MATC Mathematics Club
Lecture #54
Madison Area Technical College
Madison, Wisconsin

Abstract: The Wonders of Physics brings some of the most exciting demonstrations from the UW Physics Department to MATC to encourage you to wonder about physics, which is the study of motion.  We will try to explain to you how the demonstrations work, but unfortunately we won't be able to explain them very well using English.  For one thing English is not very precise, and for another it is terribly easy for one English speaker to misunderstand another, even under the best circumstances.

The most wonderful discovery of physics is that there exists another language, in which the motion of objects can be described with precision and without the possibility of misunderstanding.  This language, which was originally developed for completely different purposes, is the language we use in college physics classes to describe the motion of objects we see around us on the earth, and above us in the sky.  No one knows why this language
is so suitable for this purpose, but nonetheless it is.  That language, of course, is mathematics. This presentation will be a part of the Fifth Annual Middle School Math Competition

Biography: Professor James Reardon, UW-Madison, Department of Physics
Ph.D MIT '99 (plasma physics)

 

Welcome by President Bettsey Barhorst and "The Wonders of Physics"
Professor Reardon shows how students are physics experts.	Making parabolas with a medicine ball
	Elli learns to spin by using something with more inertia to help her get started.
	Elli is a physics expert!
A hyberbolic cosine
Students demonstrated standard deviation.
Liquid nitrogen
Professor Reardon discusses Fourier Analysis with an MATC student.
Making sine waves by singing into a microphone.
Click on any of the above pictures for the original sized image file.

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