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August 15, 2011

Global Warming in a coke bottle

Filed under: Physics — Tags: , , , , — Andy Cockburn @ 10:45 am

Here is a nice experiment that was brought to my attention by Mark Headlee.

You will need 2 x 2litre plastic coke bottles.  One should be about 1/3 full of coke the other should be identical but contain flat coke.  Agitate the coke so that CO2 is given off then seal the bottle.  This bottle contains a CO2 rich atmosphere.  The bottle with flat coke will have a nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere.  The bottles need to be sealed with a thermometer or temperature probe passing through the lid (I suppose you could also add a CO2 probe) but you need to be careful that the CO2 does not escape.  If both bottles are left in identical conditions in the sun the one containing CO2 should heat up faster.  Log temperatures for 10 to 20 minutes.

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May 7, 2011

Intensity of the Sun

Here is another practical that would be suitable to include in topic 8.  It could also be used in the astrophysics option.

The aim is to measure the solar constant, i.e. the amount of sunlight incident on each square meter perpendicular to the suns rays each second.

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May 1, 2011

Power radiated by a black body

Filed under: Physics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Andy Cockburn @ 11:30 am

Here is an interesting experiment that you can try with very simple equipment.  The energy radiated by a black body is given by

P  =  σAT4

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January 6, 2011

Phosphorous

Filed under: Chemistry — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , — David @ 12:35 pm

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I was teaching about the percentage of oxygen in the air today and intend to demo this next lesson using a bell jar and some phosphorous (click here for details).

Browsing through youtube I also found this interesting clip showing the violent reaction of phosphorus and oxygen in the air.

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October 3, 2010

MACHOS out, WIMPS (maybe) in: subatomic exploration



Patrick Decowski, physicist

Spending time this week with a nuclear physicist has truly unsettled my mind.  Oh for the simplicity of literature, where at least you know that the version of reality given is frankly the product of the imagination!  But in particle physics — well, maybe it’s all the product of the imagination, but maybe not.  Literary fiction cannot stretch to the world that subatomic physicists talk about and still be called plausible.  Paradoxically, though, the unrecognizable world that such physicists describe might actually be real as they search for the smallest particles of which matter can be made, and for the components of dark matter.

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