an 8-foot-long trough. To see more photographs, come to www.facebook.com/pages/Cleveland-OH/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?ref=ts . I'll post more photos soon. If the television show is streamed, I'll post the web site.

2010-10-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

In the last few days I was part of the 15th anniversary show of "The Daily Planet" on Discovery Channel Canada. The show will be broadcast at 8:00 pm eastern time on Oct 10 on the Discovery Channel Canada network, and (I believe) it will be streamed on the web the next day. In the first half hour I perform the stunt where I stick my wet hand into moltern lead. In the third half hour I run over the top of a mixture of water and corn starch. Here is an early description of the show: http://www.discoverychannel.ca/greatestshowever/event/ . I'll post more links later.

2010-10-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

The October stories at the main Flying Circus of Physics web site include (1) seeing the shock waves of large explosions, (2) the dynamics of playing cards, leaves, and helicopter seeds (samaras) during falling (appropriate for the falling leaves here in Cleveland this month), (3) the physics of two hoax videos that went viral recently (liquid mountaineering and catching a melon with your face), (4) the pub trick of the month --- picking up a drinking glass with a straw, and (5) my old article about the strangest illusion I’ve ever seen --- Bidwell’s ghost, with which I can “read” a page in total darkness.
www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2010-09-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

In a few weeks I travel to Toronto to be part of the 15 year celebration of the Daily Planet television show on Discovery Channel Canada. Host Jay Ingram and I first worked together when he was the host of Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio. He and I would end many of the shows with a funny bit about physics, usually with lots of sound effects to make us sound as though we were in a bar, a rodeo, on top a flag pole, being chased by the police, etc.

He and I have also done a number of bits on the television show since it started, but for that, we had to be on location for real, none of that fake sound effects stuff.

The 15 year celebration show will be aired on Sunday, October 10 at 8 pm ET/PT. I do not know if that includes the US.

2010-08-31T15:23:00.000-07:00

The September stories at the main Flying Circus of Physics web site: (1) Vortex rings, from the smoke rings of a hookah smoker to the vortex rings shot from air cannons, powerful enough to knock down a brick wall. (2) Making music form those rude flatulence sounds produced with two hands or with one hand and an armpit. (3) Pub trick of the month: Making a coin rattle on top a beer bottle with touching the coin or bottle. (4) The bright spot (Poisson spot) that appears at the center of the shadow of a solid ball. (5) My old article about how to make things disappear like the Cheshire cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2010-07-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

The August stories at the main Flying Circus of Physics site:
(1) Wall-climbing robots. Yes, robots can now climb the external walls of buildings and peer into a room with a camera. And some of them climb by means of quantum mechanics. (2) How snakes slither. (3) Ice spikes that can grow upward from an ice cube. (4) Can you get a vortex in a Miller Lite “vortex bottle,” to drain it quickly? (4) The physics behind a traffic jam. www.flyingcircusofphysics.com New stuff also coming up at Facebook Flying Circus of Physics.

2010-07-02T20:08:00.000-07:00

The July stories at the Flying Circus of Physics site include (1) Lava lamps --- I supply the physics, you supply the psychedelic music and whatever substances you want. (2) Measuring cosmic ray rates with a Geiger counter on commercial flights. (3) Relativistic length contraction --- what would it look like? (4) Pub trick of the month --- covering your face with bottle caps. Here is my grandson --- can you beat his record of six bottle caps?(5) The second of my old articles about the physics of boomerangs.

At the Facebook site for The Flying Circus of Phyysics, I have posted two short videos where I derive the two relativity equations used in item 3 above (don't worry, I use only algebra). I have also posted a game about relativistic contraction that I wrote for my classes.

www.flyingcircusofphysics.com is the main site

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cleveland-OH/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts is the Facebook site

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=728647716 is my Facebook site

2010-06-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

The June stories at the main site for The Flying Circus of Physics include:

(1) A common playing card or business card can be thrown accurately and for a great distance if it is launched by snapping the wrist and spinning it. The world’s record distance is now 65.9 meters (over 200 feet), and the cards can hit with enough force to hurt someone. Why does the spinning matter? Can cards be used as weapons?
(2) Why do some people with tattoos have a tugging or tingling sensation in an MRI procedure? Why are some of them actually burned?
(3) Sprites are mysterious emissions of light that occur far above large thunderstorms. They were seen for decades by night-flying pilots but passed off as illusions --- that is, up until they were put on video in the 1990s.
(4) The pub trick of the month: Pour the beer out of a bottle and then set the bottle down. How can you get another 1000 drops of beer out of the bottle?
(5) Article of the month: My article from 1979 about the physics that allows a boomerang to boomerang.

Main site: www.flyingcircusofphysics.com
Facebook site (membership not required) with my television shows, videos, stories, and games: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cleveland-OH/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

2010-05-01T14:51:00.000-07:00

Here are the May stories at the Flying Circus of Physics main site:

1. the physics of a tae-kwon-do punch, as shown here in my photo of Patrick Walker

2. color-shifting paints on cars and inks on currency --- flashy iridescence

3. the lightning displays in the ash spewed out by the recent volcano activity in Iceland

4. pub trick of the month --- moving a ball from one beer mat to another one, using only a wine glass

5. article of the month --- from August 1988, my article about the physics you can do and see during a long airplane trip. For all these, come to www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

Also, I invite you to the new Facebook site for FCP:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cleveland-OH/Flying-Circus-of-Physics/339329532602?v=wall&ref=ts

videos, photos, games, and calculations about FCP topics

2010-04-02T07:30:00.000-07:00

The April stories at the Flying Circus of Physics web site:

1. Pub trick of the month: A coin lies below an empty glass drinking container. When you pour water into the glass, the coin disappears. How can water hide a coin? And once hidden, how can you make the coin reappear without removing the water from the container? Ah, I bet you can win a few pub wagers on this trick.

2. What physics lies behind the whip move in roller derby? (How can we find physics amid all the head bashing?)

3. If you are lucky, you can see a shock front out on an airplane wing -- a shadowy distortion that shimmies in the air turbulence that oscillates the wing.

4. My old article about shock fronts and other physics amusements to get you through a otherwise tideous airplane journey.

5. Strange to relate, some gun sights that provide illumination in dim conditions owe their light to quark transformations.

Come find these stories (and hundreds others) at www.flyingcircusofphysics.com. Also visit the new Facebook site: google "Facebook flying circus of physics". You don't have to be a member of Facebook to visit. Consider signing up as a fan of the site. I am producing and posting new videos there every month. The first in the series is about the Cheerios effect.

As always, if you have an idea for a story, please leave a message on Facebook, either on the FCP wall or my personal wall.

