Opening (Peter [Mic #2] , Sprott [Mic #1] )
Motion (Kenny Rudinger [Mic #3])
Heat and Pressure (Michael Winokur [Mic #4]):
Sound (Marty Lichtman [Mic #3])
Electricity (Mike Randall 4 [Mic #4])
Magnetism (Ed Leonard [Mic #3])
Light (Bethany Reilly [Mic #4])
(ON B) - RGB {T2 G1}: Intro PPT Slide Shows
Audio: Science Songs
(ON A&C) - Cameras 5 & 6: {Crowd Shots on A & C }
{Mute all as Peter walks out}
(ON B) - RGB {T2 G1}: Optional PPT intro {on the front screen}
[Turn On] - PPT Slide show Audio - From 2nd RGB line by sending “Lectern Video 1” to “Muted” Projector A or C
Peter: Welcome to the (258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267) presentation of The Wonders of Physics... Before the show begins, I would like to assure you that we make all of our demonstrations as safe as possible provided you remain in your seats.
Professor Sprott is getting kind of old, and he wanted to do a show on The Physics of Dementia.
{Voice from off-stage: “Not dementia --- dimensions! The Physics of Dimensions!” Sound clip}
Oh! That must be why he invented this machine, to travel here from another dimension. And now here he is, arriving from the fourth dimension, that Demented Doctor, that Mysterious Magician, that Phenomenal Physicist, that Spinning Scientist, Professor Clint Sprott!...
Audio: WOP Theme-Short
{Sprott enters through a centrifuge.}
Sprott: Welcome to The Wonders of Physics!
It’s really quite simple to travel in different dimensions. We live in a three-dimensional world, and time is considered to be the fourth dimension. And so we are all traveling in the fourth dimension just by being here. In the theory of relativity, space and time are interchangeable so that two events that are separated in space but simultaneous for one observer may occur at the same place but at different times for another observer.
If I drop this ball, it travels in one-dimension. We know it will move straight down because it’s attracted to the Earth below, but it’s a bit of a mystery even to physicists how the ball knows the Earth is down there instead of somewhere else. The ball can also move in two dimensions if I throw it {throws ball to Peter}. It moves horizontally as well as vertically -- what we call projectile motion. If I drop this piece of cardboard, it moves in three dimensions. In fact, this is an example of chaotic motion. There are other mysterious examples of three-dimensional motion. Consider this bicycle wheel...
Demo: {Bicycle Wheel Gyroscope}
Sprott: Spinning objects do behave in mysterious ways. That’s why I invented this machine. I’ve been experimenting to see what would happen if I were to spin myself very fast, and so let’s do that after I step inside.
Peter: Professor Sprott, are you sure this is a good idea?
Sprott: Sure! What could possibly go wrong?
Audio: Merry-go-Round Music
Lifesize 2D version of Sprott appears - Prof. Sprott is trapped in the 2nd dimension!
Peter: Oh, no, Professor Sprott seems to have become two-dimensional. We
need to figure out how this machine works so we can get him back to our three-dimensional world. Perhaps his secret laboratory notebook contains the information needed to restore him. Everyone, look around your seats to see if you can find his notebook.
[Kenny 1: turns on Mic #3 and enters via stage left door.]
Audio: ??
Kenny: I’ve never been very good at expressing my emotions, but I can tell you a thing or two about the physics of motion. Professor Sprott is trapped in another dimension, but dimensions are all about how things move. Now, the physics of motion is described by Newton’s three laws. No, not one for every dimension. They describe how things move through the three spatial dimensions. First, I will demonstrate how an object at rest tends to stay at rest.
{Kenny sits down.}
Kenny: And now I will demonstrate how an object in motion tends to stay in motion in a straight line.
Demo: {ball on cut string}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Kenny: Newton’s second law tells me how fast something will accelerate when I push on it, or exert a force on it, and Newton’s third law says that for every force, there is another force of the same size, or magnitude, that acts in the opposite direction. Let’s take this rocket for example. If I light it, hot gas will go one way, exerting a force on the jug, making it accelerate the other way!
