Minute Physics is a great YouTube channel! (sometimes requires a bit of scientific knowledge to understand, and I always have to watch each short video a few times)
Physics Girl is another great YouTube channel! (geared towards a funner audience)
Epic Rap Battles!
Weird Al is Sir Isaac Newton!
Einstein vs Stephen Hawking
Schlieren cameras allow you to see air! This video shows air flowing! Air is a fluid like liquids, so gases of lower density rise due to buoyancy. Hot air expands to a lower density, so it rises, as you can see in the video! The way that the air flows very similarly to water is amazing to see. Here's a great video on how the camera works.
Atoms are small! IBM used atoms to create the world's smallest movie, and here is how they made it. Here is some of the first evidence for the existence of atoms (in 1905, so relatively recent!).
Fun with liquid nitrogen (explicit)! The video says that the balloon fills with air as it warms up from -196 °C, but it means to say that the air already in the balloon expands.
Fire syringe! The video mentions that the compression heats the air. This is not true. The air gets hotter, but not due to heat, which is the transfer of internal energy from something hot like a burner to something colder. Instead, as the first law of thermodynamics describes, the work done through compression is what raises the temperature of the gas.
A great YouTube video showing total internal reflection. This is the idea behind fiber optics, except, instead of a tube of water, there is a fiber of plastic or glass. You only need to watch the first minute to see everything. Notice how the water stops flowing smoothly (stops being laminar) towards the bottom of the stream, which causes the light to escape. Here is a fun commercial I found that takes advantage of this idea!
Special relativity videos...
Special relativity is about electromagnetism! And electromagnetism needs special relativity!
Special relativity can be summed up as the statement: "all inertial (that is, good) observers will observe the same laws of physics, including the laws of E&M (electromagnetism) such as the speed of light in vacuum being 299,792,458 m/s." We know this to be true from common experience since we can toss a ball or use a laptop in a speeding airplane and, if the plane's windows are covered and the flight smooth enough, we might even momentarily forget that we are on a plane. The plane is an inertial "good" observer, and here is an example of a non-inertial "bad" observer (there is no law of physics saying that things should randomly jump around for no reason!).
Twin "paradox"! A paradox is something that contradicts itself. For example, is the following statement true or false? "This statement is false." The laws of physics may contain unexpected results, but the laws must be logically consistent containing no paradoxes.
Black hole videos (I have more in my astronomy videos!)...
Vsauce: though keep in mind that wormholes are VERY speculative, and his comment at the end about the size of the universe is only about the observable universe, which is not infinite because light—and neutrinos and gravitational waves—has only had 13.8 billion years to travel, so light from distant objects has yet to reach us!
Modern science understands a huge number of things. Sadly, we usually cannot teach them because many other things must be understood first. Did you know that physicists now refer to Einstein's gravity as classical? Relativity was published over a hundred years ago! (Quantum mechanics is considered to be modern.) However, the most modern fields of physics—particle physics and cosmology—are rarely talked about in a more-than-superficial way. To get a taste of what modern physicists are talking about, please check out these great videos: quantum fields (2017 summary of what makes up the universe), Bohemian Gravity! (string theory fun), Rolling in the Higgs! (Standard Model fun), Lisa Randall: Understanding Multiple Dimensions (short and understandable), Sean M Carroll on Origin of the Universe & the Arrow of Time (a much-longer-but-easier-to-understand video telling us why time seems to prefer the direction we call forward), and lots about quarks! I will rarely link to anything by Stephen Hawking or Michio Kaku because they sensationalize physics to sell books rather than to correctly explain it, and I hope that this entire page of links shows that the correct explanations, while being more technical, are the funnest and most interesting!
Magnets: How do they work?
(If you weren't on the Internet in 2010, just skip to the last two of these!)
the question (explicit)
the meme (explicit)
SNL's parody
the answer
Richard Feynman's brilliant answer from many years ago (Feynman lived a fantastically interesting life including a Nobel Prize)
Khan Academy is a great website! I have overheard countless people recommend this site to their friends! Bozeman Science also has video resources!