2010-03-01T11:51:00.000-08:00

The March stories at the Flying Circus of Physics web site:

(1) For the last two years, videos have been circulating that show how cell phones can cause popcorn kernels to pop. Can a cell phone do that? Can you start a campfire with a cell phone?Can you use a cell phone for self defense by overheating any bandits who attacks you in the street?

(2) A truck topples over onto a car, compressing the car to almost the street level, and yet the driver emerges unharmed.

(3) Some people have an intense desire to lick metal poles in subfreezing weather, perhaps because they are fans of the classic movie Christmas Story. I cannot explain the motivation of these lickers, but I can explain the physics of what happens to their tongue.

(4) Pub trick of the month: A mug of beer is supported by two stacks of coins on opposite sides of the mug. A small coin lies between the two stacks. How can you remove the small coin without touching it or the mug?

(5) Article of the month: my "Amateur" article about the physics of my grandmother's homemade ice cream.

www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2010-02-01T11:19:00.000-08:00

February stories at the Flying Circus of Physics web site.

(1) Lucky shots (including long-distance basketball shots and over-the-shoulders throwing of a key ring onto a hook).

(2) How a Doonesbury cartoon causes me to flash back to my days at MIT and what that has to do with non-newtonian fluids. (3) Video showing what happens to a truck in a strong wind.

(4) Pub trick of the month: a theatrical way to remove the foam on a beer.

(5) Article of the month: the physics of Slime, Silly Putty, cornstarch, ketchup, and other fluids with weird viscosities.

Come to www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

For those of you asking, yes the beer bottle is still stuck to my basement wall. Eight months now. Updates are being carried monthly at the Flying Circus of Physics site.

2009-12-31T16:22:00.000-08:00

The Jan 2010 stories at the FCP site: (1) On the old televsion show Knight Rider, Michael Knight would drive his futuristic car KITT up a ramp and into the interior of a moving semi-trailor truck. Is that really possible? The hosts of the television show Mythbusters recreates the situation. (2) When the cork is loosened on a champagne bottle, it can be ejected so quickly by the high internal pressure that it can hurt someone, especially if it hits the person in the eye. I have a number of links that are either fun or sad, depending on your perspective. Another in the series of physics of getting hurt. (3) I also have a number of links to videos where people play songs on a variety of musical instruments made from vegetables, fruits, and eggs. Ok, this is neat, but I worry about the person who first decided, "Hey, I don't have anything to do right now. So, I tell you what, I'll make a musical instrument out of brocolli!" (4) Why do pictures hung on a wall commonly become crooked with time? Here is the physics of crooked pictures. (5) The old article of the month is the one I wrote in 1979 about the fracture patterns of pencil points and toppling tall smokestacks. Ok, this too is neat, but now I worry about myself and why I sat around for a full day breaking pencil points one after another and examining the broken pieces. I must not have had anything to do that day.

To see all this and more, come to www.flyingcircusofphysics.com and check out the "Spotlight Story" and the "News/Updates."

2009-12-01T14:44:00.000-08:00

The December stories at the Flying Circus of Physics website:

1. Human dominos --- how to liven up a party and maybe go after the Guinness record for the most number of people to be knocked over in a line of human dominos. Plus some domino effects with shoes, vacuum cleaners, toasts, and nearly anything else around the house.

2. Electrostatics and the miniature art of Willard Wigan. The image here (from Henry Frederic Humbert (http://www.rugby-pioneers.com/) shows an example, on the head of a pin. Wigan, who is famous for his tiny sculptures, must be careful about the art becoming charged or it will disappear, which apparently happened to his sculpture of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

3. Fall of a window cleaner is shown in a dramatic video. By chance and two good reasons of physics, he survived a fall from eight stories.

4. When a bullet is shot through an empty glass, the glass just shatters, but when the bullet is shot through a water-filled container, some of the liquid is propelled back toward the weapon. Some slow-motion videos reveal that many other objects (for example, an apple and a banana) have such reverse propulsion when shot. And, more tragic, so do humans, a fact that played into the discussion about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

5. Pub trick of the month: when cream is placed on top of the liqueur Tia Maria, the surface can develop wormy, tubular motion, which you can see in a video link. Anyone in a bar can set up the motion, but can you explain it? That is the real trick.

6. The article of the month is my article from 1986 about Nitinol, a shape-memory alloy. If you distort a wire of Nitinol and then heat the wire, it springs back to its original shape. This feature allows you to make a small engine out of Nitinol wire.

To see all this stuff, visit http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ and click on the spotlight story or the News/Updates. And, as always, there are hundreds of stories in the archives, thousands of video links, and over 11,000 citations to scientific and technical literature.

2009-11-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

November stories at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/:

(1) Which is worse in car crashes: crashes into shops, into walls, or into other cars, as in a head-on collision? Why would having a passenger in the car with you decrease your risk of fatality in a head-on collision?

(2) Worm grunting (which sounds terrible, doesn't it?) and the giant sandworms of Dune.

(3) The curtain of death in a meteor strike, and the crater hoax of last week.

(4) Pub trick of the month: the physics behind hanging spoons

(5) Article of the month: hydraulic jumps (shock waves in water flow), such as the one you have seen every day in your kitchen sink.

2009-10-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Stories at www.flyingcircusofphysics.com for Oct 09:

1. High-speed collisions: an F4 Phantom jet slams into a concrete wall at about 480 miles per hour and a battering ram slams into a small car at about 650 miles per hour. Great fun.

2. How technicians are carried up to a high-voltage power line to repair it while it is at full voltage. Why aren't they killed?

3. Why did the sky turn red for Australians last month?

4. Pub trick of the month: matchstick rocket

You might be able to help me. I am looking for videos involving accidents, such as industrial accidents, where physics plays a role. A number of visitors to the FCP site have suggested some marvelous examples, which will be posted in the coming months. However, I am always hungry for more.

2009-09-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

The September 09 stories at The Flying circus of Physics web site.

1. How physics can keep you from getting drenched when drinking from a yard of ale or a beer boot (as in this photograph by mlamothe).

2. A weird illusion in which you can read in total darkness, another in the "physics for the first date" category.

3. A video that shows a building rolling down the street.

4. A whimmy diddle, a rustic wood toy with a propeller that rotates in a surprising way.

5. My old article about the surprising behavior of powders when vibrated --- they sort themselves out as though they are alive.

To see all this, visit http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/. The yard of ale and beer boot is the spotlight story this month, and the other stories are under the "News/Update" button on the left side of the screen.

