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An experiment conducted by science students, based on a model of Tarzan swinging on a vine, is discussed. The students, using vines, a water balloon (representing Tarzan) and a model of a cave surrounded by sharp pins, determine how far Tarzan can swing, let go, and free fly into the cave.

The authors offer an experiment where a spark generator provides the means to investigate two-dimensional, small-amplitude pendulum motion. Spherical and y-suspended pendulum results are presented.

Provides the necessary formulae for the calculation of de Broglie wavelengths and discusses the move from non-relativistic to relativistic management. An estimation of any electron, proton and photon wavelength can be deduced from the summary table included.

The observation of a falling lamp post as a result of a highway accident inspired a researcher to study the dynamics of the fall. The lamp post was over eight meters high and had a four-meter curved arm that held the lamp. The lamp fell over very slowly, thereby appearing to violate the laws of physics. A mathematical analysis of the motion of the falling pole revealed that the pole appeared to be falling slowly because the observer was looking upward at the pole at larger angles while moving toward the pole.

A simple experiment that allows students to measure motionally induced voltages is described. A coil, plastic mounting plate, a cart, and a magnet of at least 0.1 T are required.

Several phenomena indicate that the Earth is rotating. These include the circulation of wind in the hemispheres, projectiles' tendency to drift to the right during World War II and the Foucault pendulum's turning motion. Variations of experiments for physics students are described. These include using a torsion pendulum and a hoop-shaped glass tube to illustrate the rotation of the Earth.

Development of a module of quantum physics for a new course is discussed which involves students to reproduce reasoning that won Einstein Nobel Prize. The studentEs workshop with description of photoelectric effect, a data table and asked the students to graph the data and suggest a model of light is listed to explain the results.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY POISED TO DROP FUNDING FOR PRAIRIE VIEW PHYSICIST'S WORK The U.S. Department of Energy is poised to drop funding for a Prairie View A&M University physicist's [...]

Byline: RICHARD MONASTERSKY Batavia, Ill. -- With the first snow of the season falling on the outskirts of Chicago, a gaggle of geese raises a honking racket overhead, as if [...]

Lisa Randall, professor of physics at Harvard University, has stunned her peers with her theories on extra dimensions and she aims to bring these theories to a wider audience with the publication of her book, Warped Passages, in June 2005. Randall hopes that her book while help encourage new groups of people to become interested in physics and help them comprehend ideas that they may have believed were beyond their grasp.

Research is being undertaken at the Gran Sasso laboratory, near Rome, Italy and the Cern laboratories, near Geneva, Switzerland, supported by France, Belgium, Germany and Spain, with the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare in Italy contributing two-thirds of the cost. The physics experiments hope to establish the existence of tau neutrinos and how neutrinos can be transformed into other types. It is hoped information from the experiments will be available in 2005. The UK was not in favour of the experiments as they are already supporting similar work in other laboratories.

Peter Galison, a Harvard University professor of the history of science, has written a book examining how collaborating groups of physicists, engineers, computer scientists and others communicate to develop innovative physical instruments. Galison's historical research examines selected developments in modern nuclear physics, the instruments developed to achieve them and the communication systems evolved by technicians and scientists that enabled them to cooperatively design, build and use the apparatuses. Galison uses anthropological concepts to explain how these diverse collaborators communicated successfully.

Rigid basic building blocks can be formed of sticks connected by strings under tension even when the sticks do not touch one another. This is accomplished through the physics tensegrity principle, which combines tension and integrity. These blocks have handedness and can be used to build towers as long as the handedness is alternated when the blocks are placed on top of one another. Construction directions for a tensegrity figure are included.

The centenary of the discovery that gave birth to particle physics, the isolation of the electron, will be celebrated in 1997, a year that will also see researchers probing the frailties of the so-called Standard Model. The upgrading of the Hubble Space Telescope and the launch of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn scheduled for Oct. 6, 1997, will make 1997 an exciting year for space science. Important areas of research in the biological sciences field will include programmed cell death and the new variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

A towerlike sculpture by Kenneth Snelson at the Hirshhorn Museum's Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC, which presents the illusion of levitation, may be reconstructed as a model for a physics demonstration. The tower is a tensile column made up of tubes supported by wires which, it would seem, should collapse under the weight of the tubes. However, by clever distribution of forces, the wires, under tension, support the tubes. The model may be made of string and wooden dowels.

Eric A. Cornell, a physicist at the University of Colorado, has produced with colleagues and photographed a 'superatom' that was predicted by Albert Einstein. The 'super atom' is known as a Bose-Einstein condensate, after Satyendra Nath Bose, an Indian physicist whose work allowed Einstein to predict its existence. This phenomena takes place when a gas is so cold that individual atoms lose nearly all motion and condense into a 'superatom' which has the characteristics of a single atom. Cornwell cooled rubidium atoms to 20 billionths of a degree above absolute zero to achieve this result.

The bombardier beetle is equipped with a defense mechanism that consists of two chambers of chemicals. The inner chambers contain hydroquinones and hydrogen peroxide. The outer chambers contain oxidases. The beetle's muscular system combines the reactants, which are ejected as droplets of boiling hot liquid. The physics of this system has been studied, and human applications for these types of systems have been developed.

The energy that exists in empty space is of great interest to physicists in studying the makeup of the universe. Quantum physics researchers originally thought that vacuum energy would be very large, but in actuality it is quite small, though its exact value has not yet been determined.

PRAIRIE VIEW, TEXAS Prairie View A&M President Charles Hines is the target of a letter signed by 18 faculty members criticizing him for repeatedly interfering with research and academics at [...]

Details of the work being carried out by scientists at the human and machine perception research centre at Keele University, England, were given at the Institute of Physics annual congress in Mar. 1997. The scientists are working on an artificial neural model of human colour-information processing to help paint manufacturers produce the colours required by customers. Papers given at the conference included one on growing human skin on polymer film and another on the use of light to detect breast cancer. Delegates also heard that top PhD physics students are taking up jobs in the City of London, England.

Scientific understanding of the universe has undergone dramatic changes since the 1960s, but many questions in physics remained unsolved or the answers are only known to certain measurable limit. For example, observations indicate that much of the matter of the universe is invisible and remains undetectable by any direct means. Similarly, the rest mass of a neutrino is thought to be zero, and the known upper limit for its mass is 9 electron-volts. Other physical mysteries are also presented.

Superstring theory is a branch of physics and a means of exploring the particles which comprise the universe. Its basis lies in 26 dimensions instead of the present four, although they can stretch to infinity. The figures used in superstring theory can be interpreted differently, which is a criticism of the theory.

The mass of an object is a fundamental concept in physics, as is the origins of mass. There are four forces in nature; gravity, strong and weak forces and electromagnetism. Gravity is recognised as the weakest force. Three Nobel Prize winning scientists discovered the Higgs mechanism to try and measure mass, although it has not been identified in a laboratory. The Superconducting Super Collider under construction may identify this mechanism.

Can a similar result be considered a `new finding' when it's arrived at with greater statistical certainty? IS IT NEW or simply a confirmation of an existing result? And how [...]