cc
introducing the Analyst of Agronomy,
the Houdini of Horticulture,
and the Wizard of Wisconsin, that Physicist of Farming,
Profess[applause]prott!
Welcome to the Wonders of Physics.
This is the year of the Wisconsin Idea at the University
of Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Idea is that the
boundaries of the university are
Or more generally, that the research we do at the university
should have broad applications
An example is the weather. for society.
of the weather because of all the detailed physics that is ins
the models that the weather people use to make predictions.
We can even predict when and
occur. where a tornado is likely to
tornado? Would you like to see me make a
I thought so. For this, I will need a
volunteer.
What is your name? Okay, come down here.
Hi, Melissa. >> My name's Melissa.
I'm from Chicago. Wh>> Melissa from Chicago.a?
Do they have tornadoes
Oh, yeah. d>> Uh huh.
Have you ever seen one? >> No.
Okay, well, we're going to
Tornados usually occur in the show you summer.do today.
They require some heat. So I'm going to make some heat.
To do that I'm going to wad up
going to put it in this can. this little paper towel and I'm
lighter fluid and I'll soak the paper with the lighter fluid.
What I would like you to do,
Melissthat on fire for me.nd set
Of course, you know, hot air
cold air has to come in from rises, and as the air rises,
If the cold air coming in is below.
closer and closer to this center rotating, then as it comes in
faster. of rotation, i oes faster and
It's much like and ice skater you've probably seen, that spins
around and brings her arms in and goes really fast.
Now Melissa, could you take this
[wind sounds] and p>> Auntie Em!or me?
Auntie Em!
I don't think I'm in [thunder]
Excuse me, where am I? Wisconsin anymore.
of Physics, of course. >> You're in the Wonderful Land
Yes. >> The Land of Physics?
Home? >> How aWhere's home?get home?
Chicago.
I have an idea of how we can get >> Chicago, hum.
some balloons. you back home, maybe we can use
experimenting with them. You know, I've been
if we were to light a hydrogen What do you think would happen
[crowd murmurs] What do you think would happen
if we lit ten hydrogen balloons on fire?
[exclamations]
Well, you know, if loud noises
to plug your ears. bother you, you're going to want
here, so I've got a little bit I'm really fond of my beard
put on. ofAnd again, we will light ourto
match on a stick. Here we go.
Okay now, this is going to
[applause]
Good. Got that one too.
Alright.
Now, you know, maybe a hydrogen balloon is not the way that
we're going to send you home. I know of a person who can help
you out though. And that's the Wizard of Wisc.
He's a big Green Bay Packers fan
He lives in the City of Green and a and Gold.sehead.
What you'll have to do is follow
some physics of the way. the Yellow Cheese Road and learn
Wish me luck. I'll need it..
Transportation is an area that physics has greatly
influenced over the recent
In fact, Wisconsin has played first to many of the advances in
transportation. We've had the first city to city
auto race, the first snowmobile,
Here to tell us more about and the first outboard engine.
our own king of transportation, physics Mike Randall.ation is
[applause]
Why, if I were king Just king
Physics is a part of everyday life.
It's the study of how things
things exchange energy, how push and pthings move.other, how
To get something moving, you
Physicists call that a force. My favorite dead guy, Sir Isaac
Newton, came up with three rules
He called this three laws of about how to move things around.
Have you heard of them? >> Yeah.
Yeah? Maybe some people haven't.
I need three volunteers from the
We're going to demonstrate audience.
Okay, you sir in the red jacket, this.
Let's see here. You, young lady right there, in
the pick stripes. And you sir, that will do just
fine. What is your name?
Abraham.
Let's see, Abraham. And you are? >> Abraham.
Abraham and Blake. >> Blake.
I'm going to have you guys sit I have a special job for you.
please. Sit cross-legged and face the
crowd.
Lexie. What is your name?
You get to hold on to that. >>Okay.e.
These guys are playing the roll of two large Wisconsin cheese
wheels today. [laughter]
We are in Wisconsin.
scientists, which means you're You are all playing the roll of
I want you to observe our two all ocheese wheels. now.
What are they doing?
They're just sitting there, not doing anything.
Sir Isaac Newton's first law of motion says that an object at
rest, stays at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force.
Lexie, you get to be the outside
I want you to pull on that rope, force.
[laughter] and let's see what happens.
Go ahead and start-- Anytime.
How's that going? [inaudible].
It's really hard. You know, hang on a second.
Stop pulling. I think the problem is, there's
too much friction between the bottom of that board and the
floor.
I think there might be some Do ypeople who don't know.is?
So we're all going to try this
Put your hands together for me, and rub.
What do you notice? >> It's getting hotter.
It's getting hotter.