Demo: {ethanol rocket}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Kenny: When we have more than one dimension, we can have objects move not just in straight lines, but we can also have them rotate!
Demo: {Holberman sphere}
Kenny: Professor Sprott already told us how an object that is dropped falls to the ground, but why is this? We know that objects fall to Earth because of gravity, but what is gravity? We can demonstrate it here:
Demo: {2D membrane}
Kenny: Now, Newton’s laws can be used to explain not only how solids behave, but also how liquids and gases behave as well.
Demo: {Unmixing demo}
Kenny: Well, based on your reaction I think I’d better take some action and go off in search of Prof. Sprott!
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
[Kenny, Mute Mic #3 and hand it to ???]
Peter: WELL HERE IT IS IN PROF. SPROTT’S LAB BOOK: SOLIDS, LIQUIDS, GASES...OH MY! NO, NO, THAT WON’T DO. I CAN’T SAY I UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WAS THINKING WHEN HE WROTE THIS. AND THEN THERE IS THIS CRYPTIC NOTE ABOUT SOMEBODY NAMED LUDWIG. THIS IS MYSTERIOUS…
{Michael stumbles in dressed up as Ludwig Boltzmann}
Demos
Convection Candle on steroids
CO2 trough
Hoots tube
{Notes....}
Winokur: Ludwig did you say. Ludwig Boltzmann at your service, well at least his ghost as he has been gone quite some time. But Ludwig Boltzmann did revolutionize our understanding of gases, liquids and solid with his ideas about the kinetic theory of atoms. Kinetic is just another word for motion.
Although we can’t see individual atoms with out eyes or feel them with our fingers they obey the same Newton’s Laws of motion that Kenny just talked about and they are always moving.
Whether atoms move in 1, 2 or 3 dimensions is also important and I have a little exercise to show this but I need two volunteers.
Please take this sign, ATOM 1 standing here and you take this sign, ATOM 2 standing opposite, here . Now we will pretend you are moving atoms (diffusion we call it) and I want you change places. Easy. Ins
Now let’s think about having lots of atoms moving and crashing into things. This propert we call pressure. At the microscopic level atoms are always moving and that motion lead to heat and pressure.
Demo: {Molecular Simulator}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Winokur: That was motion in two dimensions but we can study kinetics in other ways. Professor showed you a ball falling. How about a helium filled ballon?
Now recall what happened when the balls in the molecular simulator moved faster?
A: They moved further apart and so the space occupied by at atom (or molecule) decreased and the “density” as well. Less dense things feel a force that appears to be opposed to gravity. We call this buoyancy.
We have three experiments that do this.
Demo: {Hoots Tube}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Winokur: ….
Demo: {Convection candle}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Winokur: ….
Demo: {CO2 through}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Winokur: …. ……Closing Joke!!
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
[Winokur, Mute Mic #4 and hand it to Mike R.]
Peter: ...
Audio: ???? -- { AT LOW VOLUME }
{Marty enters, shouting through a megaphone}
Marty: Professor Sprott? Where did you go? Where did you go? Professor?
{Marty scans megaphone across audience}
Marty: Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooo?
{Sprott over PA}
Clint: Hello. You’ve reached Professor Sprott. I can’t take your call right now, so please leave a message, and I’ll get back to you. Sound clip.
{without megaphone}
Marty: Well I guess he can’t hear me. That’s too bad.
PETER: IF HE DOESN’T COME BACK, I WILL BE SAD!
Marty: We know some physics, but we’ll have to learn more.
PETER: LET’S SEE WHAT THE LAB NOTEBOOK SAYS ON PAGE FOUR.
Marty: It says that Sprott mastered the physics of sound.
Let me see what demos are around.
There are 2 kinds of waves. And the difference is clear.
It depends on the dimension of motion, it says here.
There are 2 kinds of waves. The first is transverse.
That means the waves vibrate sideways, in girth.