Fun astronomy Flash games for kids! Enjoy your astronomy badge Layla!
Check out this beginner's astronomy page with a fantastic set of links! Ava, I sure hope you someday manage to get a telescope or binoculars to go with your astronomy badge!
A great astronomy computer game is Universe Sandbox! I haven't played it because it costs money, but it looks great!
Descriptions of the constellations. Find some interesting stars to learn about, Tina!
Send me any interesting links that you feel belong here!
Solar System Scope lets you set the date and time and then view the sky from either on or outside Earth
Ecliptic (Zodiac) Simulator lets you see which part of the sky the Sun is in and is simply fun to play with
This link explains how often shooting stars (typically seen during meteor showers) are visible and the best dates to find them. The best meteor shower is the Geminids in December which has a max of 120 per hour. The next best is the Perseids in August having 60 or more per hour.
Tables of apparent magnitudes (brightness) of many different objects
In Albuquerque...
A forecast of Albuquerque's night sky is very useful.
Here are the sunrise, sunset, and Moon times for Albuquerque.
The Albuquerque Astronomical Society often has free star parties and other events (so does the Rio Rancho Astronomical Society).
UNM Observatory has free viewings on Fridays during the spring and fall semesters.
Know when to look up to see the International Space Station (ISS), which is often visible right after sunset when the light can still reflect off of it at its relatively low altitude of 330 km. It will look like a fast moving white dot (it takes 90 minutes to orbit the Earth).
If you have a mobile device, here are some great sky apps that let you point your device at the sky and learn about what you're seeing (last updated 2023)...
Star Chart is for iOS and is free
Google Sky Map is for Android and is free
The classic powers-of-10 video! (YouTube) and a newer one (YouTube)
An amazing journey exploring the moons of Saturn with Cassini! (TED Talk)
Uranus has a fascinating atmosphere and set of rings! (YouTube)
43 minute journey from Sun to Jupiter at the speed of light (video)
Space stuff next to other space stuff!
Planet&star size comparison! (YouTube)
Planet&star size and appearance compared to Earth, and the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field image!
How to find an exoplanet (YouTube) and the history and present of exoplanet discovery from an exoplanet hunter (YouTube)
Great sites to visit frequently...
APOD
space news
Great movies...
Apollo 13 (1995)
Contact (1997)
Gravity (2013)
The Martian (2015)
Hidden Figures (2017)
Space has inspired many movies and shows (Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Futurama, Red Dwarf, etc.), and here are some of my fave (and often lesser-known) space-related movies...
Alien (1979)
Gattaca (1997)
K-PAX (2001)
Signs (2002)
Melancholia (2011)
Another Earth (2011)
Cloud Atlas (2012)
We are all made of star stuff because most of the ancient atoms in our bodies were formed in stars billions of years ago (we are only borrowing the atoms that are presently in our bodies!). This song agrees, though the video gives a different interpretation. The most astounding fact.
Watch this video to see a great example of the many important simulations done by supercomputers! We can literally see how the universe started from the flash of light that was emitted when the universe was very young (this light is called the cosmic microwave background), and, if you put this data into a supercomputer that knows the laws of physics, you can calculate the universe at the present time 14 billion years later!
General relativity has to do with gravity. Einstein finished this theory in 1915, ten years after special relativity. It can be summarized with the statement: "gravity is not a force but objects following 'straight lines' in curved space and time." Here is a great video to help you visualize straight motion in a two-dimensional curved space (you should notice that the coin orbits!). In fact, as you are sitting down right now, you are actually not at rest (at rest means not moving)! At rest would actually be to freely fall towards Earth's center, so the floor is actually accelerating you upwards through a curved spacetime! Luckily, as must be true, general relativity reproduces Newton's universe at the normal gravitational fields of most of the universe, so we can safely think of gravity as being a simple attractive force instead of thinking about curved spacetime. We would have to travel to black holes or neutron stars to see large differences from Newton's universe! Here is a 3D version of the 2D rubber sheet.
