ligo2005

LIGO 2005

Workshop on Conservation of energy through studies of motion, waves, resonance, and light. Apply algebra, measurement, and data analysis.

The workshop will be given at the LIGO Livingston site. Address is 19100 LIGO Lane, Livingston, LA

The current 7 Exploratorium exhibits at LIGO are: Pendulum Snake, giant slinky, wave machine, resonating rods, suspense, gravity's rainbow and soapfilm painting.

Perception Introductory activities.

Bird in a Cage, Create a brightly colored image, stare at it for 15 seconds in bright light, then look at a white paper. You will see a colored afterimage that may move.

Afterimage, an extension of Bird in a Cage looking at the mathematics of scaling.

Size Constancy, The apparent size of an object depends on its perceived distance.

Color Explorations to accompany the Soap Film Painting Exhibit

Colored Shadows, use red green and blue bulbs to cast multicolored shadows.

Red/green/blue filters, Look at the world through red and green filters, imagine how the world looks to insects that don't see red and birds that don't see blue

Red/Green Afterimages, after looking at the world through a red filter for a while remove the filter and notice how green the world looks.

Interference colors

Soap Film in a Can, create interference colors using thin transparent materials.

Permanent Oil Slick, create interference colors using thin transparent materials.

Soap Film Interference Model, use paper waves to model why colorless soap films create interference colors.

Waves and Motion Explorations to accompany the Giant Slinky and Wave Machine exhibits.

Wave machine, measure the speed of waves on the wave machine with the weights in and the weights out.

Giant Slinky Exhibit, Explore waves on a giant hanging slinky.

Slinky In-Hand explorations, Explore waves on a toy slinky you hold in your hands.

Slow Waves on a phone cord, Explore waves on a coiled phone cord.

Harmonics of a phonecord, Explore standing waves on a coiled phonecord.

Vertical Slinky, Explore waves on an open ended spring.

Dance of the Sound Wave, Do a dance to model nodes and antinodes in a standing wave.

Motion Explorations related to the Pendulum Snake, Suspense and Gravity's Rainbow exhibits.

Pendulum explorations, Make a simple pendulum and time its period versus its length.

Phase Pendulum, One pendulum is driven by a wand. Notice how the motion of the driven pendulum changes when it is driven at frequencies below resonance, at resonance and above resonance.

Pendulum Snake, Study the motion of a series of pendulums of different lengths.

Magnetic pendulums, magnetic fields couple two resonant magnetic pendulums.

Magnetic Levitation, suspend one magnet above another on a pencil.

Silent Collisions, magnets float on a pencil, observe the results of collisions between the magnets.

Falling Rhythm, drop weights on a cord and listen to the rhythm.

Reaction Timer, drop a ruler and measure your reaction time.