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Toys in physics lectures and demonstrations - a brief review

The use of toys in physics teaching is common. This brief review of the physics of toys intends to show that they are not only very useful in lectures and demonstrations in order to motivate students but also very interesting from a scientific point of view. However, since their physics is sometimes too cumbersome, the effect can be the opposite. We call attention to some subtleties of toys used in physics or i...

Physics of the fire piston and the fog bottle

We analyze two irreversible adiabatic processes occurring in two thermodynamical devices: the fire piston and the “fog bottle”. In the first, an abrupt adiabatic compression of air inside a piston causes the burning of a small paper piece, since the final temperature reaches 700 K. In the second, an abrupt adiabatic expansion of a gas at high pressure leads to a temperature decrease with condensation of water v...

As ciências físicas e naturais em Coimbra

Quantitative experiments on supersaturated solutions for the undergraduate ther...

Quantitative experiments on supersaturated solutions are presented. They serve to introduce topics such as the solubility curve and irreversible phase transitions. Experimental results are analysed with the aid of Hess’s law. These kind of experiments, which in the present case employed sodium acetate trihydrate, may be chosen as a student’s project in experimental thermodynamics

Orbitário: exploração de orbitais hidrogenóides com realidade aumentada

A aprendizagem da Mecânica Quântica é normalmente considerada difícil pelos alunos. Vários trabalhos não só comprovam como apelam a novas metodologias de ensino e aprendizagem. A utilização de recursos computacionais é uma tendência crescente existindo já casos práticos da sua utilização em sala de aula. A realidade aumentada é uma tecnologia inovadora que permite misturar imagens de um ambiente real com modelo...

Experiments with the drinking bird

We made some experiments with the drinking bird oriented by a quantitative model for its period of oscillation. The effect of humidity on the motion was studied, concluding that there are two evaporation regimes. We made a computer simulation which describes well the drinking bird dynamics

A demonstration apparatus for the Cartesian diver

The Cartesian diver is a nice toy and an intriguing Physics instrument. Recently we have reported an experimental study on the Cartesian diver statics and dynamics [1], using a specially designed apparatus which is much larger than the usual models. The Cartesian diver is an interesting example of the so-called “fold catastrophe”, the pressure being the control parameter [1], and this behavior is well observed ...

Experiments with the sunbird

A theoretical description of the sunbird ; drinking bird without any external liquid ; is compared with experiment. Our sunbird has a black painted body which is illuminated by a light bulb. The transient times and the oscillation periods given by a simulation of the dynamics agree with the measured ones

Revisiting Black’s Experiments on the Latent Heats of Water

The Cartesian diver and the fold catastrophe

The motion of the Cartesian diver is studied, both theoretically and experimentally, and interpreted as an example of a fold catastrophe, where the control parameter is the external pressure.