Water Drop Pulse Kinetic Sculpture
Art by Philippe Bouveret available here:
From the artist: BUY NOW philippebouveret.com
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Water Drop Pulse Kinetic Sculpture: “Heart In A Bottle” is a kinetic art sculpture by Philippe Bouveret that utilizes the amazingly strong surface tension and adhesive properties of water. Two halves of a heart are attached to a wire spring which is periodically pulled together in a zipper like fashion by a single drop of water (as seen in 240 flp slow motion). The engineered system in the top bulb emits a water drop that adheres to the two wires, and as it falls surface tension pulls and connects the spring wires, which stay stuck together until gravity pulls down and thins the water coating enough such that the spring force can overcome the water’s adhesion. The halves of the heart then undergo vibrations that damp out until another drop forms in a process that repeats a few times a minute.
Refraction Invisibility
This reflective card is part of Mark Setteducati's WOW Science kits produced in the 1990's.
Here is the explanation that came with the kit :
Although these kits are out of production, they are often available here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW WOW Science Kit
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Refraction Invisibility: when immersed in water the sea creatures disappear on one side of this card. Light rays bend at the boundaries between substances when the refractive index of each is different. This card is made of a silver card stock sandwiched between layers of plastic. If the images are on top of the plastic they are visible under water, but if they are printed under the plastic the light is bent away from the camera. From the WOW Science magic series by Mark Setteducati.
Penrose Tiling Puzzle
This puzzle was produced and sold in the 1990s.
Wikipedia has the details on Penrose Tilings and their inventor Sir Roger Penrose (Recently won Nobel Prize!)
A nice basic version of Penrose Tilings is available here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW Penrose Tiles
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Penrose Tiling Puzzle: a challenging puzzle with pieces that come in only two shapes. Sir Roger Penrose- who just yesterday won the Nobel prize in physics for his contributions to General Relativity- also discovered tessellations (tilings) that are aperiodic even though the two tile types are regularly shaped polygons. If one tries to shift a part of a Penrose tiling, the shifted part will not align or match up with any other part of the same tiling- all the way out to infinity! This puzzle, entitled “Perplexing Poultry”, created and sold by Penrose himself, uses polygons modified into crazy looking birds such that the tiles can only connect in specific ways to ensure the non-repetitive nature of the Penrose tiling structure. Shown here is one way these two tile types will fill the plane.
Super Absorbent Polymer
Get some of these grow-spheres here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Growing Spheres
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Super Absorbent Polymer: poly-acrylamide polymer crystals are able to absorb up to 200 times their volume of water. Here seven small spheres, approximately 4mm in diameter, were immersed in water for three hours, after which they were slightly more than 23mm across. The final gel sphere is more than 99.5% water- and they bounce!
Micro Hoverboard
Micro-Hoverboard: diamagnetic levitation technology- although Marty McFly would have to be three inches tall to ride this hoverboard. Made from printed paper and pyrolytic graphite with concentric circular neodymium magnet array. The magnetic rings alternate between north and south magnetic poles in just the right way to trap this special type of graphite. Pyrolytic graphite has strong diamagnetic properties such that it develops an opposite (but weak)magnetic field when in the presence of a magnetic field from another source. Swipe to see the graphite pieces levitating individually.
Spiral Helix Kinetic Art
Get similar kinetic art here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Spiral Kinetic Art
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Spiral Helix Kinetic Art: hanging by fishing line, thick gauge steel wire is shaped into connected helixes- a pair twisting clockwise and a single coiled counterclockwise. When spinning the rotational motion creates translational motion both upwards and downwards along the vertical direction, and also the striking illusion that the quartz sphere is climbing or descending.
Bismuth Crystal Pendent
See more of Ernie's amazing creations here in his Etsy shop Element83
From Etsy: BUY NOW Bismuth Jewelry
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Bismuth Crystal Pendent: element 83 on the periodic table, bismuth becomes crystalline when melted and cooled. Reaction with air creates oxide coatings that provide the amazing Iridescent hues of yellow and blue long associated with bismuth. This piece of bismuth geode was set into a silver bezel by jeweler and artist Ernie McElhannon.
120 Sided Fair Dice
Get one here! Many colors to choose from.