See, friction is a force that turns the energy of motion, or
kinetic energy as scientists
Throughout history people have call it, into heat energy.
friction, to make transportation been looking for ways to reduce
Okay, guys, I need you to stand up and pick that board up for
me. In ancient times people used
rollers to help reduce friction.
rollers out. So we're going to try some
Set that board right back down Okay.
And go ahead and sit on the board again, just like you did
before. Face the front of the room.
Okay. Lexie, hang on to that for a
second. I also want you guys to put your
arms like this. Excellent.
Okay, Lexie, give it another
Pull, pull, pull. Go! [applause]
Now, how was that?
Yeah. >> Yeah, those rollers did a
great job to reduce the friction.
They made transporting these
right? cheese wheels a lot easier,
Big round of applause for my Excellent job.
three[applause]ere.
[inaudible] >> Gees.
You scared the daylights
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. out of me.
Sometimes we physicists just get >> It's not your fault.
My name is Mike Randall. wrapped up in our thoughts.
My name is Melissa, and I'm trying to find the Wizard of
Wisc. >> I know the wizard.
He's an airplane pilot. Have you tried looking for him
in an airport?
hours and I think I twisted my >> No, but I've been walking for
little bit. >> I hate it when that happens.
Yeah. Is there an easier way I can
get there?
another type of transportation, another way to reduce friction.
This is called a hovercraft.
to lift the board a little bit. It greatly reduces friction, but
I've been too cowardly to try it.
I'm not scared at all.
no time. This will get me to the city in
Oh, yeah. >> Okay, well--
We'll give it a try here. [engine noise]
I guess physics isn't a substitute for driving lessons.
[applause]
There have been many
recently. Here at the UW-Madison we've had
the very first Department of
freshwater lakes. LAlso, John Muir, a very famousf
conservationist and father of our national park system,
attended the UW-Madison.
physics and the environment is Here to tell us more about
environmentally friendly, Marty our own Lichtman.able and
[applause]
Hello everybody.
I have a demonstration here that Welcome.
effect work. can show us how the greenhouse
tanks, and before the show, I Nofilled one with a dense gassh
called sulfur hexafluoride. It's clear, it's odorless, and
it's non-toxic. But it's very dense, so it will
stay in the tank. I had the cover on only so that
breezes wouldn't blow it out. This balloon is just filled with
air.
If I put it in this one, it sinks down, because this fish
tank is just filled with air. But if I put it into this one,
it will float, because the air
the sulfur hexafluoride that it in the baldisplaces.ghter than
Let me set that aside, and I'm
simulate the sun. gThe light from the sun comes
down and it heats the dark earth
simulated using this cloth. That light is absorbed, and then
it's actually re-emitted in infrared.
You might say, wait a minute, the Earth is not glowing.
That doesn't make sense.
But it is, and you just can't see it.
I will show you exactly where that infrared radiation is using
another device over here. We call this a carbon arch lamp.
It's the same thing used in older lighthouses to make that
bright, white light.
will strike an arch, forming a I'm going to turn this on and we
electrodes, making this bright, plasma white light.carbon
We'll shine that light on this
into the colors of the rainbow. quWe'll shine it on that whitet
card which we'll put up on the
You can see the rainbow shining on my card and you can see a
black dot in the middle.
that detects optical power. I can move that sensor back and
forth to see how much power is
rainbow. in different parts of the
this galvanometer on the screen Weon your right, over here.on
Let me move it back and forth,
different parts of the spectrum. and see how much power is in
changes how much power there is. You can see, as I move it, it
There's a big spike there. Let me try and find the peak.
It's pretty high right there. I think that's the peak.
We've pegged the needle.
look at my rainbow. ICan anyone tell me which colora
we're on? Right here.
Speak up! >> Red.
Well, it's pretty close to
red. red, but I don't think it's on
Over there. Anyone els>> Violet. guesses?
No, violet is all the way on
It looks to me like there isn't light there at all.
Actually, I don't see any.
Together: No. >> Ultra violet.
Well, ultra violet is actually all the way at the
other end of the spectrum.
We call it infrared because it's This is what we call infrared.
it's past red when you refract a longer wavelength than red, so
But this shows that there really the light out into a rainbow.
see it with our eyes. In fact, there's quite a lot.
Most of the optical power is
So let's shut this off and go back to our suns.
Put this away.
Why did I fill one of the fish Now, what's been going on here?
That visible light comes down, tanks with sulfur hexafluoride?
and then it's re-emitted as it's absorbinfrared. dark cloth,
Air just passes the infrared and
sulfur hexafluoride is a most of it will come out, but
What that means is that it greenhouse gas.
That infrared radiation gets absorbs infrared radiation.
down to the cloth, back up, back trapped in the SF6, emitted back
there. down, and a lot of it stays in
tank should get hotter. But now how can we actually see
that, since we can't see
I happen to have a camera which can see infrared radiation.
