IP Topics

26 February

Heat Capacity of Water

Seng Kwang Tan 09 First Law of Thermodynamics, Demonstrations, IP4 18 Thermal Properties of Matter

Water has a high specific heat capacity of about 4200 J kg-1 K-1. When a little bit of water is placed in a balloon, it is able to absorb a significant amount of heat from a candle flame and hence prevent the balloon from bursting.
Materials
  1. Two balloons
  2. Two candles
  3. Lighter
Procedure
  1. In this demonstration, one balloons is filled with about 3 tablespoons of water and then inflated.
  2. Another balloon is inflated to the same size as the first to serve as a control.
  3. Both balloons are then placed vertically over two identical candles. Adjust the balloons such that the distance from balloon to candle is the same for both setups. You can use retort stands to clamp the balloons in place if you have them.
  4. Light the candles with the balloons temporarily removed. The flames will have to touch the bottom of the balloon when they are placed back over the candles.
  5. Observe the balloon without water burst first.
  6. The air gushing out from the exploding balloon may put out the other candle.
  7. If you like, you can keep the balloon with water over the flame for a longer duration. The balloon still will not burst until a long time later.
25 February

Homopolar Motor 2

Seng Kwang Tan 16 Electromagnetism, Demonstrations, IP4 15 Electromagnetism

This video demonstrates how a simple homopolar motor is made using a screw and a small neodymium magnet. The simplest possible motor one can make, it can be used to teach concepts at various levels. For lower secondary students, they can learn about conversion of energy forms while upper secondary students can learn about magnetic forces and Fleming’s left-hand rule.

Materials

  1. 10 cm wire
  2. 1.5 V battery
  3. iron screw
  4. neodymium magnet

Procedure

  1. Attach the neodymium magnet to the head of the screw.
  2. Attach the tip of the screw to one end of the battery such that the screw hangs below the battery. The screw will remain attached to the battery as the magnetic force from the neodymium holds them together.
  3. Hold one end of the wire on the top terminal of the battery and allow the other end of the wire to touch the side of the screw or the magnet. Watch the screw spin.

(Link: Alternative design for the homopolar motor)

29 January

Thorium as an alternative source of nuclear energy

Seng Kwang Tan 20 Nuclear Physics, Blog, IP4 19 Nuclear Physics

It’s about time Singapore considered building a liquid fluoride thorium reactor as a safe source of nuclear energy. From the video, it would appear that thorium is safe as it cannot be weaponized, does not require high pressure containers and the risk of a meltdown does not exist. For a small island state like Singapore, this presents an attractive way of obtaining relatively clean abundant energy. I’m sure if we think hard enough we will be able to solve the other problems such as storage of waste products.

Perhaps the part of our syllabus on Nuclear Physics will need to be updated then.

03 November

Water Bender

Seng Kwang Tan 13 Electric Fields, Demonstrations, IP4 10 Static Electricity

A thin stream of water can be easily bent using a plastic comb or ruler which was previously rubbed with wool. This demonstrates the attractive forces between unlike charges.

Materials

  1. Plastic ruler
  2. Wool
  3. Water from a tap

Procedure

  1. Turn on the faucet for the thinnest stream of water with a consistent flow.
  2. Rub the plastic ruler with the wool.
  3. Place the part of the ruler which was rubbed near the stream of water without touching.

Science Explained

Water molecules are polar in nature, which means that one side (where the oxygen atoms are) is more negative while another side (where the hydrogen atom is) is more positive. When wool is rubbed with plastic, it deposits electrons on the ruler.

The electrons will remain on the plastic as it is a poor conductor of electricity. When placed near the stream of water, the water molecules reorientate themselves such that the positive pole of each molecule is now nearer to the ruler than the negative pole.

The resulting attractive forces are stronger than the repulsive forces as the forces between charges decrease when the distance apart increases.

02 November

Electromagnet

Seng Kwang Tan 16 Electromagnetism, Demonstrations, IP4 15 Electromagnetism

Materials

  1. Insulated wire (about 1 m in length)
  2. Iron nail (at least 5 cm in length)
  3. 1.5 V battery
  4. Adhesive tape
  5. Small metal paper clip

Procedure

  1. Test that the iron nail is not already magnetised by trying to pick up the metal paper clip with it.
  2. Strip the two ends of the wire off its insulation. Leave about 1 cm bare on each end.
  3. Coil the wire around the iron nail, pushing each coil tightly together, to make a solenoid. Make sure you leave about 5 cm free at each end of the wire in order to connect the battery to the solenoid.
  4. If there is excess wire, make a second layer of coils around the first layer.
  5. Connect the ends of the wire to the terminals of the battery.
  6. Test the solenoid now by picking up the paper clip.