What it shows:

Hero's Principle states that light undergoing a reflection from a plane surface will follow the path of least distance. Here is a mechanical analog showing that when the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection, the path length is minimized.

How it works:

The light path is represented by a 2m length of nylon rope that runs from a fixed end, 'reflects' around a pulley, back up to a second pulley (figure 1). The surplus rope is held taught by a 1kg mass. The pulleys, 6cm in diameter are free to move...

Umbrella decorated with the constellations.

What it shows:

The aberration of starlight is the shift in the position of the image of a star due to the rotation of the Earth about the Sun, and is a consequence of the finite velocity of light. For a star directly overhead, a telescope will have to be angled by v/c to the vertical where v = velocity of the Earth in space, in order that the telescope be pointing at the star. The equipment necessary to show aberration is one umbrella.

How it works:

The best way to picture this...

What it shows:

Determine the capacitance of the human body as follows. Charge a person of unkown capacitance to 1000 volts. The person is subsequently connected (in parallel) to an external capacitor of known capacitance. The voltage measured across the capacitor combination allows one to determine the unknown capacitance of the person (typically between 180 — 200 pF).

How it works:

A 1000 volt power supply (output is in the microamp range) is used to put charge on a person. We assume that the amount of charge transferred to the...

What it shows:

Ball bearings simulate atoms in a lattice sitting at local potential minimums. Giving them energy excites the atoms and they oscillate about their equilibrium positions in these wells; only with large amounts of energy can they be truly dislocated.

How it works:

A piece of wood 100 × 25 × 2cm acts as the ‘potential’ structure of the lattice. The atoms, 3cm diameter ball bearings sit at the bottom of a cosine varying potential cut to about 10cm depth in the wood by a jig saw.The balls are held in the 2-dimensional...