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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-2 Centre of Mass Motion

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

Aim

To demonstrate that the centre of mass of a system subject to no external forces remains stationary.

Apparatus

• Linear air track
• Centre of mass glider

Diagrams

Click on pictures to enlarge.

Description

The glider consists of a freely swinging pendulum. As the pendulum swings back and forth the glider moves in such a way that the centre of mass remains at rest.

Safety notes

Electrical safety

Maintenance

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