Black holes are one of many amazing consequences of general relativity!
a black hole the size of a coin on Earth
what happens if you fall into a black hole
bizarre motions of stars near the supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky Way
list of nearest stellar-mass black holes
long video exploring black holes! (turn off any tracking blockers you have)
In about 4 billion years, the Andromeda Galaxy (which is currently 2.5 million lightyears away) will collide with our Milky Way simulated here. Billions of years are simulated in this video. Luckily, our Solar System should survive.
Did you know that the universe's expansion has no center?
Watch this great video to learn about superclusters. More specifically, we discovered in 2015 that we belong to a larger supercluster than the Virgo Supercluster! We call it the Laniakea Supercluster.
You might know why the sky is blue during the day, but do you know why it's dark at night? Are you sure? This video explains the resolution to Olbers' paradox.
The universe used to be very different from today's universe, and it will again become very different in the future. The early universe was very bizarre and extreme! Before it was 380,000 years old, the universe was a hot plasma that was the same temperature everywhere much like a single infinite star. As the link describes, we may one day return to similar condition if the Big Crunch occurs. At the far fature end of the timeline, here is fun link about the specifics of the universe's far future for those who enjoy thinking about such things!
Depending on your sense of humor, you can watch the following videos (explicit)...
Monty Python's "Galaxy Song"
Tim and Eric's "The Universe"
If you are taking or have taken calculus, you might enjoy these videos! If you have not taken calculus, maybe these vids will inspire you to take it? Or inspire you to make a video? I like to think that all people who have passed calculus all belong to a secret club of (nerdy) awesome!
Calculus Thrift Shop
Calculus Rhapsody
Stuff Calculus Students Never Say
Learn how to "prove" that 2 = 1 and 1 = -1. If such things could actually be proven, any mathematical statement could be proven (for example, 4 = 10). Personally, I have a few of these "proofs" memorized as they are fun to mention when discussing math and the rigors of mathematical deductive reasoning, and I am sure to also memorize the mathematical fallacies where the "proofs" go wrong.
Google (the search not the calculator) is a handy calculator! Try typing
c/(30+2E2) in km/h
where c is interpreted as the speed of light in vacuum, and 2E2 is scientific notation for 200. Also, try stuff like
x + 2 = 3
x^2 - 8 x + 1 = 85
earth radius
1 AU in lightyears
y = cos(x)
z = x^2 + y^2
Sadly, Google has been having sporadic behavior over the past few years, so I wouldn't depend on it as a calculator. Just know that it's there if you want to try a quick calculation.
WolframAlpha is the greatest thing ever. This can do whatever Google can do, so try typing any of the above examples. Or, try the following examples...
sin^2(x) + cos^2(x)
integrate x^2 from 0 to 2
int a*x^3 {x,0,2}
y' = y
You can add this site to your search bar on your favorite web browser! Or, you can spend a couple dollars and buy the app for your mobile device turning your phone into a powerful computer! Note that viewing the site on a mobile device has limited functionality because they want you to buy the app, and note that buying the app still doesn't give you a pro subscription.
If you want a graphing tool that doesn't require Internet access, the Desmos Graphing Calculator is a great free app (in addition to the free website I just linked to)! Note that nearly all computers and smartphones already come with a free (non graphing) scientific calculator.
Log in to Brilliant on a regular basis for real-world math and science puzzles!
Stream Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (2014) is available on fox.com!
Bill Nye the Science Guy is also on NetFlix! (So is The Magic School Bus and The Magic School Bus Rides Again!) Also, Bill Nye Saves the World is a new show now on NetFlix, which is a facts-over-ideology show that helps us have beliefs that are in line with the facts (which can be a tricky thing to do in this complicated world where extreme liberals reject GMOs and vaccines and extreme conservatives reject climate change). Bill Nye's new show is not intended to teach the crucial skill of rigorous scientific methodology because its goal is instead to present science-based ideas and conclusions without being boring.
