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Your physics lesson for today.... — Parallax Forums

Your physics lesson for today....

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  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-05-21 05:41
    Nice demonstration of coupled oscillators.
    Here is a more classical version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_t_o7gVsEw
    You can do the same with coupled electronic oscillators.

    By the way. Don't they teach anything in schools any more. I remember a demo of this by our teacher in science class.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2013-05-21 22:33
    Perhaps, this is the ghost in the machine that everyone talks about.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2013-05-21 22:57
    Heater. wrote: »
    ...Don't they teach anything in schools any more. I remember a demo of this by our teacher in science class.

    Well, Heater, maybe Don isn't old and grey like you and me. Maybe he hasn't had that class yet. And, you know, not everyone gets a gold-plated education, either. I didn't see anything like that until I was in college. And even then I thought there was some trick to it.

    Give me a few more years and it will slip my mind I had ever learned such a thing. Then maybe I'll have the joy of learning it all over again.
  • SRLMSRLM Posts: 5,045
    edited 2013-05-21 23:03
    Heater. wrote: »
    By the way. Don't they teach anything in schools any more. I remember a demo of this by our teacher in science class.

    I've never seen or heard anything about coupled oscillators until now. Experience? High school physics in 2006-2007, and college physics in 2009-2010.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-05-21 23:26
    ElecticEye,
    And, you know, not everyone gets a gold-plated education,
    Not even me. The school I went to had very low expectations. Seemed to me they were happy if you made it out of at age 16 and got a job in the local coal mines or became an agricultural labourer. To that end half the kids left at age 14. Very few kids there aspired to further education and university was never under discussion.
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,566
    edited 2013-05-21 23:31
    A similar coupled oscillation happens with "A frame" swing sets on a playground/park. The coupling mechanism is the top horizontal bar connecting the swings together.
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2013-05-21 23:39
    For those who enjoy such physics demonstrations and discussions I recommend the sixtysymbols videos : http://www.sixtysymbols.com/

    For chemistry demos these are a lot of fun : http://www.periodicvideos.com/

    And for a little fun with numbers : http://www.numberphile.com/
  • prof_brainoprof_braino Posts: 4,313
    edited 2013-05-22 09:46
    Here's the Ted talk on on this from a couple years back

    http://blog.ted.com/2008/12/22/why_things_sync/
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2013-05-22 10:00
    Fun stuff. Thanks to all for the links!

    I wonder at what age those mechanically-coupled oscillators start to mess with a kid's sense of how the world is "supposed to" work. When I first saw it, it seemed spooky to me.
  • prof_brainoprof_braino Posts: 4,313
    edited 2013-05-22 10:57
    ElectricAye wrote: »
    I wonder at what age those mechanically-coupled oscillators start to mess with a kid's sense of how the world is "supposed to" work. When I first saw it, it seemed spooky to me.

    When my daughter was a couple months old, I got a bunch off those spring looking door stops (thaat go "booiiiiiing" when you flick them) and mounted them on a board. I put differnt weights on the ends. I'd put this by her feet while in the baby recliner thing, and she'd kick them and make them go boiiiiing. Now she seems to know all about harmonic resonance except for the words. Of course that might be due to my endless "Mr. Physics" lectures....
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