125 Physics Projects for the Evil Genius

125 Physics Projects for the Evil Genius

“I canna’ change the laws of physics!” a noted starship engineer liked to say. Although we can’t change them, we can demonstrate physical laws in entertaining ways—thanks to 125 Physics Projects for the Evil Genius. Packed with helpful diagrams and photographs, Jerry Silver’s book features step-by-step instructions for 125 challenging and fun experiments across many areas of the field.

How do objects move in the absence of friction? How do we know that light is a wave? What is the size of a photon? Using easy-to-find parts and tools, this book describes ingenious ways to test everything from gravitational acceleration and Newton’s laws of motion to magnetic levitation and the charge of an electron. Each of the book’s generously illustrated projects features an idea or law to test, a list of parts and lucid instructions on what to do and which effects to measure.

You can, for example, build your own marble launcher to study the shape of a projectile’s trajectory, and use a blow dryer to send ping-pong balls racing inside a beaker to study centripetal force. We can create a vacuum inside a plastic tube to test if a coin or a feather falls faster in the absence of air resistance, and use a toy truck, pulley and weight to test if force equals mass times acceleration. Want to learn to boil water using ice? The book shows how (and why it’s possible).

In another project, we recreate the famous Millikan oil-drop experiment to determine the charge of the electron. Meanwhile, Einstein fans will enjoy the chance to perform an experiment demonstrating the photoelectric effect, suggesting that energy is quantized. If you’d prefer to simulate a nuclear chain reaction using mousetraps and ping-pong balls, the book shows how. We even learn how to build a cloud chamber (made out of a fish tank) to detect muons and positrons!

You don’t really need to be evil, or even an actual genius, to appreciate the insights into nature that 125 Physics Projects for the Evil Genius provides.

Softcover: 352 pages

Publisher: McGraw-Hill, Inc. ( March 21, 2009 )

Item #: 53-8646

ISBN: 9780071621311

Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 10.7 x 0.0 inches

Product Weight: 29.0 ounces