Let's get this out here.
there. Get that set up on the screen
first. Let's take a look at you guys
Give a wave. [laughter]
there is the infrared radiation Whacoming off of your bodies.een
All of you are glowing, just at a wavelength that you can't see.
In fact, anything that has some temperature will glow at some
wavelength, just not necessarily
eyes. Let's take a look at our fishr
tanks and see-- Oh!
Hey, let's check this out.
Ladies and gentlemen, a geyser. Actually, if you look at the
geyser over here, you can see quite a lot of heat on the
Bunsen burners on the bottom
traveling up the tube. there, and then the heat
tube there. We're going to take a look at
these fish tanks. Actually, what I'm going to do
is I'm going to shut off these
out my picture, but if I look at lights so that they don't wash
is off, it's still glowing. thBecause it's very hot, it'sht
glowing in the infrared spectrum.
Let me take a look at the fish
Since I'm facing the other way tanks and see what we can see.
is the one with the sulfur from you, the one on the right
You can see the red spot on the bottom there, on the cloth.
It has a much larger red spot than the one that had air in it.
Red and white are the hottest colors in this image, so the one
with the sulfur hexafluoride we can see, after a few minutes,
it's already gotten quite a hotter.
It's a small temperature
couple of minutes, it's still differennoticeable.er only a
You can imagine what would
repeated all day long, day after happen if this process was
It would build up quite a bit. day after day.
we call it the greenhouse effect I should mention that the reason
greenhouse where you have glass that passes the visible light,
the plants and whatever else is in the greenhouse absorbs that
visible light, re-emits it as infrared radiation, but the
glass traps that infrared radiation inside making the
greenhouse warmer than if the glass weren't there.
There's one other cool thing we can do with sulfur hexafluoride.
I wonder what would happen if I stick me head in and take a
breath. Let's find out.
[deeper voice]: Let the beat drop!
[laughter]
Skies are blue Somewhere over the rainbow!
speed of sound in sulfur [voice normalizing]: So the
it is in air. heWhen I breathe it in, I gethat
longer wavelength resonance setting up in my nasal passages,
making my voice seem to appear
[applause] lower.
[high voice]: I represent The lollipop guild
That must be helium in Hello.
It does quite the opposite of what SF6 does, because it's a
lighter gas.
2-1/2 times higher than in air. TWhich makes it set up shorters
wavelength resonance in your
That's really interesting and all, but I'm actually trying to
find the Wizard of Wisc.
You know, all this talk about greenhouse gases and SF6, SF6 is
not usually one that we're
not much abundance of it in the concerned environment.e there's
We're typically more concerned
carbon dioxide. It's the carbon in the carbon
dioxide which is why we're all
footprints. tThe Wizard of Wisc is non
exception.
try and lower his carbon He rides his bike in order to
There's a picture of it actually..
He also has a carbon
It's this right here. It's his rocket tricycle, but
it's powered by a carbon dioxide
I think he might be a little fire extinguisher.
footprint. confused about the whole carbon
carbon dioxide when we use it. It actually emits quite a bit of
quite fast. BI think it should take you to's
him in no time. >> Okay, which way should I go?
Well, um, I think it's that way.
Or maybe that way.
Really helpful. >> It's a little bit loud, so
you in the front row might want to cover your ears.
Good luck!
[applause]
What's the difference between a magician and a physicist?
A magician, you can't ever get
physicist you can never get him him to teto shut off.ts, but a
[exclamations]
out west. Energy is an area that has beene
greatly influenced by our physics research.
In fact, the Department of
research programs here at the EnergyUW-Madison. energy
Here to tell us more about
energized and electrifying Kenny energy and physics is our own
[applause]
Where would we be without energy?
It would be very difficult for
your cars wouldn't have had the youenergy to take you here.se
It would be difficult for you to sit here and watch, because
you wouldn't have gotten any
ate. energy from the food that you
different forms. Energy can take on many
We have some light bulbs here to One of those forms is light.
Let's turn them on. deLet's find a switch.s.
That didn't do it.
Let's see, hum. There's a cable here.
Where does that go?
Oh, it goes to this bike. A bicycle is a clever device
that you sit on and you peddle, and you turn a gear that will
then turn a wheel, to make you
street. What we've done here is we have
taken this bicycle and we have
Instead, we put a device on it taken the back wheel off.
bulbs into. To demonstrate how this bicycle
works, I need a volunteer who likes to ride bicycles.
You, sir. What is your name?
Blake.
All right, Blake. Why don't you sit on the
bicycle, and go ahead and start peddling.
That's a lot of work, isn't it?
But you were able to light the
Yeah. >> Now, try again.
