Helpmyphysics

Hi physics lovers. Here is the first nasty 7 test of the session.
Remember it is only nasty if you have not studied.

Our third year physics class began building a wave machine from jelly babies, barbeque sticks and a roll of duck tape!

We hope to have a video made. In the meantime check out what the video should look like below.

Wave Machine

Click the above picture to take you to our virtual experiment to find the link between the wave speed, wavelength and frequency.
Have some fun. If the wave disappears press the reset button.

If you know that the speed of sound is 340m/s then you can work out how far away a thunderstorm is from your position.

The video below taken from Mr Mackenzie`s wonderful fizzics website. shows a thunderstorm in progress.

Time how long the thunder comes after the flash and use this time to calculate how far the thunderstorm is away.

Lightning from Daniel Dingemanse on Vimeo.

Today sees saw the launch of the last space shuttle. For thirty years this space craft has brought us joy and sadness. I can remember the first launch way back in 1981. I was thrilled as a physics undergraduate to see this new era of space exploration happening, especially when the astronauts carried out physics experiments in space and showed us the Earth in all its glory using modern tv and video.

There was the fantastic rescue of the Hubble Space Telescope but also the dire sadness of the two disasters.

The Challenger disaster of January 1986 was particularly sad because of the loss of the first school teacher on board Christine McAuliffe.

In 2003 a faulty tile caused the disaster of Columbia as it returned to Earth. In all fourteen astronauts lost their lives in the shuttle program.

Here is a link to a wonderful documentary on the space shuttle`s history.

Farewell Space shuttle and God`s speed on your final return.

Info Graphic on the Shuttle

Hi physics lovers! Here are some physics tricks you can try out during the summer holidays.
These tricks use physics and are part of a physics roadshow. You can try them out in the house and have some fun.
Take also a look at the best ever comedian that ever lived, the one and only Tommy Cooper.

Physics Tricks
Tommy Cooper

Look through the above slides and answer the questions on the last slide

The first couple of lessons for the new S3 Physics class had them brainstorming about what skills and knowledge they would need to embark on a space journey to Mars.

Here is there results below. They were superb at delivering their presentations.

Here is a news story about radiation from the BBC News website.
The story mentions terms like Becquerel and Sievert. These are the sort of news stories that you can now read after studying radiation

Find the article here.