Double Slit Experiment

Elephant Toothpaste

What reaction is taking place here.

We have hydrogen peroxide in a graduated cylinder and we add potassium iodide (KI). The result is we see a mess load of bubbles as well as excess heat. Those bubbles are oxygen gas.

Here is the equation.

2H₂O₂ -> 2H₂O + O₂

Notice anything? The Potassium Iodide is not in the reaction directly, but it serves as a catalyst in the reaction. A catalyst does not get consumed in the reaction but speeds up the rate of reaction. It is the key to the Elephant Toothpaste experiment. The above equation showing the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide into water and oxygen gas is exothermic, meaning that it gives off heat. If we did not add the catalyst the breakdown would still occur at a much much slower rate. You would have to leave out the hydrogen peroxide for quite a long time to see it breakdown into water and oxygen without a catalyst, but it would occur. The catalyst speeds up the process to where we see the violent explosion in the video. Other compounds can be used as catalysts as well. Metals are often good catalysts, and we can use not only potassium (from Potassium Iodide or Potassium Sulfate), but Magnesium (from Magnesium Dioxide) as seen in the video below.

I got some good info from this site

Heaven

Bottled Water

Don't Buy it

The Volcano Underneath us

Information on Mt Hood's Volcanic History

Basics of HTML

http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_examples.asp

The Color of Snow

Link

Double Rainbow Explained

You may know the famous double rainbow video from Tosh.0

The video below gives a short summary of what science can tell us about what is going on with a double rainbow

http://videos.howstuffworks.com/discovery/41294-earth-giant-double-rainbow-explained-video.htm

Check out this site for great info on rainbows and other atmospheric phenomenon

Free-Falling

The video illustrates the fundamentals of gravity.

Physical objects attract each other with a force proportional to the mass.

Free-fall is a result of the gravitational force between the earth (or in this case the moon) and the object falling (in this case the hammer and the feather).

Because the force between these two objects in proportional to mass, the acceleration is the same for all falling bodies.

Why on earth does a feather fall slower than a hammer? Air resistance

The moon has essentially no atmosphere (a vacuum) so there is no air resistance and we see how falling bodies fall at the same rate despite their mass

The moons gravity is ~16.7% that of earths

(~1.63m/s^2 on moon~ 9.81m/s^2 on earth)

This is due to the fact that the moon is much lass massive than the earth

The decreased gravity allows us to see the free fall in slow motion compared with what would see on earth.

The first scientist to figure this out was Galeileo Galilei, who also greatly improved the design of the telescope, and helped prove Copernicus's theory of Heliocentrism

Boyles Law animation

Check it

Ruben's Tube

Snowflake Close up

Here is a set of microscopic images of snowflakes. The first one looks like some amalgamation of greek architecture and a coral reef. Be sure to pay attention to the scale shown in the bottom right of the images. A micrometer (μm) is 1.0 times 10^-6 of a meter, or one millionth of a meter, or one thousandth of a millimeter.

Force of Nature

This LINK has a great visual interface to explore volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, and hurricanes. We are talking about volcanoes in Earth Science right now so please check out the volcano page and make your own volcano.

Some Pictures

Gas Gas Gas

What is a gas? How do gases behave?

This pdf file (link) has great summary of the basics. While in Big Sky you should read sections 13.1 Gases and their Properties and 13.2 Ideal gas calculations. Make sure to read the sections on internal combustion engine and respirations (breathing). These are two great real world examples that illustrate how gases behave. I will provide some links about these topics.

Check out this calculator http://www.altitude.org/air_pressure.php to see how air pressure changes with altitude. Government Camp is at about ~3900 ft, the lodge at Big Sky is ~6800 ft and the summit (lone peak) at Big sky is 11,166 ft, almost as high as the summit of Mt Hood 11,235 ft. Remember that these calculations are approximate as local air pressure is not only dependent on altitude but temperature and humidity which varies (the weather).

Also check out the basics of the internal combustion engine. This is a great example that we can apply the gas laws to. http://www.howstuffworks.com/engine1.htm. Watch the video on this page. The idealized representation of a piston engine is called the Otto Cycle. Click through this diagram step by step and pay careful attention to the pressure and volume changes that occur during the phases of the Otto cycle. This is an idealized representation of what happens in your family car (unless you have a diesel engine). Look at the x and y axis. The x axis is volume and the y axis is pressure. Take note of the changes. A new term to keep in mind is adiabatic, which describes steps of the process that do not transfer heat.

The Known Universe

Mt St Helens Video

affect/effect

ever get confused about the words affect and effect, well don't worry it's confusing!

English is a crazy language with lots specific rules.

Check out this short and informative link

Donald Duck in Mathamagic Land

Here is a great video that my high school teacher Mrs. Sipher showed me back in 11th grade. Please watch this! You won't be disappointed.

Size and Scale

This animation gives a great visual representation of the size of some small things in your universe.

Cell Size and Scale

Doodlin'