All light is made up of waves of electromagnetic radiation. A spectroscope spreads each different wavelength to a different position within a spectrum of light. Music is digitally recorded as circular ...

Make a simple mini-motor.Give the coil a spin to start it turning. If it doesn’t keep spinning on its own, check to make sure that the coil assembly is well balanced when spinning, that the enamel has ...

Tired of electrostatic experiments that just won’t work? This experiment will produce a spark that you can feel, see, and hear. Rub a foam plate with wool to give it a large electric charge, then use ...

A sharpened pencil, at least 6 inches (15 centimeters) long A long, straight, narrow pin—the narrower, the better A sheet of paper A vinyl record in reasonably good condition without too many ...

Light becomes completely polarized parallel to the surface at one particular angle of reflection, called Brewster’s angle. Brewster’s angle for water is 53 degrees; for glass, it is 56 degrees; for ...

Discover the outer limits of your eyes. Test the limits of your peripheral vision with a homemade version of a protractor. With the help of a friend, you can measure how much you can see out of the ...

Speed up your spin.Newton found that an object in motion tends to remain in motion, in a straight line and at a constant speed, unless it is acted upon by a net force. Today, we call this observation ...

When you blow into the spool or through the box, the air goes through the opening, hits the card or plate, and accelerates outward. The energy needed to accelerate the air comes from the energy stored ...

Place your index fingers (with hanger assembly attached) gently on the small flap of skin just in front of your ears, closing off the ear canal without putting your fingers into your ears. Swing the ...

The thin steel wire is a good conductor of electricity, but not as good as the copper wire, which is deliberately chosen to have very low resistance. Thus most of the resistance of the circuit is in ...

The pneumatic tire and the chain drive, followed by the development of gears, revolutionized bicycling in the later 1800s. In the last fifteen years, there has been a revolution of sorts in the ...

One of the most exciting exercises I ever did as a kid was to make a scale model of the Solar System. Most of the pictures in my books made the distance between planets seem small and easy to travel.