The explosive growth of self-archiving tools like cell phones and digital cameras means that physics videos have taken off in the past ten years. YouTube is a great destination for those who want to lose a couple hours one afternoon looking at fantastic physics-related videos from around the world. Duke Physics News is collaborating with Prof. Henry Greenside, the new Director of Undergraduate Studies, and others in the department to build a collection of physics videos. Some involve professors right here in our department and others are our favorites from across the globe. Do you have a video you think we should add to our collection? Email us at news@phy.duke.edu or post to our Facebook page to let us know.
Below are just a few videos we have collected. View the entire collection at Physics Videos Website or at our Facebook page. (NOTE: LINKS HAVE BECOME BROKEN DUE TO WEBSITE REDESIGN.)
Video 1: Granular Materials in a Hopper: How granular materials jam in a hopper, by Junyao Tang and R.P. Behringer, Duke Physics: Through processing high-speed video, we can track the movement of particles that eventually form the jamming arch, and mark them with different color by computer, so that we can visualize how these "arch particles" come togther to stop the granular flow. As we can see, these arch particles are from highly disparate regions with no obvious correlation to each other. Video 2: Invisibility Cloak A team led by scientists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering has demonstrated the first working "invisibility cloak." The cloak deflects microwave beams so they flow around a "hidden" object inside with little distortion, making it appear almost as if nothing were there at all.
Department of Physics
