relativity

AlphaPhoenix builds a scaled-down version of the Veritasium electricity thought experiment using about a kilometer of wire and an oscilloscope. He measures how the signal actually propagates and explains the result.

A short Veritasium video showing how far a backspinning basketball would travel dropped off a dam. It demonstrates the Magnus effect and links to Flettner rotor ships and aircraft.

A short clip of a frog levitating inside a roughly 10 tesla magnetic coil, demonstrating diamagnetism.

Ben Krasnow of Applied Science shows that a plain laser diode can measure sub-micron vibrations from centimeters away using self-mixing interferometry, and can also be used for range-finding.

Arend Schwab demonstrates a research bicycle, the two-mass-skate design, that balances itself without gyroscopic effects or trail. It challenges the common explanations for why a moving bicycle stays upright.

Scott Manley uses a realistically scaled Kerbal Space Program setup to show why dropping something into the Sun is far harder than it sounds. It demonstrates the need to cancel orbital velocity.

A short clip of the Mythbusters demonstrating superheated water in a microwave, which can erupt violently when disturbed.

The Slow Mo Guys visit a lab with a camera capable of filming at 10 trillion frames per second, fast enough to see light travel. They show the setup and the resulting footage.

A Harvard lecture demonstration in which five metronomes on a movable board gradually fall into synchronization through coupling. Removing the coupling lets them drift out of step.

A one-minute clip from Cambridge's Prof. Holger Babinsky that debunks the equal transit time explanation of lift. It shows how air actually flows over a wing.

AlphaPhoenix shows off a new camera that films at two billion frames per second and uses it to film a laser pointer pulse. He investigates a strange quirk in how the speed of light appears on camera.

Physics Girl shows a vortex phenomenon (a falaco soliton) that can be reproduced in a pool on a sunny day. Two vortices are created with plates and made visible with food coloring.

Veritasium explains why a halved grape in a microwave makes plasma: the grape traps microwaves, and the fields of two halves interact to concentrate energy where they touch.