All light is made up of waves of electromagnetic radiation. A spectroscope spreads each different wavelength to a different position within a spectrum of light. Music is digitally recorded as circular ...

Light becomes completely polarized parallel to the surface at one particular angle of reflection, called Brewster’s angle. Brewster’s angle for water is 53 degrees; for glass, it is 56 degrees; for ...

Even though you’re not aware of it, your eyes are always making tiny jittering movements. Each time your eyes move, they receive new information and send it to your brain. You need this constant new ...

Look at the beam from the side of the tank and then from the end of the tank (see diagram above). You can also let the light project onto a white card held at the end of the tank. From the side, the ...

The reflective power of a given surface is called the albedo ("whiteness" in Latin), which is the ratio of reflected energy compared to the amount hitting the surface. An opaque object that reflects ...

Make a simple mini-motor.Give the coil a spin to start it turning. If it doesn’t keep spinning on its own, check to make sure that the coil assembly is well balanced when spinning, that the enamel has ...

Does it matter which end is up?The dowel rotates more slowly when the mass is at the top, allowing you more time to adjust and maintain balance. When the mass is at the bottom, the stick has less ...

Speed up your spin.Newton found that an object in motion tends to remain in motion, in a straight line and at a constant speed, unless it is acted upon by a net force. Today, we call this observation ...

The colors you see here result from differences in the speed of polarized light as it travels through the transparent tape. In transparent tape, long polymer molecules are stretched parallel to the ...

Look at the edge of each fresnel prism and note which direction the ridges point. For the next step, you will need to orient both prisms so that the ridges point in the same direction. Lay each prism ...

The pneumatic tire and the chain drive, followed by the development of gears, revolutionized bicycling in the later 1800s. In the last fifteen years, there has been a revolution of sorts in the ...

One of the most exciting exercises I ever did as a kid was to make a scale model of the Solar System. Most of the pictures in my books made the distance between planets seem small and easy to travel.