Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

Reactions of Li, Na, and K with Water

Lithium, sodium, and potassium undergo reactions with water.

Two liters of warm water in large pyrex vessel, covered with fine mesh stainless steel screen, is on a stool close by in-floor vent hood. Add a few drops from the phenolphthalein indicator bottle, and a few drops of 1M hydrochloric acid if the warm tap water turns pinkish.

Video camera is clamped to the stool leg, and pointed at the bottom of the beaker. Before class, frame the shot and focus on the center of the beaker.

Using the long forceps, pick out the coil of lithium wire from the mineral oil in...

Newton's Apple

Apple electronically released from platform; fall time given by special circuit and digital display.

What it shows:

This is a free-fall-from-rest experiment in which an apple (or any other object of comparable size) is dropped from the lecture hall ceiling into a catching bucket on the floor. By measuring the (1) distance and (2) duration of the fall, an accurate (± 0.022%) determination of the acceleration due to gravity can be made:

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What it shows:

The transmission and detection of radio frequency electromagnetic radiation by use of LC oscillator circuits recreates the discovery by Hertz of a method to generate and detect electromagnetic waves.

How it works:

The core of the apparatus (figure 1) is a series LRC circuit (the R provided by the circuit resistance). The inductor L is a 1m diameter loop made of 1 inch copper tubing which also serves as the radiating antenna. A transformer ¹ supplies 15kV to charge up the capacitor ² until...

What it shows:

There are various types of mirages possible, the details depending on whether the hot air is above or below the cool air and how sharp the transition is from cool to warm. This demonstration simulates what happens when a dark asphalt road gets much hotter than the air around it--the air next to it becomes hotter than the higher air and light traveling through this temperature gradient is bent so much that it appears reflected. The shimmering water on a road's surface or the blue oasis in the desert are natural examples of blue skylight being...

What it shows:

Sodium 'D' line absorption showing up as a black line in the yellow of a continuous spectrum. Good as a simulation of the sodium portion of the Fraunhoffer absorption spectrum caused by atoms in the solar atmosphere; it does not however, resolve the 5890/5896Å doublet.

How it works:

As in the Sun, which is a black body source surrounded by an atmosphere of cooler gas containing many heavy atoms including sodium, we can set up a black body spectrum using a slide projector, and provide a hot sodium 'atmosphere' using...

What it shows:

In the absence of air resistance all bodies, regardless of size or weight, fall with the same acceleration at the same point above the Earth. Here a feather and a dime (see Comments) fall under the influence of gravity in an environment where there is no air to mess things up.

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What it shows:

Due to the rotation of the Earth, the plane of oscillation of a pendulum will rotate with respect to the surface beneath it. We expect a rotation of about 10˚/hr at our latitude of 42.˚

How it works:

Here the observer standing on the Earth resides in the reference frame, with the swinging pendulum oscillating in a rotating frame. From the pendulum's point of view, it keeps oscillating in the same plane, but the Earth spins below it. The deflection from its original plane...

Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

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Key to Catalog Listings

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