2009-08-20T12:19:00.000-07:00

Summer Honors Institute at Cleveland State University 2009.
High school students worked on projects and labs for two weeks. A fun time was had by all.
Anirudh Dasarathy, Erich Botzki, Zia Mohammad, Andrew Morris, Lauren Choban, Galina Pylypiv, Julie Fell, Kyle Griswold, Samuel Hartman, Ryan Sepesy, Yuxi Liu, Titus Lungu, Kevin Rominger, Yuzhan Ma, Mahima Venkatesh, Ian O'Hara, Troy Quinby, Ben Reinthal, Mary Reinthal, Joseph Hogya, Scott Hulver, Ashley Zheng, Maura Sepesy, Katherine Wolf.

2009-08-07T08:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/
New item just added to FCP
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=35
A stunning video of human projectile motion. Well, maybe "stunning" is not the word because if the young man had died, then the word would have been "stupid."

Unfortunately, I've now learned that the video is a fake. I actually feel cheated.

2009-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

The August stories at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ include:
1. ice-blink, the curious map that appears in the sky over ice fields, used by someone trying to find a water path through the fields. You might be able to see a bright band in the ice-blink above and to the right of the man in this very old photograph. Links to more clearer, modern photographs are given.
2. bird flocks, from Alfred Hitchcock's movie "The Birds" to the flocks of starlings, which may number in tens of thousands. How do they avoid crashing into one another?
3. On January 2, 2006, an explosion in a methane pocket trapped 12 miners deep underground. Only one survived. The explosion was caused by a lightning strike, but how could lightning on the ground spark an explosion so far underground?
4. The pub trick of the month involves picking up an inverted beer bottle with the thumb on top and a finger on the side. You can do it if you know the physics.
5. The article of the month is my column exploring why a shower curtain blows inward during a hot shower. The answer may surprise you. It certainly surprised a lot of people when I published the article, even people who included a description of the shower-curtain action in their class lectures.

2009-07-01T20:52:00.001-07:00

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ The July stories are (1) the physics of tossing a pizza, including both the single-toss technique and the multiple-toss technique. (2) Dead water refers to a strange sea condition when a ship is stopped, even though it is at full power, the sea is calm, and there is neither wind nor current. What would it be like to swim across a region of dead water? (3) The pub trick of the month is about how to allow a ring to fall down a loop of string and end up tied in a ring hitch at the bottom. It is easy to do if you know how but stumps everyone else in the pub. The photograph here depicts part of the wrapping-up process. (4) Suppose you have two containers with equal amounts of water, and you heat one of them. Then you place both containers, one hot and one not hot, in a sub-freezing environment, either a freezer or outside on a cold night. Which will freeze first? Well, very surprisingly, the container that starts from the higher temperature can freeze first.

2009-06-01T10:31:00.001-07:00

The June stories at the FCP site: (1) rattlesnakes versus squirrels and death, and how a decapitated rattlesnake can strike you. (2) why dry spaghetti always breaks in three or four parts, not in two parts. (3) pub trick --- how to hang a beer bottle on a wall. (4) why haboobs (giant dust storms) are electrified. (5) the catastrophe optics that appears in an illuminated drop of water. http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

2009-05-01T06:59:00.000-07:00

www.flyingcircusofphysics.com The new stories for May include:

1. the optics of mirror mazes, including their virtual hallways (as shown in the photo here) and how maze monsters can hide in the mazes

2. the acoustics of blowing raspberries, or how you can do physics while also insulting someone

3. the effects of lightning hitting a car --- are you safe or are you in danger?

4. headbanging and other activities that lead to retinal detachment

5. pub trick of the month: blowing out a candle when there is a wide bottle between you and the candle.

2009-04-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

The April 2009 stories at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ include

1. Robbie Maddison's remarkable jump onto the top of a structure that is 37 meters high and then down again. If he had not understood some very subtle physics, he would have died in the stunt.

2. Charles Taylor's strange one-wheel vehicle, balanced by gyroscopes. A video shows him tooling along a road.

3. Pub trick of the month. The very old pub trick of exchanging a shot glass of water and a shot glass of whisky without using a third container. There is some obvious physics and some not-so-obvious physics here.

4. Holding a cylindrical container on a table and then giving it a good flick with your finger results in a surprising landing on the table when it falls over.

5. The article of the month is about the physics and design of kaleidoscopes, including some very novel designs.

2009-03-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

I gave The Flying Circus of Physics talk at a section meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers in March 2009, discussing such topics as the Cheerios effect, the shower curtain effect, the teapot effect, and the tea leaves effect. I also showed a few photos from my collection of crack photos. No, I don't mean "crack" as in "really good". Rather I mean cracks in sidewalks, dried paint, ceramics, and solidified magma --- I collect photos of cracks. Now, that may sound pathetic (and actually it is a bit pathetic), but many material scientists are fascinated with the networks that cracks form in various types of materials that are under stress.

In the photo here, taken right after the talk, I am posing with Kevin McChesney who instructs at Pickerington High School Central in Pickerington, Ohio, and who is the District VI Director for SECO (Science Education Council of Ohio). You can visit his web page at http://fc.pickerington.k12.oh.us/~kevin_mcchesney/?OpenItemURL=S01D40775 The top button in his menu shows him with his hand on fire.

2009-02-16T06:47:00.000-08:00

Kyle Taljan of Oberlin College stands on Jearl Walker while holding some of the books Jearl has written. Jearl, who is sandwiched between two beds of very sharp nails, is wishing he had written less weighty books. Dan Styer, a physics professor at Oberlin, looks on with mild concern. (Photo courtesy of Professor Jason Stalnaker, also of Oberlin College.)

For the physics of the beds-of-nails demonstrations, go to
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=25

2009-01-31T21:50:00.000-08:00

The February stories at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ include

1. Landing an airplane on water --- why, exactly, is it so dangerous and how did Captain Sullenberger do it so well?

2. "Hang on a minute, lads. I've got a great idea." How would you solve the greatest cliffhanger in movie history, the ending to the "The Italian Job" in which we last see Charlie Croker and his mates on a bus that dangles over a steep mountainside in the Alps?

3. How can you crush an exceptionally strong railroad tanker car in minutes with nothing more than steam and a really big physics mistake?

4. Why do penguins huddle in groups of many thousands?

5. Pub trick of the month --- balancing forks, spoons, and other objects on a match stick that straddles the edge of a drinking glass.

6. Article of the month: the strange acoustics in the whispering gallery in the dome at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London. A whisper can be heard a surprising distance if you face the wall of the gallery but not if you face away from it.

The photo here was taken by Tara Peppard as I was about to stick my fingers into molten lead (see the pot on the left) in front of my class at Cleveland State University. I am showing that I have all of my fingers intact, at least before I do the stunt.

