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School of Physics Lecture Demonstration Manual

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• Mechanics
  • Kinematics & Dynamics
    • Ma-1 Trajectory Model
    • Ma-2 Monkey and Bullet
    • Ma-3 Coriolis Acceleration
  • Momentum & Newton's laws
    • Mb-1 Reaction Train
    • Mb-2 Newton's Cradle
    • Mb-3 Newton's Cart
    • Mb-4 Dining Table
    • Mb-5 Happy and Unhappy Balls
    • Mb-6 Jet Propulsion
    • Mj-3 Action and Reaction
  • Conservation of Energy
    • Mc-1 Stopped Pendulum
    • Mj-6 Elastic Collisions
  • Pendula & SHM
    • Md-1 Pendula
    • Md-2 Wilburforce Pendulum Demonstration
    • Md-3 Coupled Pendula
    • Md-4 Foucault Pendulum
    • Mg-2 Kater's Reversible Pendulum
    • Mj-4 Coupled Oscillators
  • Work & Power
    • Me-1 Bicycle Ergonometer
  • Central Forces
    • Mf-1 Loop the Loop
    • Mf-2 Centrifuge
    • Mf-3 Watts governor
  • Gravitation
    • Mg-1 Guinea and Feather Apparatus
    • Mg-2 Kater's Reversible Pendulum
    • Mg-3 The Cycloid
  • Friction
    • Mh-1 Friction
  • Rotational Motion & Gyroscopes
    • Mi-1 Rotating Stool
    • Mi-2 The Inclined Plane
    • Mi-3 Precession
    • Mi-4 Gyroscope in a Suitcase
    • Mi-5 Moment of Inertia
    • Mi-6 Mobile Gyroscope
    • Mi-7 Double Wheel Gyroscope
    • Mi-8 Gyroscopic Stabilisation
    • Mi-9 Knife Edge Gyroscope
  • The Linear Air Track
    • Mj-1 Projectile Glider
    • Mj-2 Centre of Mass Motion
    • Mj-3 Action and Reaction
    • Mj-4 Coupled Oscillators
    • Mj-5 Interatomic Force Model
    • Mj-6 Elastic Collisions
  • Centre of Mass
    • Mk-1 Centre of Mass Rod
    • Mk-2 Double Cone Paradox
  • Moments
    • Ml-1 Moments
    • Ml-2 Free Fall Paradox (The Falling Chimney)
  • Elastic properties of Solids
    • Mm-2 Young's Modulus
    • Mm-3 Modulus of Rigidity
    • Mm-4 Hooke's Law
    • Mm-1 Strength of Materials
  • Chaos
    • Mn-1 Chaotic Double Pendulum
  • Pressure
    • Mo-1 Bed of Nails
    • Mo-2 Vacuum Bazooka
• Optics
  • Mirrors & Lenses
    • Oa-1 Model of the Eye (Dissectible)
    • Oa-2 Model of the Eye (Active)
    • Oa-3 Ray Tracing
    • Oa-4 Mirror (Multiple Images)
    • Oa-5 Real Image
    • Oa-6 Corner Reflector
  • Refractive index
    • Ob-1 Matching Refractive Indices
    • Ob-2 Matching Refractive Indices (Wool in Methyl Salycilate)
  • Interference of Light
    • Oc-1 Measurement of the Wavelength of Light Using a Ruler
    • Oc-2 Interference Phenomena Using Float Glass (Newton's Rings)
    • Oc-3 Zone Plates
  • Diffraction
    • Od-1 Diffraction (Using 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 Slits)
    • Od-2 Diffraction (Using Grating 4000, 8000, 15000 lines/inch)
    • Od-3 Diffraction (Fraunhaufer)
    • Od-4 Diffraction (Fresnel)
    • Od-5 Poisson's Spot
    • Od-6 Abbe's Theory of Imaging
  • Total internal reflection
    • Oe-1 Light Pipe
    • Oe-2 Light Trapped in a Stream of Water
    • Oe-3 Total Internal Reflection (Using Microwaves)
  • Spectrum & Colours
    • Of-1 Diffraction Grating Spectrum (using white light)
    • Of-2 Spectral Sources (1)
    • Of-3 Spectral Sources (2)
    • Of-4 Absorption Spectrum of Sodium
    • Of-5 Spectra of Salts (Flame Test)
    • Of-6 Colour Addition
    • Of-7 Absorption Lines of Sodium
