Sound and Fire

It’s been quite a while since my last post – being a teacher has consumed every free moment I might have. But I can’t complain, I am really loving it.

Spring break was a few weeks ago and before leaving for spring break I assigned a hefty amount of HW to my students. I told them the reason I give them so much work is because I want them truly practice and understand physics. I finished the argument by telling them that the amount of HW I assigned to them was directly proportional to how much I loved them! After class, I notice the following on my white board:

I guess my students disagree with my HW vs. logic, but I was ecstatic to see that they used correct mathematical language to express themselves! Teacher win!!!

This past week I started teaching the Unit on Waves in my physics class. We started with the basics of wave characteristics talking about thunder and lightning and explaining why even though its the same event, we hear and see these at different times (speed of light wave > speed of sound wave). Then we talked about the different types and parts of wave. Finally at the end of the week we derived the wave speed equation from the original equation of speed we had learned in the mechanics unit, v= d/t.

This week I am starting off with one of my favorite demonstrations, the Ruben’s Tube. Unfortunately I did not have time to build my own Ruben’s Tube but there are a bunch of cool videos all over the internet which show was this device does. I will definitely spend time this summer building my own Ruben’s Tube for next year.

The most basic description of what a Ruben’s Tube does is that it allows you to visualize sound. Sound travels in waves, compression waves specifically so this is a perfect demonstration for the waves unit.

Here is a very basic video of a functioning Ruben’s Tube with a wonderful explanation:

And here is a video combining two things I love – physics and dubstep