A popular activity for teachers each year is the “egg drop.” Each student gets an egg and some guidelines to make a container that will protect the egg and keep it from breaking when it is dropped from high in the air.
The teacher usually perches herself high atop the roof of the school and tosses the contraptions the kids have come up with to the ground as crowds of kids scream with delight. It’s great fun to hear the cheers and an occasional “darn!” when the egg drop engineers open their containers. This activity is a great lesson in critical thinking skills, problem solving and the physics of dropping an egg.
At Weather and Science Day on May 12th, 2010, students will test out their safe packaging skills to see if their egg will survive a 57 foot drop from the upper level of Coors Field.
Is it mind control or just a clever science trick? It’s a classic science experiment using an eye-dropper, a soda bottle filled with water, and some great showmanship. Explore the science and physics of Cartesian divers while amazing your friends with your telekinetic powers.
This experiment is named after Ren Descartes (1596-1650), a French scientist and mathematician who used the diver to demonstrate gas laws and buoyancy.
Hold your Cartesian diver bottle with one hand and squeeze and release. The diver sinks and floats based on the pressure (if you are squeezing) or decreased pressure (when you release) when holding the bottle of water. Increased pressure forces water up into the diver, compressing the air at the top. The increased mass of the diver will cause it to sink. Releasing the squeeze decreased the pressure on the air at the top of the eyedropper, and the
The Olympics may be over, but teachers and parents are still using the science behind the games to educate children.
Ice skating is a classic lesson in physics. When an ice skater spins, they are using angular momentum. In a spin, their arms act as weights. When arms are extended, the skater spins slowly. When the skater changes their moment of inertia and bring their arms into their body, they spin faster.
I brought this demonstration to Becky Ditchfield on the morning newscast. It’s my rule to never practice ahead of time with Becky. So, what you see on TV is the first time she’s ever seen the demo. I guess she’s sensitive to getting dizzy because she could barely read the teleprompter at the end of the segment. If I hadn’t of caught her, she would have spun into a half million dollar camera.
Team USA’s four-man bobsledding team is hoping to win their first gold in more than 60 years during the Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Bobsledding got its name in the 1890s in Switzerland because riders bobbed back and forth to increase their speed.
Today’s bobsledders use precision moves and a knowledge of physics to maximize velocity – the speed of the bobsled as it races downhill.
Acceleration is the increasing of the bobsled’s velocity. It begins during the 50-meter start when the team’s feet push against the ice to pick up speed. The team gets the bobsled moving by pushing the sled with maximum force.
While they are in the push stage, everything the bobsledders do is important. This is the riders’ only chance to apply force. There isn’t a way for them to apply more force once they are in the sled. If they can can go faster by even a tenth of a second at the top of the course, they can maintain an advantage all the way down the track.
Believe it or not, snowboarding is a study in potential and kinetic energy. The athletes who maximize both kinds of energy are the ones on the medal podium at the Vancouver Olympics.
Twelve years ago, snowboarding made its debut as an Olympic sport. The sport isn’t just about crazy lingo, going fast and jumping high. The athletes use the laws of gravity to build speed and keep their balance. They also use physics to gain speed and height in jumps.
The physics of snowboarding uses dynamic balance. When the snowboarder is in motion moving up and down the ramps, their balance is different than if they were just going down a slope.
As gravity pulls the snowboarders down the halfpipe, they gain speed. At the same time, they are being pushed against the sides by contact forces.
Snowboarders push back against the G-forces and build speed by pumping their legs up and down. By standing up against the extra forces in the curve, snowboarders add to their kinetic energy – the energy of motion. It gives them the speed
