It’s been a busy half-term at school, so I’ve not had time to think about blog posts and stuff like that. My timetable this year is rotten – I have only three periods during Week B in which to get all of my marking done. Yikes! Throw a few school reports on the to-do list and my spare time quickly disappears. Now I’ve a little time, I thought I’d put together a brief update.
A-Level Practical Videos
Over the last few years I’ve recorded a few videos of practical activities, and I intend to do more. Here are links to some of the practicals you may find helpful.
Investigating diffraction and interference: This is an A-Level Physics required practical in which I use diffraction gratings and Young’s double slits, with different coloured lasers.
Measuring acceleration due to gravity using a freefall method: This is another A-Level Physics required practical. I use light gates connected to a data logger to accurately time how long it takes for a card to fall a measured distance.
Measuring Young’s modulus: Yet another required practical. In this one I measure the Young’s modulus of a nichrome wire by stretching the wire horizontally on a bench.
Investigating the relationship between flux linkage and angle between flux density and coil: This is the most disliked required practical. It involves a lot of faffing with oscilloscopes and, at times, feels more like a Blue Peter challenge.
Measuring Planck’s constant using the illuminating potential difference for an LED: I use a standard piece of teaching apparatus to measure the potential difference needed across an LED to make it light up, and use this to determine Planck’s constant.
Measuring excitation energies for a gas using a spectrometer: This practical is let down by the camera only detecting certain colours, so it doesn’t look as pretty on video as it does in real life.
Measuring the speed of light: I send a pulse of light across the room and time how long it takes to return using an oscilloscope.
Measuring the work function for a metal: I use a standard piece of apparatus with a caesium-antimony photocathode to measure the work function of the metal.
Measuring the work function for a metal and the transmission wavelength for some cheap filters: I do the same experiment as before, but in this video I used some cheap filters and measured the transmission wavelength for the filters using a spectrometer.
Maxwell’s microwave interferometry: This was a demonstration of the interferometry.
Let me know if there are any you want me to record for you!
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Promotional Demonstration
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