YouTube channel that asks (and answers!) very fun questions: Vsauce
Making hard stuff less hard from math and physics to computer science: Up and Atom
Perhaps the greatest YouTube channel ever: Veritasium
A fascinating YouTube channel about brains: BrainCraft
If you ever want to feel a sense of awe at the complexity of life: The Inner Life of the Cell. Keep in mind that cell is simply obeying laws of physics without a mind controlling it.
A YouTube channel with "crash courses" in various topics: CrashCourse
A great Facebook page about science for this great website
A fun YouTube channel about do-it-yourself engineering: Colin Furze. Engineering applies science! While you're at it, if you have a TV, check out the timeless beloved show MythBusters (and the Netflix original White Rabbit Project).
I love seeing engineering applied to make music and other creative endeavors! Check out this marble machine and OK Go!
If you like podcasts and science, check out the best science podcasts!
Great Albuquerque locations...
Museum of Natural History and Science (has a planetarium and many other things; check out First Friday Fractals!)
Explora (check out their adult nights!)
Nuclear Museum
2014 was a good year for movies about scientists (I like the first one the best)...
The Imitation Game
The Theory of Everything
The following documentaries show the amazing journeys scientists have been on as they work together to make fantastic discoveries! Seeing the story of how something is learned is an important emotional and intellectual piece of fully understanding the story of science.
The Farthest (about Voyager spacecrafts) (on NetFlix!)
Particle Fever (about the Higgs boson)
Zooniverse is people-powered science! You can contribute to scientific research within minutes while sitting at home! Though, you may wish to wait until a break from school...
Or, if volunteer computing (letting scientific projects use some of your computer's GPU and CPU power) interests you, check out Folding@home or BOINC and see my page on volunteer computing
Have you ever wondered how a computer can be built from basic electronic parts? If so, build your own 8-bit CPU using these amazing video instructions! I did this with my high-school STEM club thanks to a student who took initiative. For $280, we bought the entire kit to build it ourselves. We watched the first 5 videos to understand the basics of electronics and circuits, then we just got busy building from the schematics in the kits (though the main student watched all videos!). Troubleshooting problems was lots of fun. We were going to jump to video #36 and watch to the end to start programming the CPU's instruction set, but COVID-19 happened. I learned a lot! Just watching the videos at end taught me a lot about machine code and assembly language! These are things that modern abstract programming languages can hide from us, but the knowledge can be useful. Of course, modern CPUs are far more fancy (for example, they have things likes special registers for making syscalls to the kernel of the OS). Feynman has a great unique view regarding how computers work.
Have you ever wondered how deep learning works for machine learning? Watch these great videos! If you want to take the next step of learning how to code deep learning, I recommend using the data linked in the description of the second video as a starting point. Seems that most deep learning software uses Python's SciPy modules (including NumPy and Matplotlib), which I like because everyone should learn SciPy (PyTorch doesn't use SciPy). Then, there is a choice for the exact deep-learning software. I highly recommend starting with Keras (with TensorFlow backend)! You can use Keras to ignore all the pesky details, or you can dig into the TensorFlow more deeply if you want to reinvent deep learning, want to make custom layers within Keras, or want low-level tools for general machine learning.
I have always been selective when choosing software that I actually need. Whenever I can, I choose SciPy or just basic Python over importing a more complicated module, but, for complicated things like deep learning, I need some great fancy software that can do high-level and low-level, so Keras with TensorFlow is the choice! Most people use Jupyter Notebooks to organize their Python when doing deep learning or data science, but these seem unnecessarily complicated to me, especially if my final goal is to run the code on a supercomputer. When I played around with deep learning, I just used my trusty text editor to make two Python scripts: (1) one that loads data, trains a model (takes time!), runs basic tests, then saves the model to storage drive and (2) one that quickly loads data and saved model to perform tests, make predictions, and make various plots and images.
After doing Internet research to figure out how to make my code the best it can be, I found myself coming across certain ideas and terms frequently, and I wished to understand the overall field of deep learning better. This great playlist helped me understand a lot! To truly understand the ideas in these videos, I would have to start writing some code to implement them, but I'll leave that to you!
