Dear MythBusters: Please share your data
I think the Mythbusters have a wonderful opportunity for educational outreach. Take this week's episode. One myth was to see if arrows fired from a moving horse penetrated more than arrows fired from a...
View ArticlePhysics and the movie UP – floating a house
In my usual fashion, I have to find something to complain about. There is this scene where the old man releases balloons out of the house. What is wrong with this scene? Also, would that be enough ...
View ArticleCan an exploding hammer lift a guy?
Did the exploding hammer lift him off the ground, or did he jump as a reaction to the explosion. It kind of looks like he was lifted, but I am not sure that is possible. Video analysis to ...
View ArticleAnother Video Analysis Tutorial
In this tutorial I analyze a moving cart that shoots a ball up and lands back in the moving cart (called a Howitzer cart).
View ArticleJuly 4th and an example of work-energy
One activity my family enjoys is playing in the lake at my parents house. Along with this comes the jumping off the dock. Great fun, and great physics. Here is a short clip
View ArticleParkour Physics: Wall Climb
Forgive me if I don't know the official parkour term for this move. This is where you have two walls that are close to each other and you vertically climb them. Here is a shot of Mark Witmer ...
View ArticleUnderwater explosion analysis
I wonder how fast that water was moving up right after the explosion. Too bad the video doesn't have a scale. Well, it kind of does - there is that ship. I am terrible at ship identification ...
View ArticleMillikan Oil Drop without the Oil
The Physics Teacher article (The 'Nut-Drop' Experiment - Bringing Millikan's Challenge to Introductory Students, L. McCAnn and E. Blodgett) shows a variation of the oil drop experiment that gets the...
View ArticleUncertainty in measuring the launch speed
We have these projectile cannons that shoot small balls. In order to look at projectile motion, they need to first determine the launch speed of the ball. I have a great method for this. Basically,...
View ArticleFake Videos Presentation
I put together this short presentation on fake videos for a class. What the heck, I will also put it online so that maybe some other people can use it. So, here it is
View ArticleMore Measurements of the Projectile Velocity
My different methods for measuring the launch speed of the ball were not even close to being consistent. So, I am bringing out the big guns - video.
View ArticleMore projectile motion than you can shake a stick at
The problem was that I was getting different launch speeds for the vertical and horizontal shot. So, here is my plan: shoot the ball and a variety of angles from 0 to 90 degrees and see how the ...
View ArticleUncertainty and Video Analysis
By repeatedly analyzing this video, I have an idea of the uncertainty due to the human input. Actually, I did this analysis 5 times before I realized a mistake I was making.
View ArticleMythBusters and the first water heater
Last night I saw the newest episode of MythBusters. One of the myths they revisited was the exploding water heater. Well, it turns out that I had an analysis of this first explosion, but I didn't move...
View ArticleDear Adam, This is Tracker Video Analysis
Actually, I applaud Adam for his creative use of the vernier caliper. Really, it is an example of "making things work". However, in this case there is a very nice alternative
View ArticleLEGO plus Slinky = Physics
You take their LEGO bricks and their slinky and do some physics. I will keep this simple. Basically, I created a slinky holder out of LEGO pieces and added LEGO bricks to the end to stretch it.
View ArticleMore ESPN Sport Science Goodness
In talking about how important speed in the half pipe, Sport Science claims that for every 1 mph of speed a skier loses, he/she will lose 3 feet in height. I can't get this one to work. First, ...
View ArticleSport Science FTW!
Normally, it isn't really news when a show doesn't do anything wrong. I am making an exception for ESPN's Sport Science. Here is part 2 of Sport Science trying to reproduce Kobe Bryant's "jumping over...
View ArticlePreemptive MythBusters: Giant Water Slide Jump
I am excited. This Wednesday, the MythBusters are doing the giant water slide jump. Maybe you are new to the internet and you haven't seen this video.
View ArticleTail-Drop Analysis
The link I clicked that brought me to this video said the equivalent of "OMG!" That is not what I thought, really I am not sure what is so impressive (except that he didn't fall off the skateboard). ...
View ArticleHow far will the car go?
Actually, I will just make a projectile motion spreadsheet. That way, anytime you want to do a projectile motion problem, you can come here. Maybe this is a bad idea, but I am going to do it anyway.
View ArticleMercedes Roll
Here is a commercial for some Mercedes car. The first part is quite boring, but check out the stunt at around 2:00 minutes into the video
View ArticleI nominate Frank
Frank Noschese is a physics teacher and a blogger (and frequent commenter on Dot Physics). And I nominate Frank as the new librarian of videos that can be analyzed for realness or fakeness. Or, as...
View ArticleBasketball shot – real or fake?
Real? Fake? How many tries did this take? Let the analysis begin. Before I do any analysis, let me state that I think this is not fake. I do not know that for sure, just ...
View ArticleSome more info on basketballs
Really, there are two things I am interested in. First, commenter Scott Post suggests that the drag coefficient might be around 0.25 instead of 0.5. I don't know. For the discussion before, it doesn't...
View ArticleMore basketball analysis
Let me tell you the part that Jorge has an issue with. This guy on a ladder throws a basketball through the hoop. The ball then bounces back up and through the hoop again. Here is an ...
View ArticleVariation in throwing a ball
But, the question is: how difficult are these shots? Are these one in a million? Are they easy? Are they essentially impossible? One way to answer this is to get some estimate of the variation in the ...
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