2009-01-20T07:57:00.000-08:00

My student Becky, returning from duty and giving me that you-better-give-me-a-good-grade stare.

2009-01-01T17:40:00.000-08:00

The January stories at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ are now posted.

1. Pedestrian throw, moose throw, camel throw. The physics of the collision between a road vehicle and either a pedestrian or a large animal. Although none of the videos show close-up photos of people, some of them may not be suitable for children because the motion of an airborne person is upsetting.

2.The pub trick for this month involves removing a cork from the body of an empty wine bottle without breaking the bottle.

3. The puzzle for this month involves the collapse of a small bridge due to the weight of a house being moved across it. One of the photos is reproduced here.

4. Bottle music. There are at least three distinct ways a beer or soda bottle can be played as a musical instrument. One of the videos shows bottles being played a rollerblader. Another is from the psychedelic group The 13th Floor Elevators from the 1960s. And another is a very charming performance by a man with a beer bottle and a tambourine.

5. The article of the month is one that I published in January 1978. It shows how you can use common clear sticky tape to reveal the polarization of skylight, as seen by many types of insects who navigate via the polarization.

As always, odl and new videos of me are available at www.myspace.com/flyingcircusofphysics .

Cheers and happy new year

2008-12-01T10:59:00.003-08:00

Here are the December stories at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/

1. Beds-of-nails demonstration. How I do them, how I have been hurt, and how I have been really embarrassed. Some good photos are included. One is shown here --- I am doing push ups on a bed of very sharp nails while wearing Kelvar lined gloves.

2. Catching an arrow in flight. Can it really be done or is that just movie trickery?

3. Pub trick of the month --- how can you cause a bottle of beer or soda to suddenly freeze by tapping it?

4. Aerodynamics of high-speed trains --- if you are close to the track, why might you be knocked down and then pulled up against the train. There are videos of close calls.

5. The article of the month --- how to make quarter-wave and half-wave plates to examine the polarization of light and how you might be able to perceive the polarization with your unaided eye.

2008-11-26T14:33:00.000-08:00

newsletter November 2008-December 2009 from www.flyingcircusofphysics.com

Maybe you can help on this matter: Certain, potentially lethal bacterial infections produce a red line, marking the infection’s location and progress, much like a line on a graph. The red line might start low on a leg at the initial site of the infection and then travel up the leg. If the infection reaches the heart, the damage to the heart can be lethal, and so the march of the red line toward the chest is a sign of acute danger.
Here’s my question: What factors determine the rate at which the red line progresses? It is not at the speed at which blood flows through the veins. Is it, instead, the speed of a gradual diffusion of the bacteria through the muscular regions?

With the holiday seasons approaching, I hope that you might consider The Flying Circus of Physics book as a gift to give. There are also many more books displayed in the Store section of the FCP web site --- the links there are to Amazon.com in the United States. The books range from sports science to cooking science to traditional physics subjects (such as special relativity). Here are two excellent choices:
1. The Self-Made Tapestry: Pattern Formation in Nature by Philip Ball. It explores (without equations) how patterns, even complex patterns, occur in natural settings, something that fascinates me. In fact, show a naturally occurring pattern to any scientist, and the heart rate measurably increases. This book is jam-packed with examples along with their explanations (at least as currently understood --- this is ongoing science for many researchers).
2. Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. Each chapter in this slender book is a story about how people would live if the nature of time were different or if the curious aspects of time in Einstein’s general theory of relativity were more apparent. The book is highly acclaimed and even beautiful, based on hard-core physics but as delicate as a poem. It is a book I reread frequently (and dream about).

At the FCP site for December and January, I’ll post my two Scientific American articles about using polarizing filters (such as from polarizing sunglasses) to transform the polarization of sky light into colors, so that you get a sensation of what some polarization-sensitive insects see when they navigate by using the polarization of skylight. Many of you can actually detect the polarization of light with just your eyes, without the need of a filter. I explain how.

Here are some of the subjects coming up at the FCP site:

1. Fireflies are the summertime insects that briefly emit light. Such light emission is interesting because it is “cold,” that is, it occurs with no loss to thermal energy, in contrast to other sources of light. However, even more interesting are the swarms of fireflies that will lock-step their flashing, so that, say, a nighttime riverfront will flash on and off with firefly light, as if the riverfront was rigged with advertising lights. How do the fireflies flash in synchrony?

2. Tornadoes have both horrified and intrigued me since I was a child growing up in Texas. Indeed, I have often imagined what I would see if caught in a tornado. I can only imagine that it would be an utterly helpless situation, where survival depended only on chance, and yet some people have recorded videos of the experience, as I shall describe. Here is a basic question. When a tornado moves down your street, blowing out your windows, do the windows blow inward or outward?

2008-11-16T16:31:00.000-08:00

The Italian translation of The Flying Circus of Physics second edition is being published as two books, the first of which has now been published:

http://www.zanichelli.it/f_varia.html

Other translations:

The German translation of FCP second edition is available at http://www.Amazon.de/fliegende-Zirkus-Physik_Antworten/dp/3486580671/ref-pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199127731&sr=8-1 .

The French translation has been published as two bookshttp://www.amazon.fr/cirque-physique-Jearl-Walker/dp/2100517236/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210733304&sr=8-2

The Korean translation is available athttp://www.libro.co.kr/Product/BookDetail.libro?goods_id=0100007452991

Translations currently in progress: Portuguese, Greek, Serbian, and Estonian

2008-10-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

The spaghetti effect can be seen both at the dinner table and in industrial settings. When a long flexible strand is rapidly pulled into a container, it can whip about wildly. With a spaghetti strand, the whipping can sling off the sauce. This is one of new stories for November at the Flying Circus of Physics site. http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ Another of the stories is about how an open can of Red Bull can be inverted without any of the liquid pouring out. This is another of the pub tricks that are not only described but also explained at the web site.

2008-10-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

The stories posted this month at the Flying Circus of Physics website include

1. The magic trick of Criss Angel in which he floats from one building rooftop to another. Can you spot the physics clues that reveal how he does it?

2. Frank "Cannonball" Richards made a living by having a cannonball shot into his stomach. How could he survive such an impact?

3. Ball lightning is a mysterious glowing ball that appears during lightning storms. One of my collected stories is presented.

4. Coffee stains on a counter --- why do they have a brown border? Most people just wipe away such stains but a scientist is puzzled by such patterns.

5. Musical roads: Some roads are built such that the road noise reproduces a musical score, such as the opening theme music of the old "Lone Ranger" television show, otherwise known as the William Tell overture.

6. Glare off a printed page. When you tilt a page from a textbook or magazine, why is the contrast between the bright regions and the dark regions reversed, as shown here in a page from the textbook that I write.