    • Of-8 Infra-Red Spectrum using an IR camera
  • Polarisation
    • Og-1 Polarisation
    • Og-2 Strain Polarisation
    • Og-3 Interference colours in Mica (Polarisation)
    • Og-4 Polarisation by Scattering
    • Og-5 The Barbers Pole (optical Activity)
    • Og-6 Voice Communication Using a Laser Beam
  • Crystal optics
    • Oh-1 Calcite (Crystal Model)
    • Oh-2 Leitz Polarising Attachment
    • Oh-3 Calcite (Birefringence)
    • Oh-4 Dichroism
    • Oh-5 Optical Crystals
  • Ultraviolet light
    • Oi-1 Fluorescence
    • Oi-2 Phosphorescence
  • Holograms
    • Oj-1 Holograms
  • Miscellaneous
    • Ok-1 Optical Illusions
    • Ok-2 Echo Box With Choke Coupling
    • Ok-3 Inverse Square Law
• Heat & Thermodynamics
  • Temperature
    • Ha-1 Thermometers
    • Ha-2 The Thermopile
    • Ha-3 Absolute Zero Demonstration
  • Expansion
    • Hb-1 Expansion
    • Hb-2 The Bar Breaker
    • Hb-3 Ball And Ring (1)
    • Hb-4 Ball and Ring (2)
    • Hb-5 The Bimetallic Strip (Compound Bar)
  • Heat transfer
    • Hc-1 Thermal Conductivity (1)
    • Hc-2 Thermal Conductivity (2)
    • Hc-3 Black Body Box
    • Hc-4 The Convection Box
    • Hc-5 Absorption of Radiation by Black and White Surfaces
    • Hc-6 Leslie's Cube
    • Hc-7 Ignition by Focusing Light
    • Hc-8 Infrared Radiation
    • Hc-9 Archimedes' Burning Ship
  • Heat Engines
    • Hd-1 The Rubber Band Heat Engine
    • Hd-2 The Fire Syringe
  • Kinetic theory
    • He-1 Crookes Radiometer
    • He-2 The Maxwell Demon Bottle
    • He-3 The Thermobile
    • He-4 P-V-T Diagrams
    • He-5 Dependence of Viscosity on Temperature
    • He-6 Brownian Motion
    • He-7 Maxwell Boltzmann distribution
    • He-8 Brownian motion using an air table
    • He-9 Diffusion
    • He-10 Mixing
  • Change of state
    • Hf-1 Critical Point of Ether
    • Hf-2 Boiling Water at Room Temperature
  • Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics
    • Hg-1 Chemical Clock A+B
• Fluids & Surface tension
  • Hydrostatics
    • Fa-1 Archimedes' principle - The Bucket and Cylinder experiment
    • Fa-2 Communicating Vessel For Liquid Level
    • Fa-3 Pascal's Apparatus
    • Fa-4 Magdeburg Hemispheres
  • Surface tension
    • Fb-1 Force Exerted by a Soap Film
    • Fb-3Soap Bubble Paradox
    • Fb-4 Capillarity
    • Fb-5 Minimum Area of Soap Film
    • Fb-6 Reducing Surface Tension
    • Fb-8 Mercury Amoeba
    • Fb-9 Mercury Gobbler
    • Fb-10 Surface Tension of Aqueous Solutions
  • Hydrodynamics & Bernoullis law
    • Fc-1 Ping pong ball in air stream
    • Fc-2 The Venturi Flow Meter
    • Fc-3 The parallel plate paradox
    • Fc-4 Funnel and ball
    • Fc-5 The Chimney effect (Atomiser Principle)
    • Fc-6 Attraction of two balls
    • Fc-7 The Pitot tube
    • Fc-8 Smoke Ring Generator
    • Fc-9 Streamline flow
    • Fc-10 Viscosity (Stokes Law)
• Electricity & Magnetism
  • Forces & fields from currents
    • Ea-1 Force on a Current Carrying Conductor in a Magnetic Field
    • Ea-2 Barlow's Wheel
    • Ea-3 Faraday's Rotating Wire
    • Ea-4 Magnetic Field at the Centre of Coil
    • Ea-5 The Electromagnetic Pump
    • Ea-6 The Current Balance (Including the Kelvin Balance)
    • Ea-7 The Solenoid
    • Ea-8 The Rogowski Coil
  • Induced currents
    • Eb-1 Arago's Disc
    • Eb-2 Faraday's Law of Induction
    • Eb-3 Faraday's Wheel
