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Awesome Physics

Magnet Pinball Machine

Magnet Pinball Machine

A modern pinball machine needs computer circuits, electromechanical components, and a power supply to work. Magnet Tricks shows how it’s possible to build a playable mini pinball machine using only magnets and pyrolytic graphite. It takes advantage of the repulsive forces between the two to bounce a washer around its playfield.

Making an Electromagnetic Railgun That Fires Water

Making an Electromagnetic Railgun That Fires Water

Mehdi Sadaghdar was jealous of the views of an obviously fake video showing a magnetically-powered water cannon, so he decided to try and create something real that would approximate the same effect. Naturally, his experiments involved playing with dangerous electrical currents. Get ready to lower your expectations, folks.

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Electric Arcs + Magnetic Fields

Electric Arcs + Magnetic Fields

What’s more fun than playing with powerful neodymium magnets? Adding high voltage electricity, that’s what! Magnetic Games shows us some of the fascinating kinds of plasma arcs that form as 20,000 volts are applied to different shapes, sizes, and arrangements of magnets.

How “Gecko Skin” Material Works

How “Gecko Skin” Material Works

Geckos can climb up smooth surfaces and even walk upside-down, thanks to the microscopic structures that have evolved on their skin. Derek from Veritasium met with Stanford mechanical engineering professor Mark Cutkosky to learn about synthetic materials he’s developed which can mimic the capabilities of gecko skin.

Rolling Shipping Containers vs. Cars

Rolling Shipping Containers vs. Cars

ExtenPro is back with another entertaining BeamNG.Drive video. This time, they used the vehicle physics simulator to attach wheels to steel shipping containers, then rolled them downhill into oncoming traffic. The carnage is spectacular, though we thought for a moment that Dodge Viper would escape unharmed.

Extreme Suspension Simulation

Extreme Suspension Simulation

We’ve witnessed first-hand how car companies test the suspension setups on new vehicles. They also use computer simulations with realistic physics models. This video from ExtenPro shows how various vehicle suspensions might handle on a punishing course they set up in the vehicle simulation game BeamNG drive.

A Ball That Can Bounce Higher Than It Was Dropped from

A Ball That Can Bounce Higher Than It Was Dropped from

Common sense tells us that if you drop a rubber ball, it will never bounce higher than you dropped it from unless you add energy by throwing it. But at first glance, the ball that The Action Lab shows in this clip defies the laws of physics. Of course, it doesn’t really, but it’s a neat trick.

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The Turntable Paradox

The Turntable Paradox

If you place a billiard ball on a spinning turntable, you’d think it would quickly slide off its edge. But as science educator Steve Mould shows us, the ball hangs on much longer than you’d expect. The physics at work here are truly fascinating, especially given how other objects leave the surface so quickly.

Dropping an Egg from Space

Dropping an Egg from Space

For his latest experiment, rocket scientist and entertainer Mark Rober teamed up with Joe Barnard of BPS Space to launch an egg into space to see if they could catch it safely a mattress when it dropped back to earth. But the project proved far more challenging than they thought and required huge amounts of trial and error.

Making a True Bladeless Fan

Making a True Bladeless Fan

Those fancy Dyson fans are called “bladeless,” but they really just hide their fan blades in the base. Integza wanted to see if it would be possible to build a fan that actually has no blades. His theory was that he could harness and direct the ionic wind created by high-voltage electricity.

More Magnetic Vibrations

More Magnetic Vibrations

Magnets have some very interesting physical properties. Magnetic Games previously showed us how they can make each other vibrate. They’re back with three more minutes of neodymium magnets interacting with each other’s fields. That separator machine that works like a paper cutter is a cool idea.

The Physics of Falling Objects

The Physics of Falling Objects

Could a penny dropped from a skyscraper kill someone? Derek Muller from Veritasium teamed up with Adam Savage to revisit this urban myth by dropping a bucketful of pennies on Muller from a helicopter. After surviving the experiment, he explains how gravity and air resistance affect the terminal velocity of objects.

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Cheating at Arcade Games with Science

Cheating at Arcade Games with Science

Mark Rober likes to use his engineering skills to help the little guy get a fair shake. After showing us how to improve our chances at carnival games, he built a series of portable devices that help him cheat and score the most at skill-based arcade games, and also shows us which ones are complete scams.

A Trip to Infinity (Trailer)

A Trip to Infinity (Trailer)

Places… numbers… the future… all of these things seem limitless, but are they? This documentary explores the nature of infinity through interviews with prominent mathematicians, physicists, and cosmologists. Is the universe genuinely boundless, or is that just human wishful thinking? Drops 9.26.22 on Netflix.

Are Humans Hotter Than The Sun?

Are Humans Hotter Than The Sun?

The idea that our bodies make more heat than the sun seems outlandish. In this video from minutephysics and XKCD, we learn how – going strictly by volume – a human radiates more heat than an equivalent amount of the sun. You’ll also find out what might happen if planets were made out of their corresponding element.

Shooting Things Through Spinning Fans

Shooting Things Through Spinning Fans

It’s pretty easy to toss something into a spinning fan and watch it get smashed. But how feasible is it to send an object flying through multiple fan blades and have it emerge from the other end? Leave it to the guys from How Ridiculous to find out.

When a Portal Passes Through Another Portal

When a Portal Passes Through Another Portal

The idea of a portal that leads to another place is science fiction at this point, so any analysis of portal physics is strictly theoretical. But we still enjoyed MinutePhysics’ exploration of the what might happen if one portal passed through another. They need to try something like this on Rick and Morty.

Earthquake Maker Truck

Earthquake Maker Truck

Engineers need to simulate earthquakes to make buildings and other structures safer. Tom Scott headed to the University of Texas to check out the T-Rex, a mobile test rig that can produce massive vibrations in the ground. Combined with sensors, it can measure the stiffness of soil thousands of feet beneath the surface without digging.

LEGO Vortex Machines

LEGO Vortex Machines

If you spin a fluid-filled vessel fast enough, you can get the liquid to form a vortex. Brick Technology wanted to see if they could produce such an effect using LEGO mechanisms, so they created a series of machines to experiment with fluid dynamics. The one at the end is impressively stable for how fast it spins.

Realistic Engine Simulator

Realistic Engine Simulator

Cars in racing games don’t have the most realistic-sounding engine sounds. AngeTheGreat’s Engine Simulator not only can replicate the mechanisms and physics of a car engine, but it also produces realistic procedurally-generated sounds. You can grab the source code for Windows on GitHub.

Making an Electromagnetic Launcher

Making an Electromagnetic Launcher

Electromagnets can be very powerful. They’ve even been used to get roller coasters and trains rolling and to launch fighter jets. Tom Stanton made a miniature system of homebrew linear synchronous motors which use electromagnetism to propel a small sled and launch various items including a hot dog and a paper airplane.

Why Airplane Windows Are Round

Why Airplane Windows Are Round

Released in 1952, the de Havilland Comet was the world’s first commercial jetliner. Sadly, engineers did not know at that point that a seemingly innocuous feature – square windows – would doom the pioneering plane and many people’s lives. Real Engineering explains the physics, and how we ended up with oval windows.

Making Inverted Soap Bubbles

Making Inverted Soap Bubbles

Normally the only hole on a soap bubble is the one that you blow through to fill it with air. But science vlogger and teacher Steve Mould shows us how it’s easy to make a perfectly circular hole in a film of soap using a loop of thread. He goes on to explain how it’s a useful metaphor for the way cell membranes work.

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