Look at that.
You are able to get a much
nearly as much work, is it? brighter li>> No.d it's not
All right, thank you very much.
Let's give him a round of applause.
Thank you.
So what happened? When he peddled it turned the
gear which then turned this device at the back of the
bicycle called a hub dynamo.
converts mechanical energy, that What a hub dynamo does is it
into electrical energy. isThe electricity that isng,
generated then, goes through one
We have two different bulbs. of the bulbs, lighting it up.
incandescent bulb, required a lot of effort and didn't light
up very much. The second bulb, the one of the
right, is an LED, or a
That one didn't require nearly light-emitting diode.
bright. asThe reason for that is, thery
incandescent bulbs, these older kinds of bulbs, are much less
efficient at converting electrical energy into light as
opposed these LED's which are much more efficient.
The LED's will take much more of
it and convert that into light. theThat's why we're switchingto
today, from old incandescent
florescent bulbs, saving us bulbenergy and money.mpact
Hello there.
trying to find the Wizard of My name is Melissa and I'm
But I'm a little curious about Wisc.
ping pong balls and mouse traps. what's going on with all these
Let's take a look. >> That's a great question.
we just saw with this bicycle, We're talking about energy, and
you can have. diThis is a demonstration ofat
another kind of energy that you can have.
Before I explain exactly how
about atoms. this works, we need to talk
us, everything in the world, all You and me and everything around
up of atoms. the matter in the world, is made
neutrons and electrons. If you take an atom and split it
apart, you can release energy.
neutron, you split it apart, If you hit an atom with a
other neutrons as well. reThose neutrons can hit others
atoms, causing them to split
more neutrons, in a process that's called a chain reaction.
This chain reaction is the
nuclear power plants. When we split these atoms apart,
this is a process called nuclear
reaction of them, we can fission, and if we have a chain
This is a model of that. generate power.
atom and each ping pong ball Each mouse trap represents an
We're going to drop a ping pong ball in from the top, it's going
to hit a mouse trap.
trap go off which is going to send a ping pong ball flying.
That's going to then hit another
it's ping pong ball flying in a mouse trchain reaction. to send
Much like the chain reaction
going on at a power plant. when there's nuclear fission
Take hold of that and everybody Twatch very carefully..
It's going to happen pretty quickly.
Melissa, go ahead and pull the
[exclamations] string.
That was sweet! >> Would everybody like to see
that again? >> Together: Yeah!
All right, I'm going to need
the traps. 200 volunteers to help me reset
On second thought, we can just [laughter]
watthat we make earlier.tion
Pretty cool, huh? >> Oh, yeah.
Nuclear fission is one way
atoms, by splitting them apart. But there's another way too, by
bringing them together in a process called nuclear fusion.
The Wizard of Wisc worked on a
here at UW for over 25 years nuclear fusion project right
Madison Symmetric Torus If you're looking for him, look
for a large aluminum donut, and he'll be sure to be nearby.
All right, I'll try to keep an eye out for one of those
things. Thanks.
[applause]
Can you hear me now?
Yes! Can you hear me now?
Together: Yes! >> Can you hear me now?
How many of you remember a >> Okay.
Oh, maybe you've still got some. telephone that had a cord on it?
How many have ever used a telephone with a dial on it?
That's a few hands. How many have used a telephone
that had a crank on the side? You had to crank it to use it.
Maybe one, two, a couple. Okay, now how many of you have
went down to the Western Union
station and sent a telegraph? Nowadays, most people, when they
want to communicate, they just
radios. Communications is an area that
physics greatly influences. Here to tell us more about that
is our own 5G professor,
Professo[applause]Winokur.
Oh, I think he forgot again.
Professor Winokur. Hang on a minute.
Pete? ProSorry Pete.kur!
Pete? Oh, he'll get over it.
Look what I found on the Yellow Cheese Road.
I thought it appropriate that we
him and find out why he's here should try to communicate with
Communication only involves manipulation of energy, so as a
first attempt I thought I'd try some directed energy from this
Tesla coil, and see if we could wake him up.
What do you think?
I hope there's no equipment malfunction, but if there is,
it's okay.
date. I'm down to the control panel.
Are we ready for this?
Ahh, I needed that. I feel good.
[applause]
Now we can communicate. With all this energy, there's no
way I'm going to stand here and talk.
I gotta go. >> That's pretty heartless
of him. >> I heard that.
You are so right for now, but not for long.
I'm sure the Wizard of Wisc can fix him up with a nice new
heart, but if he'd stayed I could have told him that
communication that often
light or sound. Two things which our Telsa coil
seems to produce in rather large
But we really, really need to control it better.
In fact, we need to do three
First, we need to use energy to create a disturbance.
