Yesterday I helped my daughter with her GCSE physics homework, and I was rather pleased that I remembered that V=IR and P=IV. While we had great fun working out the properties of various electrical appliances, some of you might want to do more hands-on physics at home.
You are in luck because the Institute of Physics (IOP) is releasing a series of videos called “Do try this at home”. My favourite video so far is presented by the IOP’s Lucy Kinghan and is about warping a 2D landscape (a piece of paper) into 3D and accomplishing something that had appeared impossible. Watch her demonstration above – I have to admit I am still scratching my head about how she did it.
If warping space is not your cup of tea how about baking your favourite piece of physics kit? Lotte Fog, a medical physicist in Australia, has made a “gingerbread LINAC” complete with a gingerbread patient receiving radiation therapy. If you are inspired to bake your own apparatus, be sure to send us a photo at pwld@ioppublishing.org.
Making a glow-in-dark plant is probably beyond the capability of most scientists at home. But if you are really keen to try, Karen Sarkisyan, Ilia Yampolsky and an international team have used DNA from a bioluminescent mushroom to create plants that glow much brighter than previously possible (see above video).
I don’t know about you, but I bet we have a few bioluminescent mushrooms lurking at the bottom of the fridge. You can read more about these amazing plants in a scientific paper called “Plants with genetically encoded autoluminescence”.