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More Physics For Your Euro

The 3 Euro Experiment
Most towns and cities have a 2 shop and, on a recent visit to one I purchased a very simple laser for 2.99. What was very attractive about this laser was that it produced a line of light rather than a spot. The specifications stated that the wavelength had a range 625 670 nm. A black metal ball and a shiny metal ball are then placed on the top surface of the block. Just above the surface, a heat spot lamp (200 W) is placed.The two balls will after a time sink into the block of ice and the black one should sink more quickly than the shiny one.

John Murphy, CBS Secondary School, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford. (hourigan1@gmail.com)

3 Laser

2 spheres later

Having already used an expensive piece of equipment to measure the wavelength of light with my Leaving Cert. class, I looked forward to revisiting the same experiment using such an inexpensive laser. The diffraction grating we used had 300 lines per mm. So we set up a screen with a metre stick across it and placed the grating about one metre from the screen before turning on the laser. Interference pattern on metre stick Another attraction of this laser is that you dont have to keep the button pressed (as in the spot laser). You can turn it on and off, simply by pressing a button. We then moved the metre stick to fix the central order at the 50 cm mark, located the other orders and noted their positions on the metre stick. We subsequently measured the distance from the first order image on the left (31.9 cm mark) to the first order image on the right (68.3 cm mark).

There are a number of physics concepts involved in this demonstration, but the main one Id like to highlight is the greater absorption of energy by a black body. The two spheres have to be good conductors and painting metal balls with white and black paint might not be the most satisfactory in terms of achieving the desired result. Anodized surfaces work quite well. Eskimos, I believe, used this technique to drill holes in ice for fishing. However, instead of a black ball, I believe that they used dog dung.

Investigating Infra-red with a TV remote

In the electromagnetic spectrum, infra-red light is below the red end of the spectrum of visible light. It has lower frequency, longer wavelength and less energy per photon than red light. Human eyes cannot see infra-red light, because its wave length of 950nm, is below the visible spectrum. That's one of the reasons why IR is chosen for remote control purposes, we want to use it but we're not interested in seeing it. Another reason is because IR LEDs are quite easy to make, and therefore can be very cheap. Although we humans can't see the Infra-Red light emitted from a remote control, we can still make it visible. A video camera or digital photo camera can "see" the Infra-Red light as you can see in this picture. Point your remote towards a digital camera, press any button and you'll see the LED flicker on the camera screen. There are many more sources of Infra-Red light. The sun is the brightest source of all, but there are many others, like: light bulbs, candles, central heating systems, and even our body radiates Infra-Red light. In fact everything that radiates heat, also radiates Infra-Red light. Note: Infra-red light spans a large range of frequencies and wavelengths. It is commonly divided Remote into near infra-red and far infra-red. The near infra-red is close to red light. The TV remote control works in the near infra-red. Thermal cameras like those that you see in science museums work in the far infra-red. They show the infrared light emitted by warm objects.

n=1 2x = 0.364 m x = 0.182 m -6 d = 3.33 x 10 m D = 0.908 m = dx nD = 667 nm

Ice and Two Spheres

This demonstration is quite easy to set, up but can be a little troublesome to implement successfully. The block of ice is placed on a poor thermal conductor, such as a piece of wood which in turn is placed on a large tray.
2 spheres initially

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