Related papers: Cycloid Experiment for freshmen physics labs
Dynamical properties are studied for escaping particles, injected through a hole in an oval billiard. The dynamics is considered for both static and periodically moving boundaries. For the static boundary, two different decays for the…
Past studies of the billiard-ball paradox, a problem involving an object that travels back in time along a closed timelike curve (CTC), typically concern themselves with entirely classical histories, whereby any trajectorial effects…
We study some statistical properties for the behavior of the average squared velocity -- hence the temperature -- for an ensemble of classical particles moving in a billiard whose boundary is time dependent. We assume the collisions of the…
We investigate the dynamics of no-slip billiards, a model in which small rotating disks may exchange linear and angular momentum at collisions with the boundary. We give new results on periodicity and boundedness of orbits which suggest…
The pioneering work of G.I. Taylor on the turbulent dispersion of aerosols is exactly one century old and provides an original way of introducing both diffusive processes and turbulence at an undergraduate level. Light enough particles…
The aim of the paper is to unify the efforts in the study of integrable billiards within quadrics in flat and curved spaces and to explore further the interplay of symplectic and contact integrability. As a starting point in this direction,…
General relativity predicts the existence of closed timelike curves (CTCs), along which an object could travel to its own past. A consequence of CTCs is the failure of determinism, even for classical systems: one initial condition can…
Slow flow of the viscous liquid is a thought-provoking experiment that challenges students, academics and public to think about some fundamental questions in modern science. In the Queensland demonstration, the world-longest running…
If a particle has to fall first vertically 1 m from A and then move horizontally 1 m to B, it takes a time $t(=\tau_1+\tau_2=\tau_3=3/\sqrt{2g})=0.67$ s. Under gravity and without friction, if it sides down on a linear track inclined at…
We introduce a geometric dynamical system where iteration is defined as a cycling composition of different maps acting on a space composed of three or more lines in $\mathbb{R}^2$. This system is motivated by the dynamics of iterated…
We present a thermodynamics experiment suitable for first year undergraduate students employing Stirling Engines to create a demonstration of energy transformation and to measure the mechanical efficiency of such engines. Using an…
Brownian motion is the erratic motion of an object due to collisions with the fluid in which it is immersed. In this work, we detail a tabletop laboratory demonstration of underdamped Brownian motion wherein a macroscopic particle resting…
In this experimental work we study billiard trajectories in triangular pyramids and try to establish conditions that guarantee the existence (or absence) of 4-cycles (there can be not more, than three of them). We formulate conjectures and…
We consider the problem of finding paths of shortest transit time between two points (popularly known as Brachistochrone) for cylinders with off-centered center of mass, rolling down without slip, subject solely to the force of gravity.…
We apply the technique of K\'aroly Bezdek and Daniel Bezdek to study billiard trajectories in convex bodies, when the length is measured with a (possibly asymmetric) norm. We prove a lower bound for the length of the shortest closed…
The purpose of this paper is to study the transitive group-groupoids.
The paper presents a teaching module about liquid crystals. Since liquid crystals are linked to everyday student experiences and are also a topic of a current scientific research, they are an excellent candidate of a modern topic to be…
Several scenarios used in teaching feature a rolling motion with slipping that transitions to one without through friction with the ground. We summarise these transitions by introducing an unknown impulse that is transferred to the ground.…
Single and double-slit experiments are performed with two microwave billiards with the shapes of a rectangle, respectively, a quarter stadium. The classical dynamics of the former is regular, that of the latter is chaotic. Microwaves can…
The Brachistochrone problem, which describes the curve that carries a particle under gravity in a vertical plane from one height to another in the shortest time, is one of the most famous studies in classical physics. There is a similar…