Office: Tr-B 107
Phone: (941) 590-7219
e-mail: bbowman@fgcu.edu
Introductory Physics Videos
001. Introduction to The Mechanical Universe - This introductory preview enters an Artistotelian world in conflict, introduces the revolutionary ideas and heroes from Copernicus through Newton, and links the physics of the heavens to the physics of the earth.
002. The Law of Falling Bodies - The rise of Galileo on the inclined plane. With the conventional wisdom of the Aristotelian worldview, almost everyone could see that heavy bodies fell faster than lighter ones. Then along came Galileo. His genius deduced that the distance a body has fallen at any instant is proportional to the square of the time spent falling. And his imaginative experiments proved that all bodies fall with the same constant acceleration.
003. Derivatives - The function of mathematics in physical science. From a theoretical concept to a practical tool, the derivative rose to determine the instantaneous speed and acceleration of a falling body. Differentiation developed further to calculate how any quantity changes in relation to another. The power rule, the product rule, the chain rule – the rules of differentiation are essential vocabulary in the mathematic language of physics.
004. Inertia - The rise of Galileo and his fall from grace. Copernicus conjectured that the earth spins on its axis and orbits around the sun. Considering its implications, a rather dangerous assumption that prompted rather risky questions: why do objects fall to earth rather than hurtle off into space? And in this heretical scheme of things in which the earth wasn't at the center, where was God? Risking more than his favored status in Rome, Galileo helped to answer such questions with the law of inertia.
005. Vectors - Physics must explain not only why and how much, but also where and which way. Physicists and mathematicians invented a way of describing quantities that have direction as well as magnitude. Laws that deal with such phenomena as distance and speed are universal. And vectors, which describe quantities such as displacement and velocity, universally express the laws of physics in a way that is the same for all coordinate systems.
006. Newton's Laws - A refinement on Galileo's law of inertia, Newton's first law states that every body remains at rest or continues in uniform motion unless an unbalanced force acts on it. His second law, the most profound statement in classical mechanics, relates the causes to the changes of motion in every object in the cosmos. Newton's third law explains the seemingly extraordinary phenomenon of interactions: for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction.
007. Integration - Newton and Leibniz arrived at the conclusion that differentiation and integration are inverse processes. Their exciting intellectual discovery, dramatically rerun to reflect the times, ended in an extremely controversial dead heat.
008. The Apple and The Moon - The first authentic steps toward outer space. Seeking an explanation for Kepler's theories, Newton discovered that gravity describes the force between any two particles in the universe. From an English orchard to Cape Canaveral and beyond, Newton's universal law of gravity reveals why an apple but not the moon falls to earth.
009. Moving in Circles - The original Platonic ideal, with derivatives of vector functions. According to Plato, starts are heavenly beings that orbit the earth with uniform perfection – uniform speed and perfect circles. Even in this imperfect world, uniform circular motion makes perfect mathematical sense. Introduces motion in a circle at constant speed.
010. The Fundamental Forces - All physical phenomena of nature are explained by four forces. Two nuclear forces – strong and weak – dwell within the atoms. The fundamental force of gravity ranges across the universe at large. So does electricity, the fourth fundamental force, which binds the atoms of all matter
011. Gravity, Electricity, Magnetism - The gravitational force between two masses, the electric force between two charges, and the magnetic force between two magnetic poles – all of these forces take essentially the same mathematical form. Newton's script suggested connections between electricity and magnetism. Acting on scientific hunches, Maxwell saw the matter in an entirely new light. An overview of the similarities of G, E, and M is shown. Further detail on coupling of the E and M fields to form light (Maxwell's Eq'ns and E+M radiation) is discussed.
012. The Millikan Experiment - How does science progress? Through painstaking trial and error, illustrated with a dramatic re-creation of Robert Millikan's classic oil-drop experiment. Understanding the electric force on a charged droplet and viscosity, he measured the charge of a single electron.
013. Conservation of Energy - The myth of the energy crisis. According to one of the major laws of physics, energy is neither created or destroyed.
014. Potential Energy - The nature of stability. Potential energy provides a clue, and a powerful model, for understanding why the world has worked the same way since the beginning of time.
015. Conservation of Momentum - If the mechanical universes is a perpetual clock, what keeps it ticking away till the end of time? Taking a clue from Descartes, momentum – the produce of mass and velocity – is always conserved. Newton's laws embody the concept of conservation of momentum. This law provides a powerful principle for analyzing collisions.
016. Harmonic Motion - The music and mathematics of nature. The restoring force and inertia of any stable mechanical system cause objects to execute simple harmonic motion, a phenomenon that repeats itself in perfect time. Harmonic motion is introduced using the simple pendulum and the spring mass system.
The spring mass system is developed in detail, but not the simple pendulum. Hooke's Law is introduced and shown to be a restoring force. The conservation of energy is shown with the exchange between potential and kinetic forms.
Any stable object will execute (simple) harmonic motion if it is disturbed. The video dose not do an extensive job showing the difference between simple harmonic motion (SHM) and harmonic motion.