Then we have to send that disturbance, that signal, out
over a distance.
importantly, three, we have to And more importantly, or most
event that there is noise or maintain that signal even in the
Perhaps some of you parents know interference.
a little [laughter]noise and
I think I'll talk about sound first.
Sound uses the air molecules, we
to them. just have to impart some energy
demonstration here that shows Tyou how it works.a
We squeeze the air molecules
apart. together and then we spread them
over again. We Let's get this set up.and
I think that's set there. Here's a piston.
Sort of like your bicycle pump. When I push down on the plunger,
the volume will get smaller.
closer together. The molecules of air will move
The pressure will go up. They're getting squeezed.
the air molecules will have more When I lift up on the plunger,
increase and the pressure will space so the volume will
be spread apart. go down, and they will sort of
pressure gauge down here, and a To computer readout up there.e a
The top display gives you a number in units of kilopascals,
I'm sure they'll live.
bottom for you to follow and see Plus, there's a chart along the
If I hit start, you see a the graphnumber. pressure.
Let's squeeze down, and lift up.
The pressure goes up, the Squpressure goes down.up.
Back and forth. Did you here that?
Yeah. >> You've got good ears.
For you to really hear that pulse, I'd have to do that about
a hundred times a second. It's not going to happen.
Not today anyway. But now I have my disturbance.
Now I have to send that energy
I want to show you that, but out to you through the air.
So we have another demonstration it's hard to see the air.
It's just a simple device. back here.
wrapped 'round and 'round and It's'round and 'round.re,
We have a fancy name for it.
[laughter] We call it a Slinky.
in the air. WThere's a metal bar back heres
that's attached to the Slinky,
spread the coils of wire apart. aWhen I let go it will squeezel
the coils of wire together. You'll see what happens to the
energy in this disturbance when I let go.
Are we all ready? All right, watch carefully.
[applause]
is happening in the air, and So this squeezing and spreading
because the energy moves along this special kind of wave,
along the wave, is called a the walongitudinal wave. moves
We can actually visualize the motion of the air molecules with
sound in this device. I'll just turn on the light over
here. This is just a tube, sort of
like a pipe organ tube. There's a speaker on the far
end.
in here. It will set up a standing wave
there'll be an interesting With this standing wave,
In the places where the pressure property.
squeezed together, the air will is hbe moving slowly.s are
Where the pressure is low and the air molecules are far
apart, they'll actually be
We'll be able to visualize it because there's all this brown
stuff on the bottom.
we had, we ground up the cork really fine so that the dust is
very powdery and light. When I turn on the speaker then
you'll be able to see the standing wave and the motion.
Let's turn that on. Watch carefully.
It moves quick here, and not at all there, and about 2/3 of the
way down. Are you ready?
[machine hums]
[applause] So that's what's happening--
to you. iSo we've got two of the threeut
things. We've created the disturbance,
we've sent the energy out to
Now we what to maintain the signal in the event that there's
noise.
third part, I have a couple more Now for this last part, or this
I need a volunteer. Somebody close.
You put up your hand. Come on out here.
Your name is? >> Wyatt.
Wyatt.
special message by the mail, and The Wizard of Wisc sent me a
You can read, right? you're going to read it.
Oh good, Wyatt. All of you are going to
participate, because you're going to make some noise while
he's reading the special
someone in the back row can hear message, and we'll see if
Are you ready? that message.
I'll put that there. Let me get the message out.
Okay. EIn the back row, did anybody
hear that?
Okay, so now we're going to keep the signal together in such
a way that maybe someone in the back row can hear it.
We talked to our friends at Kraft and got the world's
biggest cheese noodle.
with the orange food coloring. I think they got carried away
We're going to try that again. What do you think?
little bit louder, and there's You're going to speak in here, a
back row who's going to listen. goiDo we have a volunteer? the
All right, we're good.
noise again while Wyatt says the You guys are going to make that
sAll right, go!
What did he say?
physics, I like physics. >> I like physics, I like
[applause] >> Cool!
physics? How many of you folks like
The sound tube is a lot of fun. We leave it out after to show so
the kids can have good time with
Now sound it usually pretty good it.
but it travels really, too slow, for communicating in the room,
If you think about it, a one to go long distances.
to California, if you were to wouse sound energy, would takee
about four hours. Can you imagine what your cell
phone bills would be like?
No, thank you very much. I can.
I happen to have a green light We have other forms of energy.
Light energy travels at about a million times faster.
That means it takes almost no time at all.
We just have to control the sound in the same way.
