In order to find the dielectric constant of an insulating fluid the authors measured the resonance frequency of a parallel plate capacitor that had the fluid as dielectric. The results show that the method is suitable but some improvements are needed to increase the experimental sensitivity. […]
A simple experiment for measuring the velocity of sound in air using two hollow metal cylinders, a microphone and a digital oscilloscope is described. Knowing the distance between microphone and cylinders the velocity of sound is easily computed by measuring the time interval between banging them together and the microphone’s reception of the sound. […]
On-line data acquisition systems have disclosed new possibilities for teaching physics laboratory. A cheap and easy apparatus, as the one here described, allows to easily perform interesting experiments or to re-design old experiments making them suitable for schools that have no laboratory, […]
We have created and studied a model of the cooling and freezing dynamics of a lake when outside temperatures are below 0 ºC. […]
The performance of an ideal hydraulic engine that transfers water between two reservoirs at different heights is compared with that of a reversible Carnot engine. The interest of this analogy between thermodynamic and mechanical quantities for a Karlsruhe type of teaching approach is discussed. […]