017. Resonance - The music and mathematics of nature, part II. As Galileo noted, the swings of a pendulum increasingly grow with repeated, timed applications of a small force. When the frequency of an applied force matches the natural frequency of a system, large-amplitude oscillations result in the phenomenon of resonance. Resonance explains why a swaying bridge collapses with a high wind, and how a wineglass shatters with a higher octave. Resonance and its effects are introduce, modeled, and experimentally verified.
A repeated force applied to an object at or near the natural frequency produce LARGE amplitudes.
018. Waves - The medium disturbances of nature. With an analysis of simple harmonic motion and a stroke of genius, Newton extended mechanics to the propagation of sound. Mechanical waves in elastic media are introduced
Concepts of oscillations are introduced in the context of mechanical waves. Wave relations between vibrating systems and sound are developed.
Longitudinal and Transverse types of waves are defined. The physical variables of amplitude, period, frequency, are wavelength defined.
The speed of the wave, vel. = (freq.)(wavelength), is graphically explained. Alternate special cases of wave speeds are introduced. Theses cases include sound, water waves, etc.
019. Angular Motion - An old momentum with a new twist. Kepler's second law of planetary motion, which is rooted here in a much deeper principle, imagined a line from the sun to a planet that sweeps out equal areas in equal times. Angular momentum is a twist on momentum – the cross product of the radius vector and momentum. A force with a twist is torque. When no torque acts on a system, the angular momentum of the system is conserved.
020. Torques and Gyroscopes - Why a spinning top doesn't topple. When a torque acts on a spinning object, the angular momentum changes, but the objects only precesses. The object may be a child's toy, or a part of a navigation system, or Earth itself.
021. Kepler's Three Laws - The wandering mathematician. Kepler's three laws described the motion of heavenly bodies with unprecedented accuracy. However, the planets still moved in paths traced by the ancient Greek mathematicians – the conic section called an ellipse.
022. The Kepler Problem - The combination of Newton's law of gravity and F=3D ma. The task of deducing all three of Kepler's laws from Newton's universal law of gravitation is known as the Kepler problem. Its solution is one of the crowning achievements of Western thought.
023. Energy and Eccentricity - Tracing the path of a comet. The precise orbit of a heavenly body – a planet, asteroid or comet – is fixed by the laws of conservation of energy and angular momentum. The eccentricity, which determines the shape of an orbit, is intimately linked to the energy and angular momentum of the heavenly body.
024. Navigating in Space - Getting from here to there. Voyages to other planets require enormous expenditures of energy. However, the amount of energy expended can be minimized by using the same force that drives the planets around the solar system.
025. From Kepler to Einstein - The orbiting planets, the ebbing and flowing of tides, the falling body as it accelerates – these phenomena are consequences of the law of gravity. Why that is so leads to Einstein's general theory of relativity, into the black hole and beyond.
026. Harmony of Spheres - The music of spheres.
027. Beyond the Mechanical Universe - Provocative questions begin the quest of Beyond the Mechanical Universe. This introductory preview enters the world of Electricity and magnetism, goes onto 20th-century discoveries of Relativity and Quantum mechanics. The brilliant ideas of Faraday, Ampere, Maxwell, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg add to The Mechanical Universe of Newton.
028. Static Electricity - To understand materials, one must first understand electricity, and to understand electricity, one must first understand materials. Eighteenth century electricians understood neither, but they knew what it took to spark the interest of an audience and put on an electrifying show. Coulomb's law and the principles of static electricity are featured. Covers Coulomb's Law, atomic charges (quant. of charge), insulators, and conductors.
The repulsive and attractive nature of charge is graphically outlined and experimentally demonstrated via an electroscope and the Van De Graff.
029. The Electric Field - Michael Faraday's vision of lines of constant force in space laid the foundation for the modern idea of the field of force. Electric fields of static charges; Gauss' law and the conversation of flux. The concept of the vector field in electricity is presented in the context of Gauss' Law.
The ideas of Flux, the Inverse Square Law, and Gauss' Law are presented in a graphical context. And the electric field is shown to be zero in an electrostatic conductor, E
inside = 0.The Dipole and its electric field are described, as well as other zero and non-zero charge distributions.
030. Potential and Capacitance - Benjamin Franklin, the great 18th-century American scientist, who later dabbled in politics, was the first to propose a successful theory of the Leyden Jar. He gave positive and negative charges their names, and invented the parallel capacitor. Electrical potential, the potential of charged conductors, equipotentials and capacitance. Voltage (i.e. electric potential) and Capacitance are introduced.
The Leyden jar, parallel plate capacitor, and equivalent capacitance are defined and demonstrated. These concepts are presented in the context of Ben Franklin's work on electricity.
031. Voltage, Energy and Force - In the world of electric charges and currents, field, forces and voltages, what really matters? When is electricity dangerous or benign, spectacular or useful? The electric potential and its gradient; the potentials of atoms and metals; electric energy, and why sparks jump.