Perpendicular vibration to the direction of motion.
Radio waves, or a tsunami on the ocean.
I have an example, a demo with rods.
I’ll shake these beams, and your confusion will become nods.
The wave travels along, from your left to your right,
But the rods move up and down, as they glow in the light.
Demo: {Transverse wave rods}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Marty: We get transverse waves on an instrument with strings
The string doesn’t travel, and yet the guitar sings
I can show you this, with a long piece of rope.
I need a volunteer from the audience, a strong one, I hope?
You right there, now come on down.
What is your name? How does it sound?
Take the rope over that way.
Now hold on tight and don’t let it sway.
I will shake the rope once, and send a wave packet.
The pulse travels along, but doesn’t make a racket.
To make a sound we’ll need continuous vibration,
I’ll shake it up and down, now hold to your station!
Demo: {Wave on rope}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Marty: Thank you scientist, now go sit down,
We’ll continue to learn about the wave of sound.
Marty: But sound travels through air in a slightly different way.
It’s a longitudinal wave, with compression and hey,
Also expansion, in the direction of motion.
The same dimension, that’s the notion.
There’s a common toy that behaves like this
You know it as a slinky, it shimmies and shifts
Demo: {Hand-held slinky}
Marty: It compresses and expands, and if we hang it up,
It mimics a sound wave, when I give it a bump
Demo: {Longitudinal wave hanging slinky}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Marty: As a sound wave travels across the land
The air compresses and then it expands
Vibrations created when I speak with my voice
Then vibrate the air, it has no choice
The vibrating air then enters your ear
It shakes your eardrums, and that’s how you hear
We can see those vibrations on my oscilloscope
I’ve attached a mic, and my flute is in tune, I hope
Different pitches change the frequency
Low pitches vibrate slowly, as you can see
For high pitches vibrate the frequency is high
But the wavelength is shorter, and we are night
Demo: {oscilloscope + microphone + flute}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Marty: Now let’s visualize a sound wave with a little fire. We have a speaker at the end of this device called a Reuben’s tube. Methane gas comes out through small holes in the top of the Reuben’s tube. The amount comes out depends on the pressure, so we can see the alternating regions of high and low pressure due to the sound wave.
Demo: {Reuben’s tube}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Marty:
Demo: {ping pong ball cannon}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
{Clint speaks through PA again}
Clint: {Snoring sound clip}
Marty: Oh no, he’s getting even further away. Sounds like I better go after him!
{Marty exits}
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
[Marty, Mute Mic #3 and hand it to ???]
Peter: WELL, THE SCIENCE WAS SOUND, BUT WE DIDN’T SOLVE THE MYSTERY. WHAT’S NEXT IN PROF. SPROTT’S LAB BOOK? IT LOOKS LIKE A SKETCH OF A FAT JEDI KNIGHT...WAIVING A LIGHT SABER...WITH LIGHTNING COMING OFF HIS FINGERS? AND DANCING? I KNOW SPROTT IS AN AVID DANCER, BUT HE NEEDS TO BACK OFF THOSE STAR WARS MARATHONS.
{Mike R. walks in, wearing chain mail, waiving a fluorescent tube like a light saber, making light saber sounds}
Mike R: (looking at Peter) Chewbacca?
Peter: Very funny. Are you one of Prof. Sprott’s lab assistants?
Mike R: Yes! My name is Mike Randall, and I’ve been experimenting with electricity.
Mike R: Electricity is AMAZING! We use it for lights, television, computers, video games - almost everything! But what IS electricity? Raise your hand if you KNOW what electricity is. (Audience interaction).
Mike R: Isn’t it fascinating? Look how few hands are up. We use electricity all the time, but we don’t know what it is! What is electricity? (Points to audience member with hand up. Audience member either gives the correct answer, or Mike R. keeps asking other audience members until correct answer is given).