Back here we have a demonstration that shows you how
we're going to do that. We have a light pipe and we're
going to examine the physics of refraction, that's the bending
of light, and reflection, like a
this plastic rod. miWe'll see what happens as I in
change the angle at which the light comes into one end of the
plastic rod.
very special type of lens on This is a green laser with a
I'll come in from the bottom so it's perpendicular, and you can
see the green light.
the angle, the light bends more As I move and more. and change
That's refraction.
out, back and forth. Pretty soon it bounces in and
all the way to end of the rod. I can maintain the light signal
Any of you who've used [applause]
optics, it exploits physics in communications with fiber
But we're not just limited to sound or visible light, we can
in fact transmit light of any energy, or almost energy,
through space and distance. We had so much fun with the
Tesla coil, I'll show you that
transmit energy through the air that you can't see, but we can
light up this florescent tube.
Come on down here. Do I have a volunteer for this?
That's my job. Don't hurt yourself.
Your name is? Now hold it>> Cavey the metal.
Cavey, cool.
I'm going to turn on the Tesla You're going to hold on to this.
You won't feel a thing, but even coil.
everyone, not only do I know if do, as I've been telling
too. adult CPR, but I know child CPR
That's good enough. You can step back a few feet.
We want to transmit a distance. Okay, let's try this time.
[exclamations]
[applause]
Are you feeling okay? Thank>> Yeah.vey.
All right.
loud, crazy noise. >> I just heard some really
Just our little discussion of communication and physics.
Would that help me find the Wizard of Wisc?
Hum, oh, yeah!
an amateur radio operator. I know, the Wizard of Wisc, he's
here, so if you hold on to this, We just happened to have a radio
number and send out a signal I will try to find out his call
can communicate with him. with radio Let's go.d see if we
[beeps]
Whiskey nine alpha victor.
Are you out there? Whiskey nine alpha victor.
No, I guess not. Are you out there?
really tall antenna outside, you But if you see a house with a
Wisc inside. just might find the Wizard of
Thank you. >> Okay, I'll keep an eye out.
>[applause]k
I'm sorry.
and I couldn't find Professor I looked alWinokur.he building
When we talk about the military,
normally think about when we that's not something you
But being an old Navy sailor, I knew how important physics is to
keep my 100,000 ton aircraft
Here to tell us more about the carrier afloat.
general of relativity, Blaine military and Law.ics is a own
[applause]
Thank you sailor. How are you folks doing today?
Together: Good! >> Seems my recruits look
younger and younger every year. This fellow right here is about
as small as a frog hair split three ways and sanded smooth.
I've been tasked with come here today and talking to you all
about how physics has influenced
A bunch of egg-heads in lab coats have been making my job
much easier.
that. WOne of the first ways thatf
physics helped in the field of
development of something known military science was in the
projectiles travel. Imagine a few thousand years ago
some caveman picked up a rock and he chucked it.
He thought that was pretty neat.
it a bit harder. I wonder what happens if I throw
noticed that it went a little So he trbit further., and he
This is what's called experimental science.
He made an idea, checked it out,
eventually, through trial and error, he got pretty good at
chucking rocks. A little while later somebody
came up the bow and arrow,
They found out that an arrow right?
rock. It just goes a lot further.
It still took a lot of trail and
pretty accurate with it. error before they could get
well nowadays. This idea doesn't really work so
ordnance a couple miles down When we launch an 80 pound
forces nearby, we can't really field where you've got friendly
Luckily, in the late 1600's bthis fellow named Sir Isaach.
Newton comes along and he developed a cure for a
projectile dysfunction. We've been launching stuff ever
since.
To kind of demonstrate to y'all how this works, and our mastery
over it, I'm going to be firing a small cannon at a moving
target. I'm going to be firing the
cannon, so I'll need
I appreciate everybody's a volunteer.
point a cannon at the audience, wmany of you would be great
moving targets. You're really excited, aren't
you?
recruit any of y'all for this, Headquarters said I can't
We have a detainee that has offered his services.
It's little flying monkey we
earlier this morning looking for caught sneaking around in her
It looked about as obvious as a cat trying to cover it's poop on
a marble floor. [laughter]
We're going to stick him up right here.
Oh, he's feisty.
We're going to put him up here He don't want to stay.
get my cannon zeroed in on him. oHe's a trouble maker all theo
way.
experiment, according to Before we can proceed with this
guidelines and Army statute Wis3.14, we have to have theity
explicit consent of any and all willing research participants.
He may seem less than willing,
opportunity to defend himself. but we're going to give him the
us firing a cannon at you? So Mr. Monkey, do you object to
Did y'all hear anything? [crickets chirp]
wasn't he? About as quiet as a gerbil fart,
He's still looking pretty [nervous.]
I'm afraid he's going to keep jumping off of there.
He looks like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Hopefully, he'll stay tight just
I've got this zeroed in on him long enough.
when this cannon goes off he's pretty well, but I'm pretty sure
Do y'all think, if I fire this going to jump down again.
going to go over him or under and he's movhim?down, is it
Over. >> Who thinks over?