2008-09-01T12:35:00.000-07:00

The September 2008 items posted at www.flyingcircusofphysics.com include

Criss Angel magic --- walking on water

How cats right themselves while falling

Another in the physics-of-pub-tricks series --- flipping an egg without touching it

My original paper on the Leidenfrost effect, including sticking my fingers into molten lead and walking on hot coals

Also, if you click on the profile button off to the right here, you can listen to one of the many radio shows to which I contributed, with Jay Ingram as the host of "Quirks and Quarks" on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

2008-07-30T08:57:00.000-07:00

The penguin from Ohio Wesleyn University, given to me by the physics department there. (There are penguins throughout Fundamentals of Physics, the textbook that I write.)

2008-07-30T08:39:00.000-07:00

More images from the summer program (see below).

2008-07-30T08:22:00.000-07:00

The Summer Honors Institute at Cleveland State University enjoyed the attendance of these local high school students, whose challenge was to create a power-point presentation for the last day.

Anirudh (Rudy) Jayanti, electrosurgery
Shoumik Pennathur and Nicholas Kar, projectile motion in air drag
Jeff Woos, Big Bang and more
Anupama Sundaram and Linda Nguyen, Newton’s laws
Nicholas Catalano and Katerina Glyptis, conservation of momentum
Liam Robinson and Sahil Gosain, Jesus lizard
Sandeep Sidhu, Galileo and his scientific works
Richard Kolk and Jeffrey Huynh, slinky physics
Yilun Cai and Jake Green, rattleback
Kyle Demko, conservation of energy
Kevin Russell and Diego Axon-Sanchez, density of objects (Archimedes)
Priya Datta and Faith Tandoc, the particle-wave duality of light

2008-07-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

Bottom: Amanda Beach, shown getting up on the bed of nails several years ago, has graduated with a degree in physics and will now probably move on to less hurtful things. Congratulations to her. Top: Amanda, Jearl, and Mary at Amanda's graduation party 6 July 2008.

2008-07-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

In the latest set of stories at www.flyingcircusofphysics.com, I include several photos of the Millennium Bridge, which spans the Thames River in London, connecting the vicinity of Saint Paul's Cathedral (seen in the background here) with the Tate Modern museum. When the bridge was opened with great celebration to mark the new century, the first surge of people crossing it caused it to sway and gallop so much that some of the people had trouble keeping their footing. The engineers who designed the bridge were both stunned and embarrassed.

The physics is quite interesting because there was a feedback system at play. As the pedestrians walked, they pushed not only down but also sideways. At first all these pushes were randomly timed but once the density of pedestrians passed a critical point, the oscillations were large enough that many pedestrians could walk only by walking in step with the oscillations. That meant that many of them began to march in synchrony along the bridge, which caused the oscillations to build up even more, which caused even more pedestrians to march in synchrony, which ... well, you get the idea.

The bridge was closed while a solution to the oscillations was found. At the FCP web site I show some of the "mass dampers" that were now attached to the bridge to offset the pushing by the pedestrians as they walk along the bridge.

(Photo by Jearl Walker, www.flyingcircusofphysics.com)

2008-06-03T08:46:00.000-07:00

MySpace site for The Flying Circus of Physics (set up by students), with video clips of me on television and lots of photos:

http://www.myspace.com/flyingcircusofphysics

Facebook site (also set up by students):

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6683857358

My Facebook profile site:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=728647716

This month at the FCP site http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/ the spotlight story is about the rotating, skipping bombs of the dambusters of World War II, where the action was based on the children's game of skipping stones over water. The bombs had to skip in order to jump over the torpedo nets that guarded the dams. Links to many video clips are included.

Here are the secondary stories this month:

1. Another bar (pub) trick with an explanation of the physics (so you can not only show off with a cute trick but also show everyone how smart you are).

2. The physics explanation for the video (seen by more than 4 million people) in which two huge geysers erupt from a rain drainage shaft.

3. Stabilizing the leaning tower of Pisa

4. The video showing resonant oscillation of a pond over 1000 km from the tragic earthquake in central China. The video was widely seen on some of the news web sites but without any explanation.

The FCP site contains more than 100 such stories and hundreds of links to videos. Here are the links to the story archives, arranged according to the chapters in The Flying Circus of Physics.

Chapter 1 (motion)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=37

Chapter 2 (fluids)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=38

Chap 3 (sound)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=39

Chap 4 (thermo)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=40

Chap 5 (electricity & magnetism)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=41

Chap 6 (optics)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=42

Chap 7 (vision)
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=43

And here is the index for both the book and the FCP site:

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/Topics/ChapterDetail.aspx?ChapterID=6

And here are stories about the minor adventures of physics major Jay Waller:

http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/Topics/ChapterDetail.aspx?ChapterID=14

2008-04-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

2008-03-14T20:14:00.000-07:00

As I was about to hand out an exam, Cleveland State University was closed due to a snowstorm. My class was so disappointed that they could not take the exam that they met in a dorm room so that they could once again go over the physics homework. What dedication!

2008-03-01T14:39:00.000-08:00

More videos of my appearances on "The Daily Planet" show on Discovery Channel Canada have been posted on the web. The current list and both the user name and the password are given in the current posting at the FCP site. Here is the page:
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/News/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=33

Here are the subjects of the March stories at the FCP web site:
1. If someone shoots straight upward, can you be killed by the bullet when it falls back down?
2. Can you be killed by a coin tossed off the Empire State Building?
3. What caused the recent explosion and fire at a sugar processing plant?
4. Does use of a cell phone or an iPod attract lightning?
5. Why can you see the dark side of the Moon when the Moon is not full?
6. Bar (pub) trick---how can you move match sticks without touching them?

Here is a link to the index for the FCP book and for all the stories (so far) at the FCP site:
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/Topics/ChapterDetail.aspx?ChapterID=6

2008-02-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I took the Flying Circus of Physics talk to South Dakota. In Brookings, I visited South Dakota State University where I talked about physics education with the physics faculty in the afternoon and then gave the FCP talk to the faculty, students, and public in the evening. Both talks went very well in spite of my weak voice due to a previous sore throat.

Professor Joel Rauber stood on top of me, steadied by Professor Larry Browning. (In a small-world effect, Professor Rauber revealed that one day when he was a teenager, on a trip to the University of Maryland to see his brother, I recruited him to look after my older son for a while. That was a very long time ago!)

There was added excitement in the molten lead demonstration when some of the lead drops were blown up into my face. Only minor burns occurred, but it sure did wake me up. SDSU is a very good place to go to school because the professors are very interested in teaching and in the success of their students.

