Pauline Plooard, Fenelon Falls Secondary School

Two quick demonstrations from Pauline Plooard. Read More...

Tags: Motion, Pedagogy, Waves and Sound

John Wylie, The Toronto French School

Two years ago when I was in The Netherlands for the International Physics Olympiad, the Soviet team-leader, Sergey Krotov¹, demonstrated a remarkable toy, crafted to the highest standards by the technical staff at Moscow State University. It consisted of a series of simple pendulums of varying lengths which, when swung together, formed very beautiful patterns. I built one of my own which works just as well, using only bits and pieces that I found in my high school physics lab. Read More...

Tags: Waves and Sound

T.J. Elgin Wolfe, Faculty of Education, University of Toronto

Parallax is the apparent motion of one object with reference to a second object caused by a change in position of the viewer. Involve the class in the following way to introduce this concept. Read More...

Tags: Optics

Peter Zuech, Mother Teresa S.S., Scarborough

This idea was born while watching the Tonight Show. A popular entertainer demonstrated a wooden board upon which four coloured light bulbs in sockets were mounted along with a corresponding set of four coloured switches. No matter how the bulbs were rearranged in the sockets, the blue switch turned the blue bulb on and off, the red switch operated the red bulb, and so on. Johnny examined the bulbs, found them to be “normal” and was convinced that it was magic. Unable to determine how the four-bulb unit operated, we designed a simpler two-bulb version for use as a discrepant event in current electricity. Our unit used two white bulbs but coloured ones could be used as in the original unit. The only skills required to construct the unit are an ability to solder and the willingness to tinker a little. Read More...

Tags: Electricity