The Curated Internet

    As you can see from this dramatic demonstration, the consequence of imparting a rotational velocity to an object is the flattening of object at the poles. The rotational velocity of Earth is a staggering 1,674.4 km/h  and as a result  bulges at the center by a tiny fraction, as is evident from the following image:  

The zeroth law of thermodynamics states that if two thermodynamic systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third, then they are in thermal equilibrium with each other.    A = B, B = C implies A = C is known as a transitive relation..   The fact that temperature obeys such a transitive property is by no means intuitive! Take a look at some of these examples:  If A likes B; B likes C; Does not imply that A likes C. The city closest to city A is B, the city closest to B is C, but A is not always the closest to C     Source     Or this popular example. Rock > Scissors, Scissors > Paper. But Rock > Paper is definitely not true To remind us that temperature obeys a transitive property is the reason why there exists a zeroth law of thermodynamics.

The cigarette smoke which emanates from the cigarette tip is actually Blue in color.   The smoke which is puffed out, on the other hand, is White!     Why? This has everything to do with particle size! The smoke from cigarette is blue for the same reason the sky is blue. The smoke particles are small and as a consequence of which blue light out of all the other wavelengths of light get scattered the most. Hence, you see the smoke to be Blue! ( known as Rayleigh Scattering )     The smoke which is puffed out from the lungs has moisture in it. And the presence of water molecules in smoke increases particle size. With an increased particle size, all wavelengths of light get scattered to the same proportions. Hence, you see the smoke as White! There is physics which lurks even in the smoking zone!  PC: Univeristy of Hartford, isciencetimes.  

 If unit vectors always scared you for some reason, this neat little trick  from The story of i by Paul Nahin involving complex numbers is bound to be a solace. It allows you find the tangential and radial components of acceleration through simple differentiation. How about that!  r = r(t),  θ =  θ(t)     

In this image a film of oil placed in between plastic sheets is captured by passing the background light through two polarizing filters.

Since water is diamagnetic (they are slightly repelled by magnetic fields ) when one brings a strong Neodymium magnet near its surface, it makes a slight dent on it. In this video this is visualized by placing a striped pattern as the background. Without a magnet, the water surface is calm and the striped pattern appears as is. But when a magnetic field is introduced, the water surface is no longer flat and  changes the way the light gets reflected off it.       An analogy   If you have had a dent on your car, then you might be able to relate to this phenomenon. Before the dent, the surface was smooth and  the car looked great, but after the dent light reflecting off it just makes the dent look more prominent.   In our case we are making a forcibly making a dent in order to prove that the water is diamagnetic using a powerful magnet. The light reflecting off it just makes this dent look prominent.    

 In this post, we demonstrate ray diagrams using an arrayof arrows drawn on the board as the object and the camera on your phone as the screen. (i) Convex Lens : Arrows on the board are placed inside the focal length of the lens -> Magnfied Erect image   (ii) Convex Lens : Arrows on the board are placed outside the focal length of the lens -> Inverted image   (iii) Concave Lens: Irrespective of whether you place the arrows inside or outside the focal length, you get an erect image.   (iv) Convex Mirror   (v) Concave Mirror   

A wine glass and a laser pointer make for a great demonstration for total internal reflection.    

 

 

 When a plastic is placed between two polarizers it produces these brilliance of colors. These colorful patterns are particularly useful in structural analysis studies where these colors are used to find the stress induced (during manufacturing or during operation) in different materials. *For a good introductory video that runs through the applications of photoelasticity, check out this link .        

 Image captured on a Samsung galaxy S9 with a 10 second exposure time.  

Water when heated in a pan from below reveals a far more intricate world that what meets the eye.  The box indicates the field of view of the camera used to capture the phenomenon with respect to the pan filled with water.