Demonstrations in Physics was an educational science series produced in
Australia by
ABC Television in 1969. The series was hosted by American scientist
Julius Sumner Miller, who demonstrated experiments involving various disciplines in the world of
physics. The series was also released in the
United States under the title Science Demonstrations.
This program was a series of 45 shows (approximately 15 minutes each) on various topics in physics, organized into 3 units: Mechanics; Heat and Temperature / Toys; and Waves and Sound / Electricity and Magnetism.
Episodes
Following is a listing of episode titles, as given by the index on one set of the videos (the titles as introduced by Professor Miller during the episode are often different).
Unit 1 - Mechanics
Episode 1. The Idea of the Center of Gravity
Episode 2. Newton's First Law of Motion
Episode 3. Newton's Second Law of Motion
Episode 4. Newton's Third Law of Motion
Episode 5. Energy and Momentum
Episode 6. Concerning Falling Bodies and Projectiles
Episode 7. The Simple Pendulum, Oscillating Things
Episode 8. Adventures with Bernoulli
Episode 9. Soap Bubbles and Soap Films
Episode 10. Atmospheric Pressure - Properties of Gases
Episode 11. Centrifugal Force and Other Strange Matters
Episode 12. The Strange Behavior of Rolling Things
Episode 13. Archimedes' Principle
Episode 14. Pascal's Principle - The Properties of Liquids
Episode 15. Levers, Inclined Planes, Geared Wheels and Other Machines
Unit 2, Part I - Heat and Temperature
Episode 16. The Ideas of Heat and Temperature
Episode 17. Thermometric Properties and Processes
Episode 18. How to Produce Heat Energy
Episode 19. Thermal Expansion of Stuff - Solids
Episode 20. Thermal Expansion of Stuff - Gases, Liquids
Episode 21. The Strange Thermal Behavior of Ice, Water
Episode 22. Heat Energy Transfer by Conduction
Episode 23. Heat Energy Transfer by Convection
Episode 24. Heat Energy Transfer by Radiation
Episode 25. Some Extraordinary Adventures (Evaporation, Boiling, Freezing)
Episode 26. Some Miscellaneous and Wondrous Adventures in the Subject of Heat
Episode 27. Extraordinarily Cold Stuff
Unit 2, Part II - The Physics of Toys
Episode 28. The Physics of Toys: Mechanical
Episode 29. The Physics of Toys: Acoustic and Thermal
Episode 30. The Physics of Toys: Electrostatic, Magnetic and Miscellaneous
Unit 3, Part I - Waves and Sound
Episode 31. Waves: Kinds and Properties
Episode 32. Sound Waves - Sources of Sound
Frequency, pitch, how they relate to each other and correspond to musical notes.
Vibrating systems cause sound, sound requires a medium to travel.
Flexing different metal plates to produce different pitches.
Rotating plate with drilled holes and air blown through them – difference in sound between symmetrically drilled ones (music) and asymmetrically drilled ones (noise).
Vibrating a meter stick at different frequencies when different lengths stick out past a table.
Varying frequencies rubbing a thumbnail across the milled edge of a coin, when tearing various pieces of cloth, using different files on wood, or riffling a deck of cards.
Human hearing range (16 Hz to 16 kHz)
Nodes in vibrating bars and tuning forks.
Notched stick with a spinning propeller.
Turing an orchestra – why they don’t use a piano.
Episode 33. Vibrating Bars and Strings
Bar mounted on a resonating chamber, mounted at 2 important places.
Second, "identical" bar, beats between two bars that are 1 Hz out of tune.
Beats between two tuning forks, one with rubber bands around the end of a prong to reduce its frequency.
Vibrations of a metal bar, shown on screen with a long pipe.
If a vibrating bar is grasped at the nodes it will keep vibrating, anywhere else it will stop.
Nodes on a vibrating bar are 0.224 of the bar length from each end.
Tuning forks on resonant boxes – transferring vibration from one to another (didn’t work).
Musical sticks.
Forming standing waves on a string, changing the number of nodes and antinodes at constant frequency and length by changing the tension.
Transferring vibrations from one vibrating bar to another through resonance.
Episode 34. Resonance - Forced Vibrations
Episode 35. Sounding Pipes
Episode 36. Vibrating Rods and Plates
Episode 37. Miscellaneous Adventures in Sound
Unit 3, Part II - Electricity and Magnetism
Episode 38. Electrostatic Phenomena
Episode 39. Adventures with Electric Charges
Episode 40. Adventures in Magnetism
Episode 41. Ways to "Produce" Electricity
Episode 42. Properties and Effects of Electric Currents
Episode 43. Adventures in Electromagnetism
Episode 44. Further Adventures in Electromagnetism
Episode 45. Miscellaneous and Wondrous Things in Electricity & Magnetism