Mike R: That’s it! All the stuff around us is made of teeny, tiny things called atoms. Atoms are made of even TINIER things, and some of the TINIEST things in there are called ELECTRONS. Now there’s a dead giveaway! Think electrons have something to do with electricity? Of course! Electricity is the MOVEMENT energy, or KINETIC energy, of those little electrons as they move around! Now there are different ways to get them moving.
Mike R: Most of our electricity is made this way
Demo: {Hand generator}
Mike R: This is called a generator. All a generator is is a coil of wire near a magnet. As the magnet moves, the magnetic field pushes on the electrons, gets them moving, giving them enough energy to do something useful. Like lighting this light bulb.
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Mike R: Here’s another way to get electrons moving. This is called a Tesla coil. This makes high voltage, high frequency electricity. Which is a fancy way of saying that it take the electrons and SHAKES them back and forth really hard and really fast!
Demo: {Hand held Tesla coil}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Mike R: Have any of you ever rubbed your feet on the carpet on a cold winter day? What happens? (Audience interaction) That’s right! You get a spark! What’s this kind of electricity called? (Audience interaction) Static electricity! When you rub your feet on the carpet, you’re scraping electrons off the carpet and onto your body!
Mike R: Now I know none of you wants to watch an old fat guy rubbing his feet on the floor. Good news! I have a machine that does this for me. This is called a Van de Graaff generator. I’m not going to tell you HOW this works - I encourage all of you to look into this. Here’s what it does.
Demo: {Van de Graaff Generator}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Mike R: I need a helper from the audience. Someone with long, straight hair. (Audience interaction).
Demo: {Van de Graaff hair raising}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Mike R: I need another helper. (Audience interaction).
This is called a Jacobs Ladder. Let’s see if we can figure out how this works. Flip on that switch!
Demo: {Jacobs Ladder}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Mike R: Remember that Tesla coil from earlier? I have a much larger one, that does something very special!
Demo: {Musical Tesla coil}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Mike R: The hydrogen balloon has NOTHING to do with electricity. It’s just REALLY FUN!
{Mike R Exits}
[Mike R, Mutes Mic #4 and hands it to ???]
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
Peter: Well that was certainly a SHOCKING lesson about electricity! It’s time, though, to move on to the next page of Prof. Sprott’s notebook:
THE TOP OF THIS PAGE WARNS: “BE CAREFUL, OR YOU MIGHT FIND YOURSELF ATTRACTED TO LARGE PIECES OF METAL.” HOPEFULLY, PROF. SPROTT’S LAB ASSISTANT ED CAN FURTHER ALIGN OUR INVESTIGATION ON THE RIGHT PATH IN FINDING OUT HOW TO RESTORE PROF. SPROTT!
{Ed enters stage left.}
Ed: Thanks, Peter; I sure hope that I can help! There are those who call me
{Ed takes mic from Marty}
{Ed enters to a short clip of … }
Ed: Well I’d sure be glad to help with this investigation of what happened to our dear Professor Sprott! He and I were working together on how magnetism and motion work together to generate power; perhaps this will help us find a way to bring him back to three dimensions -- though I will say the look is quite slimming on him!
Demo: {Eddy Current Pendulum}
Ed: For my first experiment, I’m going to use a pendulum made of copper and swing it between the two sides of an electromagnet while it’s off and on and observe the difference of what happens. Here, the pendulum swings freely while the magnet is not on; it looks fairly free and unimpeded in motion. However, once I turn the electromagnet on, the copper pendulum
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Demo: {Solenoid-Galvonometer Demo}
Ed: Keeping to the idea of how magnets and motion can do things together, my next experiment takes a moving magnet and runs it through the center of a coil of wires called a solenoid. The two ends of the solenoid are connected to this large current sensor which is a called a galvonometer. Now a magnet has two distinct sides: the north pole and the south pole.
[Photo of magnetic field vectors with N-S orientation on the screen.]
Ed: The magnetic field is emitted from the north side of the magnet and then curves around the magnet into it’s south pole, very similar to Earth’s own magnetic field.
[Photo of Earth’s B field shows up on the screen.]
