Related papers: Physics of Bamboo Rifle
Students have several misconceptions about thermodynamics. However, an understanding of basic concepts in this branch of physics remains fundamental to explain thermal phenomena. The purpose of this activity was to extend students'…
The rapid interaction of highly energetic particle beams with matter induces dynamic responses in the impacted component. If the beam pulse is sufficiently intense, extreme conditions can be reached, such as very high pressures, changes of…
We discuss the physics and modeling of latex-rubber slingshots. The goal is to get accurate speed predictions inspite of the significant real world difficulties of force drift, force hysteresis, rubber ageing, and the very non- linear,…
We have designed a toy brain and have written computer code that simulates it. This toy brain is flexible, modular, has hierarchical learning and recognition, has short and long term memory, is distributed (i.e. has no central control), is…
Two identical rubber balloons are partially inflated with air (to different extent) and connected by a hose with a valve. It is found that depending on balloon volumes, when the valve is opened the air will flow either from the larger…
The dynamics of active particles is of interest at many levels and is the focus of theoretical and experimental research. There have been many attempts to describe the dynamics of particles affected by random active forces in terms of an…
Safe yet stable grasping requires a robotic hand to apply sufficient force on the object to immobilize it while keeping it from getting damaged. Soft robotic hands have been proposed for safe grasping due to their passive compliance, but…
The acoustic emission from breaking a bamboo chopstick or a bundle of spaghetti is found to exhibit similar behavior as the famous seismic laws of Gutenberg-Richter, Omori, and Bath. By use of a force-sensing detector, we establish a…
Lightning balls are very rare natural phenomena that appear as free floating glowing globs, usually during electric activity in the atmosphere of the Earth. Each year, hundreds of eyewitness accounts of such strange events are reported to…
The Ping Pong gun or Ping Pong bazooka has been a popular and compelling tool for physics education. However, the design necessarily means the ball emerges at subsonic speed. The design has been modified to include a pressure chamber and a…
Thermodynamics is usually formulated on the presumption that the observer has complete information about the system he/she deals with: no parasitic current, exact evaluation of the forces that drive the system. For example, the acclaimed…
The notched stick, also known as the Gee-Haw-Whammy-Diddle, is a wooden toy able to convert linear vibration into rotational motion, whose behavior has been intriguing both children and physicists for decades. Here we derive an analytical…
Amyloid fibrillation is a protein self-assembly phenomenon that is intimately related to well-known human neurodegenerative diseases. During the past few decades, striking advances have been achieved in our understanding of the physical…
The Fluidyne is a two-part hot-air engine, which has the peculiarity that both its power piston and displacer are liquids. Both parts operate in tandem with the common working gas (air) transferring energy from the displacer to the piston…
Bubbles at a free surface surface usually burst in ejecting myriads of droplets. Focusing on the bubble bursting jet, prelude for these aerosols, we propose a simple scaling for the jet velocity and we unravel experimentally the intricate…
Big bubbles are largely used in physics laboratories to study 2D turbulence, surface wavers, fundamental properties of soap systems... On a more artistic point of view, blowing big bubbles is part of many artistic shows. Both communities…
Biofilms are complex, self-organized consortia of microorganisms that produce a functional, protective matrix of biomolecules. Physically, the structure of a biofilm can be described as an entangled polymer network which grows and changes…
Thermodynamic selection is an indirect competition between agents feeding on the same energy resource and obeying the laws of thermodynamics. We examine scenarios of this selection, where the agent is modeled as a heat-engine coupled to two…
Main results of researches of the electric erosive discharge afterglow plasma, of the fireballs being formed by this plasma and having some particular but deep similarities to the ball lightning are given. The analysis of our results and…
The field of plasmonic nanobubbles, referring to bubbles generated around nanoparticles due to plasmonic heating, is growing rapidly in recent years. Theoretical, simulation and experimental studies have been reported to reveal the…