    • Eb-4 Eddy Currents
    • Eb-5 The Jumping Ring
    • Eb-6 Induction Furnace
    • Eb-7 Light Globe Under Water
    • Eb-8 Lenz's Law
    • Eb-9 Lenz’s Law with Aluminium Ring
    • Eb-10 Lenz’s Law (2 Coils on a Pipe)
    • Eb-11 Lenz’s Law (Coil).
  • Induction coils & Transformers
    • Ec-1 Wind Your Own Transformer
    • Ec-2 Jacob's Ladder
  • AC circuit elements
    • Ed-1 Back EMF Due to Current of Self Induction
    • Ed-2 Energy Stored in a Capacitor
  • Motors & Generators
    • Ee-1 The Direct Current Motor
    • Ee-2 The Alternating Current Generator
    • Ee-3 The Three Phase Induction Motor
  • Discharge tubes & Electron beams
    • Ef-1 The Maltese Cross
    • Ef-2 Bending of an Electron Beam
    • Ef-3 Conduction of Electricity Through Gases
    • Ef-4 Discharge Tubes
    • Ef-5 The Magnetic Mirror
  • Thermoelectric effects
    • Eg-1 Magnetic Field of a Large Thermoelectric Current
    • Eg-2 Temperature Dependence of Resistance
    • Eg-3 The Pilot Lamp
  • Magnetic properties of Matter
    • Eh-1 Curie Point of Gadolinium
    • Eh-2 Hysteresis
    • Eh-3 The Hall Effect in P and N Type Germanium
    • Eh-4 Magnetic Domains
    • Eh-5 The Barkhausen effect
    • Eh-6 Paramagnetism and Diamagnetism
    • Eh-7 The Loadstone
    • Eh-8 The Meisner Effect
    • Eh-9 Core memory
  • Electromagnetic radiation
    • Ei-1 Electromagnetic Radiation (Meter Wavelength)
    • Ei-2 Lecher Wires
    • Ei-3 Hertz's Apparatus
    • Ei-4 Amplitude Modulation
    • Ei-5 Transmission Line
    • Ei-6 Plasma Frequency
    • Ei-7 Artwork Fraud and Physics
    • Ei-8 Magnetic deflection of Beta rays
    • Ei-9 Properties of Radiation
  • Miscellaneous
    • Ej-1 Rotating Dipole Analogue of the Electrocardiograph
    • Ej-2 The Sausage Cooker
    • Ej-3 Loud-speaker
• Wave motion
  • Wave properties
    • Wa-1 Wave Machines
    • Wa-2 Phase and Group Velocity
    • Wa-3 The Ripple Tank
    • Wa-4 Crova's Disc
    • Wa-5 Speed of Sound (Density Dependence)
    • Wa-6 The Speed of Sound (Using Lissajous figures)
  • Standing waves
    • Wb-1 The Melde' Experiment
    • Wb-2 Kundt's Tube
    • Wb-3 The Gas Tube
    • Wb-4 The Chladni-Vibrating Plate
    • Wb-5 Chladni Figures (Acoustically driven)
    • Wb-6 The Monochord (The Sonometer)
    • Wb-7 Vibrations of a Rod
    • Wb-8 Toothbrush Wave Generator
  • Interference
    • Wc-1 Moire Patterns
    • Wc-2 Interference of Two Sound Sources (1)
    • Wc-3 Ultrasonic Interference
    • Wc-4 Two Slit Interference (using microwaves)
    • Wc-5 Quink's Interference
    • Wc-6 Lloyd's Mirror (using Microwaves)
  • Resonance
    • Wd-1 Resonance Tube
    • Wd-2 Forced Harmonic Motion (1)
    • Wd-3 Forced Harmonic Motion (2)
    • Wd-4 Resonance Smashing of a Wine Glass
  • Doppler shift
    • We-1 The Doppler Rings
    • We-2 The Doppler Effect (using a hand held speaker)
    • We-3 The Doppler Effect (with microwaves)
  • Musical acoustics
    • Wf-1 Savart's Wheel
    • Wf-2 The Fourier Synthesiser
    • Wf-3 Helmholtz Resonators
    • Wf-4 Model of the Human Ear
  • Beats
    • Wg-1 Beats Using Two Tuning Forks
    • Wg-2 Beats Using Two Signal Generators: Phase and Group Velocity
    • Wg-3 Knipp's Singing Tubes
  • Polarization
    • Wh-1 Polarisation of Microwaves
• Electrostatics
  • El-1 Charging by Induction