Who thinks under? Let's do our own experiment.
Here we go, fire in the hole!
No! Fly.
military secrets too. I'll get [laughter]ur little
I've got big Bertha here. I know you guys have been
eye-balling this since the show started.
I'm going to show you how cannons work.
A cannon has three main components.
A hammer is generally not one of
The three main parts are the them, but you never know.
this is the thing that is cannogenerally a constant.tself,
We don't want it going anywhere.
This is the thing we want as far We have some kind of projectile.
And then we need something away from us as we can get it.
kind of a reaction, or something that's going to give us some
What do you think we normally use in cannons and artillery to
make it boom? [indistinct]
Gun powder. That's right.
They don't trust me with gun
'08. powder after the show back in
He was pretty sore when he lost Y'all it that year, but--beard?
What they do trust me with is liquid nitrogen.
Y'all ever seen this before?
Pretty fun stuff, isn't it? The neat thing about nitrogen
is, at room temperature it likes
as cold as a well diggers behind to be a gas, but when we make it
down into a liquid. I'm going to pour this into the
cannon, and the cannon is already at room temperature.
You see all that smoke coming up
Yeah. >> That's the nitrogen turning
back into gas.
liquid into a gas, it expands. As it transforms itself from a
We have a finite space here in It takes up more space.
So what do you think is going to this cannon shell.
up? Something really cool, right?r
[pounding]
you not to do this in your back Parents will yards.me if I tell
Wait 'til you get to university and study physics.
You can spend the rest of your
Fire when ready, Gridly. life blowing stuff up.
[boom and exclamations] >>>> Ah-ha!at.
[applause]
He's gotten pretty good at Just like in rehearsal.
incident. catching th[laughter]that beard
Did y'all notice anything funny about this cannon when it went
off?
Recoil. That'Watch your feet there.ards.
Why y'all suppose that happened?
That's right, I heard somebody Newton's Law.
Y'all learned from that lion-man say it.
there's an equal and opposed earlier that for every force,
So the same pressure that's building up and forces that plug
forward, is also trying to force
The cannon didn't roll nearly as our cannon backward.
Why is that? far as that plug went.
Less mass. Shout it out.
Actually, the cannon has more mass, so the same force acting
on it won't move it quite as far
Think about that next time as the plug moved.
and you spot a bug on your you're driving down the freeway
The bug is applying the same windshield.
is a little bit more massive, so force to your car, but your car
deal. What do you think you're doing
in here lady? We've got a lot of ordnance
going off.
I think I'm a little lost. >> Oh, I don't know.
Wisc. I'm trying to get to the City of
Green and Gold. >> I know the Wizard.
He was a major in ROTC when he
You can see him sharpening his was back in high school.
They hadn't invented guns then. s[laughter]
Now I know I've got a cannon big
the City of Green and Gold, but enin compliance of university to
policy, state law and Army
you to sign some waivers for me. statue 3.14, I'm going to need
I think I'm just going to walk. >> You wait right here.
I'll be right back. >> No.
[applause]
How many of you have even had an x-ray?
How about an MRI? How about a CAT scan?
No, not the kind with the tail
Medicine is an area that has and all the fur on it.
physics research. In fact, John Cameron, one ofr
our professors here at the
one of the very first ever UW-Madison, was the founder of
Here to tell us more about medical physics departments.
Madam Curie of physics, Amy medicine andLowitz.s is our own
[applause]
I've been doing some research for the Wizard, studying all the
different ways that physics has contributed to the field of
medicine, helping doctors learn how to diagnose and treat
patients. A great example of one of the
ways that physics plays into
Waves come into medicine in all sorts of different ways, but one
of the ways that you probably experience the most in your
everyday life is sound. The way that you hear is that
waves travel through the air and
allows you to hear. iA typical young adult can hear
frequencies from about 20 Hertz to about 20,000 Hertz.
That's 20,000 waves hitting your
I'd like to do a little experiment to explore that a
little bit more.
audience to raise their hands and I'm going to play a tone.
I'd like you to keep your hand
tone anymore. Once you can't hear it anymore,
then lower your hand. Let's give it a try and see what
happens.
Look at that. What you may have noticed is
that, for many of you, your parents lowered their hands
before you did. That's because, as we age, most
humans lose their ability to
sounds. That doesn't' mean there's not a
sound.
frequency that you can't hear It just meanit.hat it's at a
Can anyone think of an example
that you can't hear? of something that makes a sound
Just call it out. >> A dog whistle.
