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An old bomb calorimeter made by the Parr Instrument Company for show-and-tell. Circa 1964.

What it shows

The bulk modulus of water is about 2.2 x 10⁹ Pa, which means that a change of 1 N/m² of external pressure on the liquid is able to change a given volume of it by a factor of 4.5 x 10^-10 (for comparison, the same pressure change would produce...

What it shows

We have three 20 oz. soda bottles, one filled with water, one filled with sand, and one filled with air. A spring scale shows the water-filled bottle to weigh approximately 6N in air, and nearly 0N when it is fully submerged in a large...

What it shows

Bernoulli's Principle states that the pressure exerted by a fluid is velocity dependent; the faster the velocity the lower the pressure. This can be demonstrated by a form of Venturi tube, a pipe with a narrow constriction which forces an...

What it shows

For a body to reach terminal velocity when falling through a fluid, the drag force (given by Stoke's Law) coupled with the buoyant force (from Archimedes' principle) need to balance the falling object's weight. Leaving derivations to other...

What it Shows

J. L. M. Poiseulle and G. H. L. Hagen determined that the laminar flow rate of an incompressible fluid along a pipe is proportional to the fourth power of the pipe's radius. To test this idea, we'll show that you need sixteen tubes to pass...

Bread dough is stiff but still flows. A big blob of foodstuff that slumps over time, like Silly Putty but large and edible.

Make bread dough enough for a couple loaves, and knead it stiff enough that a round ball of dough takes half an hour to slump to...

An egg size piece of clear ice is dropped into a hot frying pan, with hissing and melting and steaming from solid to liquid to gas . An egg is carefully dropped into another hot frying pan, and it transforms from liquid to solid.

A small water bottle in...

A brownie pan with two food safe thermocouples, one in the brownie batter and one in the air next to the pan, is put in a pre-heated oven, and the temperature profiles recorded and displayed.

Clean copper wire is used to make an armature for the...

A volunteer puts her hands in oil and water in large beakers on thermostated hot plates, at about 60°C. The water beaker hand is removed almost instantly. The oil beaker hand can remain indefinitely.

The heat capacity of oil is about half that of water...