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Working model to show Kepler's 1st and 2nd laws and the equivalence of the area law to the law of equants.

What it shows:

A demonstration illustrating the equivalence of Kepler's second law, the Law of Areas, with the Law of Angles.

How it works:

In order...

What it shows:

Here we set up a convection cycle, where we heat part of a fluid; it expands, rises, then cools and sinks. A two dimensional model for real convection cycles in the atmosphere, oceans or stellar interiors.

How it works:

The convection cell...

The microcystaline structure of a steel wire changes from body-centered-cubic to face-centered-cubic as it is heated to red-hot.

What it shows:

Iron atoms are arranged in a body-centered cubic pattern (BCC) up to 1180 K. Above this temperature it makes a...

Room temperature water boils in an evacuated bell jar and then freezes due to rapid surface evaporation.

Three-dimensional plaster model of PVT relationships. Other versions exist, one by J.C.Maxwell and shown here.

Images of the plaster phase surface of water.

Observation of phase changes with corresponding pressure changes.

A two ml. plastic microcentrifuge vial and a small shop vise are used together to melt dry ice.

Wear safety glasses for this demo. The vial can explode, or shoot out of the vice, from the...

A 5-gallon bottle containing air and water vapor is slightly pressurized; a sudden release of the pressure cools the vapor, forming a cloud.

The bottle is a heavy Pyrex carboy with tooled mouth. A one-holed rubber stopper fits the mouth and is air-tight. A...

Evaporation of water on duck's head cools vapor inside causing low pressure, etc.

How it works:

Dippy Duck is a small heat engine consisting of a hollow glass barbell with opposite ends able to seesaw about a knife edge pivot. One end of the barbell is...

A photon (modeled by a bouncing ping-pong ball) is observed from two reference frames and provides the motivation for time dilation.