Awesome Physics

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.

Previously, CGP Grey explained the surprisingly simple numbering scheme for U.S. interstates. Now he’s back to teach us how the numbers on airport runways work. You’ll also learn how airports decide which way to run their runways and what the North Pole has to do with everything. Oh, and this is not a physics video.

LEGO enthusiast Dr. Engine shows off a Technic machine that demonstrates how magnets can transmit energy through walls. Each of its spinning blades can turn without connecting to a central drivetrain thanks to magnetic fields. A gear-drive mechanism places each section in its precise sweet spot.

You can do all kinds of fun things with magnets, but we never thought of them as musical instruments. The guys from Magnet Tricks and Magnetic Games teamed up to create a series of sounds from magnetic vibrations, sampled them, then turned them into a synthwave track.

We always had it in our minds that all matter was a solid, a liquid, or a gas. But as PBS Space Time explains, there are numerous other states of matter – some of which are understandable like plasma – and others that require a PhD in physics to fully comprehend. And then there’s sand.

After showing us it was possible to ride a bike with its rear wheel split in half, Sergii from The Q came up with an even more radical build. Starting with the split rear wheel, he modified the front of a bicycle with an extension arm and split the wheel into thirds. He had to experiment with configurations to make it work, though.

Magnetic fields can be pretty amazing. Given the right conditions, they can be turned into motors and even levitate. Magnetic Games shows off three different setups, each of which results in magnets floating and spinning with just a small boost of human or battery power.

The Magnetic Games channel teamed up with the Magnet Tricks channel to create a series of fascinating demonstrations of how magnets interact as their attractive and repelling properties cause movements and vibrations in each other.

We normally think of water as being clear or maybe having a slight green or blue tint reflected from its surroundings. But Posy reveals a full rainbow of colors hiding in H20 in both steam and liquid forms when the temperature conditions and lighting are just right.

Mechanical gears can change the speed or force by using different sizes and spacing of their teeth. But we had no idea that a similar result could be achieved by spinning discs embedded with different quantities and sizes of magnets. Magnetic Games shows off this surprising behavior in this neat physics demonstration.

Helicopter rotors are usually propelled by a spinning motor, but Project Air wanted to see if it would be feasible to use a rocket engine to make the blade spin instead. Rather than build a complete helicopter, he built a free-flying monocopter that could fly with a single rocket.

If you split a wheel in half, you shouldn’t still be able to ride on it, right? Well, watch this video from The Q, in which he cut two bike wheels and tires down the middle, connected them with a long chain and positioned them so one half is always touching the ground. Miraculously, the bike rides just fine.

Building on his own his series of dented can sculptures, artist Noah Deledda applied the idea to something you can enjoy every day. The Crushmetric pen changes from a smooth form, to a deeply-faceted pattern with the push of a button. It’s available in a silver or holographic finish. The Action Lab explains how it works.

After building several self-balancing machines, engineer James Bruton wanted to see if he could make one that could help him walk across a narrow beam. It uses a large motorized wheel that changes direction based on the angle detected by a sensor. The trick is not letting his body compensate too much for its motion.

There are countless videos on the Internet that claim to demonstrate machines that can generate their own energy and operate in perpetuity. Don’t believe the hype. In this video from The Action Lab, he shows off one such trick, which uses hidden electromagnets to make a sphere look like it’s spinning on its own.

After building a mirrored room that lights up the entire space no matter where a light source is placed, James from The Action Lab wanted to see if he could build a mirrored room that won’t reflect light onto all of its walls. The trick is a space that uses curved mirrors with wraparound corners in specific locations.

This interactive educational system helps students learn about the physical properties of structures. It combines a set of beams, levers, pivot points, and other parts that attach to a backboard which work in concert with augmented reality projections to show the physics at play when forces are applied.

There’s a series of videos making the rounds that shows vehicles being launched off of a disproportionately tall bulge in the road, and they’re quite entertaining. The clips were made using the soft-body vehicle simulator BeamNG.drive, and these ones were posted by BeamNG Nation. That Cybertruck aced the landing.

A hero’s engine is a spherical device that spins using steam pushed through a pair of opposing jets. Jimmy Kimmel Live regular “Science Bob”​ Pflugfelder created this unique version of the hero’s engine that spins up rapidly as liquid nitrogen vapors create the necessary pressure to get it spinning fast.

James from The Action Lab shows off a physics demonstration that had us scratching our heads at first. While it appears that the ball bearing inside of this glass beaker will spin forever without adding energy, there’s a perfectly rational explanation of what’s going on. The Egg of Columbus demo is pretty neat too.

Blowing and popping soap bubbles is fun – other than the slippery mess left on the floor afterward. The Slow Mo Guys had some fun making soap bubbles so big that a human can stand inside of it. The 50,000 fps slow-motion footage gives us a unique perspective on what it looks like as each bubble bursts.

It’s pretty easy to get a LEGO wheel spinning fast with a motor, but what about with human power? The Brick Experiment Channel set up a LEGO flywheel and gear mechanism which he proceeded to spin using only his fingers and a piece of string. He measured the rotations using a laser and a marker to calculate its speed.

We’ve previously seen how gravity might affect a ball being dropped on different planets, as well as the sun and the moon. Now see what might happen if the same experiment were conducted with a stack of lumber dropped onto a car, courtesy of the automotive physics simulator BeamNG.