Serendipity in the development of demonstration experiments

Raghuram, PT and Rao, Kesava K (1996) Serendipity in the development of demonstration experiments. In: Physics Education, 31 (5). pp. 313-320.

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Abstract

Some experiments drawn from granular mechanics, fluid mechanics and heat and mass transfer are described. These experiments demonstrate the following aspects: (i) the deformation of a dense assembly of particles such as sand leads to an increase in the porosity, (ii) the stress field in a static bed of granular material is non-hydrostatic, (iii) the motion of an hour-glass in a sealed cylinder filled with water is affected by wall friction, (iv) when a syringe containing salt water is lowered into a cylinder filled with fresh water, oscillatory flow is observed due to a convective instability, (v) the 'drinking duck' (a toy) works better when water is replaced by a more volatile liquid such as methanol. It is also shown that the accidental use of variations from the published procedures leads to interesting results.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Physics Education
Publisher:	Institute of Physics
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Institute of Physics.
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Chemical Engineering
Date Deposited:	15 Dec 2006
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 04:33
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/9128

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