The next day Professor Browning drove me to Huron, where I visited the Joint Professional Development Conference of the South Dakota Science Teachers Association and the South Dakota Council of Teachers of Mathematics. There I gave a session talk in which I explained the purpose of the Flying Circus of Physics. Then I gave the banquet talk, where Professor Micheline Hickenbotham of Black Hills State University stood on top of the bed of nails, steadied by Professor Browning. I also had the opportunity of meeting the Brenda Murphey of Rapid City Academy. These K-12 math and science teachers are extremely dedicated, in spite of their rock-bottom salaries. They are driven by their love of teaching.

I’ll try to post photos soon.

2008-01-30T05:54:00.000-08:00

The photo here (courtesy of Virginia L.Shuford Freire) shows a “glass frog,” a type of frog that inhabits tropical regions. Its skin is so transparent that you can clearly see the internal organs. Why can we see through the skin? Why aren’t you and I transparent? That is the "spotlight story" for February at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/. The other stories for February are

1. Geoffrey Pyke's World War II plan to convert an iceberg into an aircraft carrier.

2. Throwing very hot water into very cold air --- how the water freezes before it hits the ground --- lots of videos of people with little more to do in life than to throw hot water into the air.

3. The next in the series of bar (pub) tricks, with the underlying physics explained.

4. The terribly frightening video showing Scott Macarney crashing in his final jump in the downhill ski race at Kitzbuehel last month. What went wrong?

As always, the archives at the web site contain all the stories posted since the site began, with hundreds of links to videos and photos. And if you are really interested in pursuing the stories, the pdf files contain thousands of links and over 10,000 references to the scientific literature. So, if you want something more interesting than sitting around waiting for your skin to become transparent, come to the web site. And if you want to see me on videos from television, read the next blog item here.

2008-01-24T13:52:00.000-08:00

Television
As mentioned in the last FCP email newsletter, I recently made several appearances on "The Daily Planet" on the Discovery Channel in Canada with my longtime friend and host of the show Jay Ingram. The first episode is about the electric-pickle Christmas tree and the second is about the common bathtub vortex. Go to
http://www.gumfrog.com/dailyplanet and use Username: previewguest
Password: d1sc0very (use the number "1" and the number zero "0" instead of letters)
Video 1 (electric pickle): choose Dec 2007.
Scroll down to Dec 20 / 07
Click on "Fact of the Matter"

Video 2 (bathtub vortex): choose Jan 2008
Scroll down to Jan 22 / 08
Click on "Fact of the Matter"

Video 3 (snapping sound of cereal, and the Cheerios effect): Choose Jan 2008
Scroll down to Jan 30 / 08
Click on "Fact of the Matter - Cereal"

Video 4 (the physics of wadding and folding paper): Choose Feb 2008
Scroll down to Feb 05 / 08
Click on "Fact of the Matter"

Video 5 (the toy putt-putt boat: Choose Feb 2008
Scroll down to Feb 12 / 08
Click on "Fact of the Matter"

Vidoe 6 (the spaghetti effect): Choose Mar 2008
Scroll down to Mar 04 / 08
Click on "Fact of the Matter"

Video 7 (bubbles go down in freshly poured Guinness beer): Choose Mar 2008
Scroll down to Mar 18 / 08
Choose "Guinness Bubbles"

Video 8 (the teapot effect): Choose Apr 2008
Scroll down to Apr 01 / 08
Choose Fact of the Matter

Video 9 (tumbling toast): Choose Apr 2008
Scroll down to Apr 08 / 08
Choose Fact of the Matter

2008-01-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

German translation of The Flying Circus of Physics 2nd edition

Available at Amazon.de

http://www.amazon.de/fliegende-Zirkus-Physik-Fragen-Antworten/dp/3486580671/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199127731&sr=8-1

2007-12-31T22:31:00.000-08:00

In 2007, the site www.flyingcircusofphysics.com received more than 100,000 visits from over 130 countries. Pretty good, I think.

2007-12-31T22:16:00.000-08:00

In December, I made a delightful trip to the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Canada, to talk about physics demonstrations, The Flying Circus of Physics, and the Fundamentals of Physics (the textbook I write). The weather was frigid and I just barely missed 18 inches of snow, but the faculty were warm and thoughtful. Great trip, and again I did not burn myself by much with the molten lead demonstration.

2007-11-25T19:41:00.000-08:00

Here is an email I received yesterday:

This is to let you know that once again I assigned a library report based on The Flying Circus of Physics for my PHYS 1090 class at the University of Wyoming. (The title of the class is “Fundamentals of the Physical Universe”; the class is physics and chemistry for elementary education majors.) The students each chose a question from your book, developed references, and reported on the question and its answer both as a web page and an oral presentation to the class. You weren’t around to see the oral presentations, but you can see the reports at http://www.barransclass.com/phys1090/circus/circus_alist.html . Thanks again for writing the book. It’s a great resource.
The reports are listed here alphabetically by the authors’ last names. Click on any title to open the report.
· Tara Anson: Singing wine glasses
· Kaleyne Belrose: Fat-free pizza cheese
· Ronny Brian: What keeps a kite aloft?
· Sarah Burns: Igloos
· Lindsey Fertig: Is that your cereal talking?
· Heidi Galagan: Speed of sound and temperature
· Rebecca Gonzales: Drinking hot coffee, eating hot pizza
· Crystle Gottula: Red lunar eclipses
· Codi Guthrie: Bull riding
· Ashley Henry: How ducks stay dry
· Jennifer Jang: Mountain Clouds
· Vivienne Larimore: Do cats have nine lives?
· Rebecca Lauffenburger: The unreturnable Z-shot
· Katherine Mattison: Walk or run in the rain?
· Kathy McConkie: Surviving a crashing elevator
· Sara McIntosh: Surfing
· Jon Miller: Howling of the Wind
· Colton Parish: Groaning pipes
· Jessica Patrick: Snoring
· Emily Pulley-Hamilton: Hollow polar bear hairs
· Amanda Reimer: How rainbows form
· Michelle Ross: Singing in the shower
· Jennifer Sharp: Enlarging the moon
· Sara Simpson: Sparking Wint-O-Green LifeSavers
· Emily Sorensen: Packing M&M’s
· Jessica Sparks: Cracking your knuckles
· Sami Swing: Snowflakes
· Mykah Trujillo: Silence after snowfall
· Jill Wiebers: High-altitude baking
· Courtney Young: Sand pyramids
Best regards,

Richard Barrans, Ph.D., M.Ed. Assistant Lecturer Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Wyoming

Thanks, Dr. Barrans.
I really enjoyed reading each web page and picked up a number of interesting ideas that will eventually show up on the Flying Circus of Physics website. For example, Kaleyne Belrose talks about the physics of the special pans used in microwaving a pizza; I did not know about that physics.
Ronny Brian has lots of links to the physics of kites that I did not know about, such as the one to NASA. Lindsey Fertig has some good links to the question of why Rice Krispies go "snap, crackle, and pop" when milk is added to them. (That will be a topic on the FCP website soon.) Codi Guthrie has some points about the physics of bull riding that had escaped me when I wrote the FCP book. (Codi, is that your brother in the photo?)
Kathy McConkie has a really cool figure about what to do if you find yourself in a freely falling elevator. And Mykah Trujillo has some links (brand new to me) about the silence after a snowfall.
I enjoyed all the essays and wish I could have been there for the oral presentations.
-- Jearl Walker

2007-10-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

Jessica Schwan, a student at Cleveland State University, shows off her Flying Circus of Physics tee-shirt. Her choice is gothic black, one of several styles.