That's right. A dog whistle is a great
example.
here. I justLet's give it a try.right
[high pitched whistle]
There goes Toto. [dog barking]
Waves can do work too. Waves aren't just for sound.
that is with an ultrasonic One way that you can demonstrate
Normally, ultrasonic washers are washer like I have here.
instruments. used for cleaning delicate
vibrate back and forth very fast The way they work is that they
you can't hear it, but that ahelps remove particles fromt
delicate instruments. Today, I'm going to use this
ultrasonic washer to show you how waves can do work,
To help me, I have this bottle
Some of you probably have experience of shaking a bottle
of soda water and then opening
This is going to do the same it and having it explode.
I'm going to open my soda water very carefully, and I have a
special cap with a small hole drilled in the center.
I'm going to put my special cap on the soda water, place it in
the ultrasonic washer, and let's
on. se[exclamations and applause]it
So that's pretty cool, but not
Waves can do useful things too that useful.
One of the best examples of that in medicine.
That's x-rays, ultrasounds, is mediMRIs.maging.
All of those are examples of
The way ultrasounds work is that medical imaging.
again, too high-frequency for tyou to hear, and those waves,
pass through the body.
that's higher density to a Anytime they go from a medium
vice versa, the wavelength medium that's lower density, or
That change is wavelength shows up as a color difference on the
ultrasound picture. I can show you that wavelength
changes using this wave table that I have here.
As I send waves traveling down
as they travel from the wide the wave table, you can see that
to the narrow part of the wave part of the wave table near me,
wavelength gets much longer when table at the other end, the
That change in wavelength would show up on an ultrasound as a
color change. I'll get back to more on that in
a few minutes.
Hello. Oh, hello there.
looking for the Wizard of Wisc My name is Melissa and I've been
Could you possibly help me? >> Hum, I might be able to help
you with that.
to the Wizard's house, but I You see, I happen to have a key
Oh. >> I know it's in one of these
blocks of cheese, but I can't remember which one.
Maybe we can use medical
Okay. >> Let's start with the x-ray
machine.
is an x-ray machine, and the way This apparatus that I have here
made up of photons, which is the x-rays work is that x-rays are
light coming out of the ceiling salights, but at a higherthe
frequency so you can't see it with your eyes.
But just like the ceiling lights
the room, if there's anything mainside this block of cheese,in
it'll make a shadow on the x-ray
it. sLet's give it a try and see if
we can see anything.
x-ray machine and close the Idoor, and then I'll turn it one
and let's see what happens. Uh-oh.
That looks like a mouse.
That's not what we were looking [squfor.ng]
Well, it definitely wasn't in the block of cheese.
Let's try he other block of cheese and this time let's try
the ultrasound. Like we talked about before,
color changes on an ultrasound
If there's anything inside this block of cheese, it should show
up as a color change on the ultrasound.
The way it works is that I have my ultrasound probe right here.
This is where the sound waves come out of, and I'll use a
special gel that will help
probe into the cheese. conduct the sound waves from the
special gel and spread it out with my finger, and let's see if
we can see anything.
tell, but you can see that Well, it's a little hard to
center of the image there. white line kind of through the
something in there. ItLet's see if we can findbe
anything. Hum.
Looks like a key! [applause]
I'm pretty sure that's the key
I know he's been experimenting to the Wizard's house.
across empty space. wI think his lab is just ahead.
Transport his body across empty space?
Oh, boy.
The Wizard, the Wizard, the great and powerful Wizard of
Wisc! I can make myself disappear!
And I can make myself reappear! And who are you?
My name is Melissa and I'm
Why, that's no problem. I've been to Chicago many times.
I can easily take you there.
physics you should be able to get there all by yourself.
Wait a second.
you? You're Professor Sprott, aren't
in the box. >> You were using this piece of
glass to reflect your image.
That's right. This is called the Pepper's
Ghost illusion and magicians
Magicians use many principles of often use this.
I hope we've convinced you today physics.
and you're using it every day. that physics is all around you
demonstration for you, but I'd like to do one last
acknowledge Professor Jim Latimer who, in collaboration
with Frank Ferriano, has written
Wonders of Physics theme music. It runs about three minutes and
we will play it in it's entirety
We began by making for you a at the end of the show.
making a cloud. tWe do that using some of thisy
liquid nitrogen that we've used in earlier demonstrations,
except here I have a very large container of it.
25 liters of this very cold liquid.
Nitrogen is normally a gas. You're breathing nitrogen right
now.
breathing is nitrogen. About 80% of the air you're
below zero Fahrenheit, 196 below If you cool it to 321 degrees
liquid. If we force nitrogen gas into
this container, that will force the liquid up into this pipe.
The pipe has several dozen small
The liquid nitrogen will come out, still very, very cold.
It will cool the air and that will cause the water vapor in
the air to condense into tiny droplets of liquid water.
That's what we call a cloud.
coming. With that,[applause]ou all for