032. The Electric Battery - Electricity changed from a curiosity to a central concern of science and technology in 1800, when Allessandro Volta invented the electric battery. Batteries make use of the internal properties of different metals to turn chemical energy directly into electric energy.
033. Electric Circuits - Design and analysis of currents flowing in series and parallel circuits or resistors and capacitors depend not only on the celebrated laws of Ohm and Kirchhoff, but also on the less celebrated work of Charles Wheatstone.
034. Magnets - William Gilbert, personal physician by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I of England, discovered that the earth behaves like a giant magnet. Magnetism as a natural phenomenon, the behavior of magnetic materials, and the motion of charged particles in a magnetic field.
035. Magnetic Fields - All magnetic fields can be thought to be produced by electric currents. The relationship between a current and the magnetic field it produces is a little peculiar geometrically, and takes some getting used to. The law of Biot and Sarvart, the force between electric currents, and Ampere's law.
036. Vector Fields and Hydrodynamics - At first glance, replacing the old idea of action at a distance by the new idea of the field of force seems to be an exercise in semantics. But it isn't, because fields have definite properties of their own suitable for scientific study. For example, electric fields are different in form from magnetic fields, and both kinds can better be understood by analogy to fields of fluid flow.
037. Electromagnetic Induction - After Oersted's 1820 discovery that electric currents create magnetism, it was obvious that in some way magnetism should be able to create electric currents. This discovery of electromagnetic induction, in 1831, by Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry, was one of the most important of the 19th century, not only scientifically but also technologically, because it is the means by which nearly all electric power is generated today.
038. Alternating Current - Electromagnetic induction makes it easy and natural to generate alternating current. Use of transformers makes it practical to distribute ac over long distances. Alternating current circuits obey a different equation identical to the harmonic oscillator resonance equation.
039. Maxwell's Equations - By the 1860's all the pieces of the electricity and magnetism puzzle were in place, except one. The last piece, discovered by James Clark Maxwell and called (unfortunately) the displacement current was just what was needed to produce electromagnetic waves called (among other things) light.
040. Optics - Maxwell's theory says that electromagnetic waves of all wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma-rays and including visible light, are all basically the same phenomenon. Many of the properties of light are really just properties of waves, including reflection, refraction and diffraction. Ordinary light can be used to see things on human scale, X-rays to see things on an atomic scale.
041. The Michelson-Morley Experiment - In 1887, in Cleveland, Ohio, an exquisitely designed measurement of the motion of the earth through the ether resulted in the most brilliant failure in scientific history.
042. The Lorentz Transformation - If the speed of light is to be the same for all inertial observers (as indicated by the Michelson-Morley experiment) the equations for time and space are not difficult to find. But what do they mean? They mean that the length of a meter stick, or the rate of ticking of a clock depends on who measures it.
043. Velocity and Time - Unlike Lorentz, Albert Einstein was motivated to perfect the central ideas of physics rather than to explain the Michelson-Morley experiment. The result was a wholly new understanding of the meaning of space and time, including such matters as the transformation of velocities, time dilation, and the twin paradox.
044. Mass, Momentum, Energy - The new meaning of space and time make it necessary to formulate a new mechanics. Starting from the conservation of momentum, it turns out among other things that E =3D mc2.
045. Temperature and Gas Law - The ups and downs of scientific research are reflected in Boyle's experiments, and Charles' investigations. Hot new discoveries about the behaviors of gases make the connection between temperature and heat, and raise the possibility of an absolute scale.
046. Engine of Nature - This program begins a discussion of Carnot. The lesson covers the first law of thermodynamics, describes the Carnot engine and teaches the student how to define the efficiency of a heat engine.
047. Entropy - This program illustrates the genius of Carnot, Part II, and the second law of thermodynamics. The efficiency of Carnot's ideal engine depends on the ratio between high and low temperatures in the running cycle. Carnot's theory begins with simply steam engines and ends with profound implications for the behavior of matter and the flow of time throughout the universe.
048. Low Temperatures - Solids, liquids, and gases are the substances of every substance in the physical world. With the quest for low temperatures came the discovery that, under the right conditions of temperature and pressure, all elements can exist in each of the basic states of matter.
049. The Atom - This program explores the history of the atom, from the ancient Greeks to the early 20th century, when discoveries by J.J. Thomson and Ernest Rutherford created a new crisis for the world of physics.
050. Particles and Waves - Even before the crisis of the atom, there was evidence that light, which was certainly a wave, could sometimes act like a particle. In the new physics, called quantum mechanics, not only does light come in quanta called photons, but electrons and other particles also interfere like waves.
051. From Atoms to Quarks - Electron waves confined by electric attraction to the nucleus help resolve the dilemma of the atom and account for the periodic table of the elements. Nucleons themselves obey a kind of period table, following inner rules that lead to the idea of quarks.
052. The Quantum Mechanical Universe - A last, lingering look at where we've been, and perhaps a timid glance into the future, marks the close of the series THE MECHANICAL UNIVERSE AND BEYOND.
Listing of Books, Videos, and supplements on reserve at the Library