2007-08-31T18:41:00.000-07:00

This last week, I gave The Flying Circus of Physics talk at the Military Academy at West Point, which is one of the most impressive academic environments I have ever seen. In a huge auditorium, I faced about 1000 cadets, all of whom use the physics textbook that I write, Fundamentals of Physics. Perhaps lucky for me, they were in only their second week of the book and not in the really tough stuff in the electricity and magnetism chapters that come about midway. So, they were still in a good mood.
Earlier in the day, I ate lunch in the West Point mess hall, which was an experience I'll never forget. At about noon, 4000 cadets suddenly come into the mess hall, stood at their chairs, and then sat down to eat in a family-style setting. Lunch lasted no more than 30 minutes, and then they were all gone. I was really impressed by the organization and discipline of the operation and the friendliness and happiness of the students with whom I talked.
I was even more impressed by the quality of both faculty and students. They push themselves hard, with high standards.

2007-08-07T15:47:00.001-07:00

Reviews of The Flying Circus of Physics have appeared:
1. The Physics Teacher, which is a publication of the American Association of Physics Teachers:April 2007, Professor Edward Adelson of Ohio State University writes, "Because of its usefulness in exciting student interest, this book belongs in the library of everyone who teaches high school or college physics as well as in the school library." And he also writes, "It is easy for a physicist to become immeresed in this book and ignore colleagues, spouse, children, and earthquakes." You can see the full review at http://www.aapt.org/Store/description.cfm?ID=NB-50&Category=All&Type=All&Level=All&Keywords

2. Professor Hendrik Geyer in Die Burger, which is a newspaper in Suid-Afrikahttp://www.dieburger.com/Stories/Opinion/Columns/14.0.2672498534.aspx

3. Professor John Lienhard of the University of Houston has devoted one of the radio spots in his series "Engines of Our Ingenuity" to the Flying Circus. You can hear the audio and read the transcript at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2242.htm He talks about the very first version of the Flying Circus and mentions the new edition. He has also got a nifty photo of a fog bow. Then, click on "home" at the bottom of the page and start listening to the thousands of other radio spots he has made over the years, all excellent.

2007-08-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

2007 Summer Honors Institute at Cleveland State University

Here are the presenters in the physics section. I enjoyed every one of these presentations.

Faith Tandoc and Raymond Johnston explained how a falling cat might have a better chance of surviving a fall if they fall from a large height than a shorter one, owing to the cat spreading out and encountering additional air drag.

Nadia Ahlborg and Soham Chakraborty talked about the plight of someone falling through a hole that runs through the center of the Earth, and the possibility of a gravity train (a train powered only by gravity) running along a straight line through the Earth, from city to city.

Jennie Simson and Masami Matsuyama discussed the nature of quasars, mentioning the supermassive black hole that powers a quasar. Their apparent motion relative to us is almost lightspeed.

Krissy Bodnar discussed Archimedes’s principle in the situation where the fluid density is varied.

Tyler Cullinan and Emily Hascher talked about how a certain type of lizard can run over the top of water without become submerged.

Richard Pham and Andy Kimble analyzed projectile motion. In particular they discussed the old question: if one ball is dropped vertically and a second ball is shot out horizontally, which one will hit the floor first.

Priya Datta and Meredith Harris discussed Newton’s second law of motion, tying it into the hang time in ballet and the movement of the giant stone blocks in the formation of Stonehenge.

Bridgitte Petrash and Andrea Shergalis presented material about the production of vortex rings as made by a smoker and a porpoise. They also talked about the stability of a rectangular floating container as the container is filled with water.

Stephen Meil and Grace Patuwo talked about the conservation of both energy and momentum in elastic collisions. They also talked about the use of air bags in increasing the duration of a collision in order to decrease the magnitude of the collision force. They demonstrated the chain collision when a tennis ball and a basketball are dropped, with the tennis ball on top.

Myles Davis, Alexandria Claytor, and Shaniguea Fails discussed the motion of a ball down an inclined ramp, the classic Galileo incline demonstration.

Lauren Reese and Dung Vo talked about momentum, impulse, collision duration, and collision force.

Kelly Clatterbuck and Alexandria Cooke talked about the conservation of energy in an isolated system. They also talked about the “two-spring surprise” and the Wilberforce pendulum, as shown in The Flying Circus of Physics.

Tian You, Justin Duane, and Mansoor Khan discussed the flight of paper airplanes

Carl Friess and Dakota Piorkowski discussed the physics of lacrosse, the right and wrong ways to throw a ball with the stick.

Anastacia Strosser and Kara Thomas examined the fate of a falling cat and how they can use air drag to decrease its rate of fall.

Mohiuddin Ahmed, Ian Conant, and Mike Lombardo talked about elastic and ineleastic collisions, involving the conservation of momentum.

Dennis Arutyunov, Vija Prashant, and Vinai Suresh give a PowerPoint show (with rap) about the motion of a car.

2007-08-02T15:08:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from the Annual Summer Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers where a high point was a superior lecture by Neil deGrasse Tyson of the American Museum of Natural History and Director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. You may already know him from American television. If you ever get a chance of hearing him in person, go.

Later this month I'll give the Flying Circus of Physics talk at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

2007-04-22T22:55:00.000-07:00

In April 2007, I gave the Flying Circus of Physics talk at the University of California at San Diego to faculty and students. The campus was lovely, the weather was wonderful (I had snow the preceding week back home in Cleveland!), and the audience was delightful. Professor Dan Dubin stood on me while I was in the beds of nails. I think he was reluctant to hurt me, unlike some of the motorcycle gangs I used to hang out with.