    Charging By Induction Diagram

    
  • El-2 The Electrophorous - Charging by Induction

    Electrphorous Diagram

    
  • El-3 Repulsion of Like Charges

    Repulsion of Like Charges Diagram

    
  • El-4 The Capacitor

    Capacitor Diagram

    
  • El-5 Visualisation of Electric Field Lines

    EFiled Visualisation Pic 4

    

    EFiled Visualisation Pic 3

    

    EFiled Visualisation Pic 2

    

    EField Visualisation Pic1

    

    Visualisation of E-field Lines Diagram

    
  • El-6 Biot's Apparatus

    Biot's Apparatus Diagram

    
  • El-7 Kelvin Water Dropper Induction Device

    Kelvin Dropper Diagram 2

    

    Kelvin Dropper Diagram

    
  • El-8 Van de Graaff Generator (Lighting a Fluorescent Tube)

    VDG Pic 1

    

    VDG Pic 2

    

    VDG Diagram

    
  • El-9 Electrostatic Voltmeter

    Electrostatic Voltmeter Diagram

    
  • El-10 Electric Pinwheel

    Van De Graaf pinwheel

    

    Pinwheel Diagram

    
  • El-11 Franklin's Bell (Lightning Warning Device)

    Lightning Warning Device Diagram

    
  • El-12 Cottrell Smoke Precipitator

    Smoke Precipitator Diagram

    
  • El-13 Faraday's Cage

    Faraday's Cage Diagram

    
  • El-14 Saint Elmo's Fire

    Saint Elmo's Fire Pic2

    

    Saint Elmo's Fire Pic 1

    
  • El-15 Whimshurst Machine

    Whimshurst Machine Pic

    
  • El-16 Piezoelectric static electricity generator

    Piezo Pic

    
• Modern
  • Na-1 Nuclear Chain Reaction
    Chain Reaction

    Chain Reaction Pic

    
  • Na-2 Measurement of the Muon Lifetime

    Muon Lifetime Pic

    
  • Na-3 Muon Telescope

    Muon Telescope Pic

    
  • Na-4 Rutherford Scattering

    Rutherford Scattering Pic

    
  • Na-5 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

    Nuclear Mag Res Pic

    
  • Na-6 The Zeeman Effect

    Zeeman Effect Pic

    

    Zeeman 1

    

    Zeeman 2

    

    Zeeman 3

    
  • Na-7 X ray tubes

    X Ray Tube Pic 4

    

    X Ray Tube Pic 3

    

    X Ray Tube Pic 2

    

    X Ray Tube Pic 1

    
  • Na-8 Band Gap Energy

    Band Gap Pic

    
  • Na-9 Quantum Mechanical Tunnelling

    QM Tunnelling

    
  • Na-10 Bragg Diffraction

    Bragg Diffraction Pic

    
  • Na-11 Models of Atomic Structure

    Hydrogen Model Pic

    

    Helium Model Pic

    

    Nitrogen Model Pic

    

    Oxygen Model Pic

    

    Proton Model Pic

    
  • Na-12 Black Body Hole

    Black body Hole pic 1

    

    The Apparatus

    Black body Hole pic 2

    

    Visible light no current

    Black body Hole pic 5

    

    Infra-red no current

    Black body Hole pic 3

    

    Visible light with 30 amps

    Black body Hole pic 4

    

    Infra-red with 30 amps

  • Na-13 Pasco Blackbody apparatus.

    Blackbody Apparatus pic 1

    

    Blackbody Apparatus Pic 2

    

    Blackbody Spectrum Pic

    
  • Na-14 Photoelectric effect

    Photoelectric Setup Pic 1

    

    Photoelectric Setup pic 2

    
• Astronomy/Astrophysics
  • Aa-1 Earthshine demonstration

    Earthshine setup pic

    
  • Aa-2 Gravitational lensing

    Grav Lens Setup Pic

    

    Grav Lens pic 1

    

    Grav Lens pic 2

    
• Safety
  • Electrical Safety
  • Chemical Safety
  • Sharps Safety
  • Precautions with Ionizing Radiation
  • Laser Safety
  • Fire/Burn Safety
  • Maintenance
  • Personal Protection.
• Acknowledgements

Mj-6 Elastic Collisions

Published: Thursday 09 March 2006 - Updated: Wednesday 18 April 2007

Aim

To demonstrate elastic collisions on the air track.

Apparatus

• Linear air track
• Air gliders
• Compression springs

Diagrams

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Description

The air glidersare fitted with loops made of clock spring steel so that they can make elastic collisions. The gliders may be weighted and different initial velocity conditions may be studied.

Safety notes

Electrical safety

Maintenance

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