Presentations

Driven RLC Circuit

rlc circuit

What It Shows

The amplitudes and relative phases of the voltages across the individual elements of a series RLC circuit varies with the frequency of the driving voltage. The voltages of the three elements plus the driver...

What it shows:

A lens seems to lose its ability to focus when immersed in water. This models the inability of us...

Michelson Interferometer

What it shows:

A device to measure distances to an accuracy of fractions of the wavelength of light, it also provided the critical experiment for the non-existence of the ether and for the constancy of the speed of light in all inertial frames.

...

Syrup Tube

What it shows:

Linearly polarized light, propagating down a long glass tube filled with corn syrup, is made to rotate its direction of polarization by the optically active corn syrup. The intensity of the 90° scattered light varies dramatically, in a periodic manner, along the length of the tube -- the intensity being zero when the dipole radiators oscillate in the line of sight direction, and maximum intensity when they oscillate perpendicular to the line of sight. Scattered light is most intense when the electric field vector is perpendicular to the line of sight.

...

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:

Gamma ray spectroscopy is used to detect the minute amount of radioactive potassium-40 present in the human body. Using a NaI(Tl) scintillation detector in conjunction with a multichannel pulse-height analyzer (PHA), 1.46 MeV gammas originating from the human body are detected. The source of these gammas is K-40 which has a half-life of 1.26 billion years, and is the main source of radioactivity inside the body. The second most active radionuclide in the body, carbon-14 (5,730 yr half-life), can not be detected with this apparatus because it is a...

What it shows:

A liquid can be taken to a temperature below its freezing point if it is cooled slowly and there are no nucleation sites for crystallization to begin. In this demonstration you can create a flask of liquid water at below 0°C that, when 'seeded' by the introduction of a nucleation site (in this case dry ice) will be instantaneously frozen.

How it works:

This is pretty much described in Setting it Up.

...

What it shows:

With an air pressure of 10⁵ Nm^-2 at sea level, even a heavy duty oil drum will be crushed if it has nothing inside to balance the pressure.

How it works:

The screw cap on the drum is fitted with a vacuum pump connector. Simply turn on the pump and wait; it takes about 8 minutes to pump down, so you can carry on with what you were doing interrupted by various creaks and bangs as the drum's side walls begin to give....

Moon Orbit Model

Mechanical model of Earth-Moon orbit around Sun.

What it shows:

A model to demonstrate the precession of the Moon's orbit relative to the ecliptic. It is useful for discussing the conditions necessary for the occurrence of an eclipse.

How it works:

A large aluminum disk represents the plane of the Moon's orbit about the Earth. The disk lies flush with the box surface it sits in; the plane of the box representing the Ecliptic. The Moon's own orbit is inclined at 5° to the ecliptic, and precesses with an 18 year period. You...

What it shows:

The magnetic field lines of the Earth can be represented by the field lines of a bar magnet.

How it works:

The Earth's magnetic field is basically a magnetic dipole. It can therefore be represented to first approximation by the field of a bar magnet. The shape of the field lines can be highlighted by the sprinkling of iron filings, or by the use of plotting compasses. The latter method has the advantage of showing the...

Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations

Presentations

What It Shows

What it shows:

What it shows:

What it shows:

What it shows:

How it works:

What it shows:

What it shows:

How it works:

...

What it shows:

How it works:

What it shows:

How it works:

What it shows:

How it works:

Pages

Demo Subjects

Key to Catalog Listings

214cc242b41c7c56d60acd8c0b8443ef

6a44dfa1d84d64f7cd2ee1fcd93b8644