July 2011

Posted July 25, 2011

Bean time-lapse:

Going back to speeding up the very slow, here is a video of bean seedlings growing over a period of about 24 hours. The thing I particularly like about this video is that you can see the plants moving back and forth nearly in unison to follow the light.

Posted July 18, 2011

Cymbal hit on high-speed video:

Just as time-lapse video can take slow processes and put them on a human scale, a high-speed camera can slow down fast events and make them intelligible. This video shows how the vibrations move through a cymbal after the drummer hits the metal disc with a drumstick. Water droplets on the cymbal also help emphasize the motion of the disc.

Posted July 12, 2011

Spinning motorcycles:

Rotation is a fun topic in physics, and this is a really unusual rotating system. It looks like the throttle is stuck open on the green motorcycle, so with the rear tire on the ground, round and round they both go. Eventually they are going fast enough to that they spin apart and the riders can pick them up.

Posted July 5, 2011

Moon time-lapse:

This is a neat perspective of the phases of the Moon. This time-lapse video brings some of the normally unnoticed changes in the orientation of the Earth–Moon system to life. I was unaware of the degree of "wobble" in the Moon's orbit around the Earth, but this video makes it very clear.

Jacob Clark Blickenstaff is Assistant Professor of Physics and Assistant Director of the Center for Science and Mathematics Education at the University of Southern Mississippi.