Ed: The experiment we’re going to do now is to move the magnetic field through the solenoid by moving this magnet through the center of it. As I do this, you can see that the galvanometer’s needle is bouncing around. If I move the magnet more slowly, the needle doesn’t measure as high a value. From this, it’s apparent that the speed of the movement of the magnet matters! This is because of a simple fact that is true in a variety of different ways, and that is that nature doesn’t like to change. While I hold the magnet outside of the solenoid and move it around, the galvanometer reads zero. However, as soon as I change the field inside the coil. a current runs through the wire because nature is trying to negate the new field with one of its own.
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Demo: {Magnet w/CRT Demo}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Ed: …. Closing Joke!!
{Ed Exits}
[Ed, Mutes & Hands off Mic #3 as fast as possible to <nobody>.]
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
Peter: ….
Bethany: Light is cool! Let’s link it to dimensions! Hi kids, I’m Bethany and I’m a particle astrophysicist. This means I study things like particles and light from all over our universe! Let’s think about how light travels.
Demo: {relates to how light travels}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Bethany: Kids, let me tell you about my research paper that has taken up all my time and delayed my typing up of my script for Wonders of Physics!
Demo: {photoelectric effect with phosphorescent surface}
Audio: Ta-Da-1
Bethany: More complete script coming very very soon...
Demo: {??????????}
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
Bethany: ….Closing Joke!! Cause physics!
{Bethany Exits}
Audio: TA-DA-Proud-2
Peter: AH, THE FINAL PAGE OF PROF. SPROTT’S LAB BOOK HAS A CLUE. IT SAYS, “AT THE MICROSCOPIC LEVEL, THE LAWS OF PHYSICS ARE TIME-REVERSIBLE.” MAYBE IF WE PUT THE 2-D PROF. SPROTT BACK IN THIS MACHINE HE INVENTED AND RUN IT BACKWARDS, WE CAN BRING HIM BACK TO HIS 3-DIMENSIONAL SELF…
{Peter puts the cardboard cutout in the machine and turns it on.}
Audio: Merry-go-Round Music
{Sprott enters stage left.}
Sprott: Now, of course, I didn’t really travel into another dimension. That cardboard cutout is just something left over from my last book signing tour. When I spun around, I got really dizzy and went into the back room to lie down and fell asleep. I hope my snoring didn’t bother you. When I woke up, I had traveled forward in the fourth dimension.
String theory proposes that there may be 10 or more space dimensions plus time, with seven of the dimensions rolled up into tiny tubes much as two of the three ordinary dimensions are rolled up in this piece of string. However, there is no technology to travel to those other dimensions and probably never will be.
Something you may not know is that objects can have a non-integer dimension. This sheet of paper is two-dimensional. It has a width and a height, but very little thickness. If I wad up the paper, I can make it into a ball, but at what point does it stop being two-dimensional and become three-dimensional? Perhaps it does so gradually. Here’s an object with a dimension of about 1.3, and here’s one with a dimension of exactly 1.5. Here’s one with a dimension of about 1.9, and here’s one with a dimension of about 2.7 {holds up a Sierpinski tetrahedron}. They’re called “fractals” and are very common in nature.
{If Shakhashiri comes, he could make his appearance here.}
It’s been a pleasure to share with you some of the mysteries of the dimensions in which we live. And now I’d like to end with the demonstration we have used to end all 200+ presentations of The Wonders of Physics over the past 30 years by making for you a cloud. The surface of a cloud is very irregular and has a dimension of about 2.35...
Demo: {LN2 Cloud}
[SLIDE OF CLOUD (FROM PAST YEARS PPT ENDING)], …
(ON A & C) - RGB {Lec G1}: PPT SLIDES - Thank you
(ON B) - DVD Video: Theme music video
Audio: WOP Theme-long-3m22s.wav
{The show concludes with Sprott disappearing in the Liquid Nitrogen Cloud. Theme music video plays. Cast enters stage left and bows in unison.}
See list of demos we have done in previous years for other ideas.