From Amazon: BUY NOW 120 sided dice
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he d120: mathematically this die has the maximum possible number of sides with equal area (discovered so far). Two mathematicians, Robert Fathauer and Henry Segerman, realized that the oddly named uniform convex polyhedron (disdyakis triacontahedron) had the needed geometry to make a 120 sided fair die. Like the familiar 6 sided die, the d120 has the following properties: every side must have equal area and the numbers on parallel sides (top and bottom) must sum to the same number. The inventors admit that they do not have any suggested use for these dice- they made them purely because mathematically it was possible to do so!
Trichroic Beam Splitter
Factory seconds are available and inexpensive
From Amazon: BUY NOW Cube Beam Splitter RGB
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Trichroic Beam Splitter: this cube of four prisms with dichroic optical coatings allows a beam of white light to be separated into red, green, and blue. Used in multi-element CCD array cameras and other optical instruments.
Strobe Coin Spinning Top
These are not just tops, but works of art. Available in Copper and in Silver!
From Art of Play: BUY NOW Strobe Coin
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Strobe Coin Spinning Top: beautiful coin tops made of solid copper and silver display a remarkable spinning strobe pattern when viewed on video from a smartphone. Incredible art/physics from @shirepostmint that takes advantage of aliasing and the wagon-wheel effect. The black enamel pattern on the top of the coin is specifically designed to interact with the frame rate of the video process to produce the intricate motions of the concentric circle patterns seen here, and on the back of the coin a starburst pattern provides similarly interesting effects. These coins can be spun on both sides with spin times reaching 12 minutes! The contact points are super hard spheres of silicon nitride black ceramic (Si3N4) providing a low friction bearing.
US Patriotic Radiometer
Radiometers are available from these sources:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Radiometer
A wide variety available here, including some nice blown glass displays:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Radiometers
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US Patriotic Radiometer: 4th of July physics toy on this 242th year since the the Declaration of Independence. Produced in the 1970s by Kyp-go (maker of Balafire bulbs) the images spin with kinetic energy converted from light. Light heats up the "vanes" which then heat up the very thin gas left in the bulb- the black side of the vane is hotter and any gas molecules that come into contact with it fly off at a faster speed imparting impulse to the rotor. Radiometers with special vanes like this are no longer in production but sometimes pop up for sale online as antiques.
Levitron Revolution
Get the levitating/rotating platform here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Levitron Revolution
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Versions of the floating rings illusion can be found at the Exploratorium, at the Carnegie Science Center,
and is also famously featured in the 1981 Superman movie:
Levitron Revolution: well engineered control system uses an adjustable electromagnet and and a Hall effect sensor to levitate an 8cm diameter neodymium magnet platform 5 cm in mid-air. The feedback loop allows fine tuning of the magnetic field to exactly balance the pull of gravity. The platform also rotates, perfect for this floating rings illusion sculpture I constructed.
Thaumatrope
Get a set here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW Thaumatropes
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Wikipedia has some good details on the history and operation of the Thamatrope
Thaumatrope: the physics and psychophysics of vision in this reproduction of a toy invented in 1824. Still images flashed in rapid succession produces the the combined image of bird + cage through persistence of vision. When the image flash rate is above the flicker fusion frequency (approximately 16Hz) we perceive fluid motion- the basis for all movies and TV. ?Thanks to @artofplay for sending me this nice reproduction!
Fluorescence and Birefringence in Calcite
Get a sample here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Optical Calcite Crystal
Get inexpensive polarizing filters here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Polarizing Filter Sheets
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Fluorescence and Birefringence in Calcite: two samples of calcite- each with different impurities that produce blue fluorescence for the small crystal and red fluorescence for the larger one under a 405nm violet laser. Also one can clearly see that the single laser beam takes two paths through the crystals- the speed of light in a calcite crystal depends on polarization because the refractive index is different depending on the polarization orientation of the light transmitted through it (swipe for demonstration). As a polarizing filter is rotated 90 degrees, one image appears and the other vanishes, showing that the polarization orientation of the light of the two images is indeed perpendicular. In addition the elegant rhombohedral nature of calcite crystals is obvious in this sample.
Hexa Sphericon
Sphericon and Hexa-sphericon: order your set today!
From the Matter Collection: BUY NOW The Sphericon (Hex and Regular)
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Hexa-Sphericon: Sphericons are unique solids that roll in such a way that every point on their surface comes in contact with the plane. Solids from the sphericon family all have one side and two edges. Each sphericon is based on a regular polygon, with the basic sphericon derived from a square, and here- a more interesting case with more complex rolling motion- from a hexagon.