Awesome Physics

Two fighter pilots demonstrate one of the benefits of the extreme environment inside their F/A-18F Super Hornet jet, as they take advantage of a zero-G moment to gracefully pass a candy bar from the front to the rear of the cockpit.

After an earlier demonstration using copper wire, magnets and a battery to create a model railroad, YouTuber AmazingScience shows how to not only make a longer track, but to get the train to ride on the outside of the coil.

University of Toronto professor Stephen Morris shows how a domino has the potential energy to knock down a domino bigger than itself. String 13 dominoes together, and a 5mm-tall domino can ultimately topple a giant 100lb. slab.

A demonstration of a mechanized platform which can perfectly balance a ball in its center no matter how hard its human master attempts to defeat it. Its motion control system can also make the ball follow precise paths on demand.

Students from the University of Minnesota captured raindrops hitting sand at various velocities using a high-speed camera. Apparently the craters left behind by the drops are similar to those made by asteroid impacts.

Michael Stevens explores the antiquated and crackpot theories that the Earth isn’t round, and demonstrates the science of what would happen to us if our planet were really flat. On the other hand, we still believe time is a flat circle.

While some model railroads can be incredibly complicated, this one is constructed from nothing more than a copper wire, tiny magnets and a dry cell battery. We wonder how big a track you could make using this method.

In this fascinating clip from BBC Two series Human Universe, they demonstrate how a bowling ball and feather fall at exactly the same speed when air has been almost completely removed from a giant vacuum chamber.

Need the Cliffs’ Notes for the physics lesson where they explained the difference between matter and antimatter? Minute Physics does their best to sum up this perplexing science at their usual rapid-fire pace.

While the “hot ice” shown in this video isn’t really ice, it’s still a trippy chemical reaction created when a liquified form of sodium acetate trihydrate comes in contact with the solid form of itself, creating ice-like crystals.

A neat trick that makes clear objects dipped into liquid appear to have vanished. The secret – using glycerol or another clear, viscous liquid with the same refractive index as the outer glassware. Yeah, science!

Nitinol is an alloy made from nickel and titanium that can regain its original shape when heated. In this clip from science geek MIST8K, he shows off the material’s amazing properties. Also, we just added the word “scrumpled” to our dictionary.

Illusion hitmaker Brusspup shows off a magnetic device which can actually make objects hover. We’ve seen a smaller version before, but his use of large objects, and concealing the magnet makes the effect much more impressive.

To infinity and beyond! Veritasium’s Derek Muller looks at the nature of our ever-expanding universe, how space itself moves faster than the speed of light, and how the universe is dramatically larger in light years than its age.

Did you know you can create a 10,000 RPM motor with a battery, a drywall screw, a strand of wire and a magnet? In this video we see this scientific concept of homopolar motors at work.

NPR talks about Schlieren Flow Visualization, a photographic technique that allows us to see changes in air density, making it possible to view the presence and flow of heat, fluids and sound.

Unless you want to lose, you never want to try and remove a single block at the bottom of a stack of Jenga blocks. But this guy exploited the laws of physics to help him pluck out the bar without toppling the whole tower.

The music video for first track from Jack White’s upcoming solo album Lazaretto – an instrumental that combines blues and intense electric riffs, set against the backdrop of non-newtonian fluids and sand vibrating to the track’s frequencies.

YouTuber spumwack uses the simple graphics and programmable physics of Minecraft to better explain some of the complicated concepts of light speed. Like any good physics video he takes time to make us feel incredibly insignificant too.

Derek Muller from Veritasium show off how you can easily lift a 42 pound weight at the end of a metal rod, thanks to the wonders of gyroscopic precession. If only everything we ever had to lift was spinning at 2500 RPM. More here.

A fascinating look at the Leidenfrost effect, in which heated water droplets move towards each other and coalesce, as well as scenarios in which water droplets can actually climb uphill, or even be self-propelled along a pre-arranged path.

This brief demonstration of Lenz’s law shows how the magnetic field created by currents in this large copper tube resists the magnetic field of a falling neodymium magnet, causing it to drop in what seems like slow motion.

Scientists have uncovered some fascinating behaviors of ant colonies. When poured through a funnel, they act as a liquid, moving around each other – but when picked up or pushed down they become a sort of solid, clinging to each other.