The next day, I ventured into LA for the second time within a month, this time to give the FCP talk in the early morning class of Professor Chris Gould at the University of Southern California (USC). The day was dark and rainy, and …. Wait! This was LA --- no rain for some six months. I show up and need to haul the boxes of my equipment across campus and it rains!

Still, in spite of the rain, the 9:00 am class was very tolerant of me, and Professor Gould stood on top of me while I was in the beds of nails. At least two of the students showed up with skateboards, obviously having just skateboarded through the rain. That is, by the way, one of the best ways to get through rain to minimize how wet you get, as discussed in Chapter 1 of the Flying Circus of Physics book.

The book also discusses traffic jams and shock waves on freeways. The freeways in LA could be someone’s PhD dissertation on shockwaves, especially when it rains because rain there is so infrequent that every driver seems to drive in shock when the road is wet. That is, accidents are plentiful. They should see what driving is like in a blizzard in Cleveland. Now that would put fear in their hearts (and rapidly increase their insurance premiums).

2007-04-02T05:45:00.000-07:00

In March 2007, the Flying Circus of Physics appeared in the early-morning physics class of Professor Matt Anderson at San Diego State University and then, later in the day, at a gathering of students and faculty at San Diego University. Two days later, it popped up in another gathering of students and faculty at UCLA, where they were celebrating pi day.

All three schools were a delight to visit and the faculty reception was very nice. Both the bed-of-nails stunt and the molten-lead stunt went just fine, giving me just the right amount of pain. (They are like eating hot sauce, which I crave: I want a certain level of pain to launch the endorphins in the brain, giving a sense of well being. However, I don’t want so much that I roll around screaming on the floor, which tends to get me kicked out of restaurants.)
I hope to bring the Flying Circus back to southern California in a few weeks, to USC and UCal at San Diego. I need another hit of endorphins.

2007-01-31T05:56:00.000-08:00

The Flying Circus of Physics show on the road:
In January 2007, I gave the Flying Circus of Physics talk for the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio Wesleyan University, a delightful school. The molten lead demonstration went well (i.e., I did not lose any fingers), and Professor Barbara Andereck graciously stood on the bed of nails. Later, and possibly because of all the pain, the Chairman Bradley Trees presented me with a large stuffed penguin, sporting a scarf knitted by Professor Andereck, with the initials OWU at one end. If you use my textbook Fundamentals of Physics, you know that I am quite fond on penguins, placing them in illustrations throughout the book. Here is a link to a photo by Joy Parker for This Week Community Newspapers (Delaware):

http://www.thisweeknews.com/?sec=delaware&story=sites/thisweeknews/012107/Delaware/News/012107-News-294120.html

In November 2006, the Flying Circus show came to Kent State University, where the audience was wonderfully responsive. However, I could not do the normal ending with the fingers-into-molten-lead demonstration because the gas flow to the burner became clogged. I was disappointed because pain is sure-fire way to end a talk. If you would like to see the account (by Anna Riggenbach) that ran in the student newspaper (Daily Kent Stater), along with a good close up shot of the beds of nails (by Katie Roupe), visit this site:

http://media.www.stateronline.com/media/storage/paper867/news/2006/11/16/News/Nailing.Down.Physics-2463347.shtml?sourcedomain=www.stateronline.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com

Links to more photographs are given below in this blog site.

2006-12-14T11:35:00.000-08:00

During the fall 2006 term, Richard Barrans of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Wyoming had the students in his class for elementary education majors write short essays on some of the subjects in The Flying Circus of Physics, using the list of references available at the book's website: www.flyingcircusofphysics.com
He has posted the essays at
http://www.barransclass.com/phys1090/circus/circus_alist.html and I have enjoyed reading each of them. If you teach physics or any type of physical science, you might consider making a similar assignment.

2006-10-20T08:57:00.000-07:00

I recently gave the Flying Circus of Physics talk to students at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) after being asked by student Jennifer Kalb of the Physics Club. I included the two stunts I introduced to physics education a long time ago and which are now associated with my name: lying on a bed of nails and dipping my fingers into molten lead. (Both are very dangerous, especially the one with the lead, which involves several subtle dangers. Indeed, I have been hurt many times. So, do not even think about repeating these stunts.)
Yvette Cendes, one of the students at CWRU, wrote a very nice account of the talk in the campus newspaper The Observer for October 13, 2006. Included is a really good photograph taken by Benjamin Chodroff of my fingers just as they are entering the molten lead and as lead is splashing toward my gothic-black Flying Circus of Physics tee shirt (I think this photo is way cool). Here is a link to the article and photograph:
http://observer.case.edu/Archives/Volume_39/Issue_7/Story_1116/
That photograph and another excellent Chodroff photograph (Jennifer Kalb standing on me while I am between the beds of nails---she appears to be in more pain than I am) can be viewed at
http://www.benchodroff.com/gallery/2006/20061011-Jearl_Walker/IMG_4177.JPG.html
Photographs of me with the beds of nails are also available from Cleveland State University at the following web site. The shots, which were taken by Tony Carter and made while I posed for the Cleveland newspaper The Plain Dealer, show Amanda Beach (one of my students at the time) standing on top of the beds while I am sandwiched between them. Dr MJ Saunders, who was Dean of the College of Science, is making sure that Amanda does not fall. The newspaper photographer can also be seen. In order that he got a good shot, I was in the "sandwich" for about 5 minutes while he took many shots from many angles. All this was extremely painful, especially considering that I had to constantly smile for the camera! When I got off the beds, Amanda was most sorry for the pain her weight had caused. I thought the pain was well worth the result.
http://sciences.csuohio.edu/print_gallery.php?key=Physics+in+Action%3A+Jearl+Walker
The nails and lead demonstrations are discussed in the new edition of The Flying Circus of Physics. Use the link at the right of the screen here to go to the web site associated with the book, or use this link
http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com
At that web site I am posting fresh stories and updates around the first of each month. Soon some of the stories will be about these two demonstrations---the successes, and also the failures (lots of pain there). --- Jearl Walker

2006-10-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Flying Circus of Physics

Word has spread through hospitals about the danger of using Purell, the hand sanitizer. Is it really true that if a spark jumps from you while you have Purell on your hands, that the Purell can burn? FCP_fan

2006-07-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

The Flying Circus of Physics web site (find the button off to the right here to go to the site) is just getting started and we're still working out a few bugs, so please bear with us. I'm hoping that this blog site is where you and I can talk and where you can share ideas with others. Since the original FCP book was published world wide, I think blogging this site will probably be also. On that note, I am pleased to tell you that within 3 weeks of publication, the book landed 2 translation agreements: Korean and German. I'll soon start posting new FCP topics on the web site and updating the references. Oh, you might check out the store---we've already got some FCP tee shirts and a mug. -Jearl