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Science Magic: Inertia

By Janice VanCleave

Inertia is a physical property used to describe how difficult it is to move a stationary object. The greater the inertia the harder it is to move the object. Inertia increases with mass. A magician’s trick of pulling a table cloth out from under a table setting and leaving the dishes standing is not a […]

Filed Under: Physics

Light

By Janice VanCleave

ANSWER: The color of an object is not in the object but rather depends on the light that pigments in the object reflect or transmit. Pigments are chemicals that subtract (absorb) specific colors of light and reflect or transmit other colors. White light contains all the colors of a rainbow. Starting from the top of the […]

Filed Under: Light Tagged With: complimentary light colors, primary light colors

Optics: Mirrors

By Janice VanCleave

QUESTION: Why do some mirrors make me look upside down? ANSWER: You can see your image by looking at yourself in a spoon. The spoon acts like a mirror, which is a surface that reflects (bounces back from a surface) light. The inside of the spoon’s bowl is concave, meaning it curves inward. When you […]

Filed Under: Physics Tagged With: concave mirror, convex mirror, optical engineering, reflect

Sir Isaac Newton

By Janice VanCleave

The English scientist Sir Isaac Newton was born February 4, 1642 in Lincolnshire. His father, a wealthy landowner died shortly before Newton was born. When Newton was three years old, his widowed mother, Hannah, remarried, left Isaac in the care of his grandmother, and went away to live with her new husband. Newton’s later writings […]

Filed Under: Physics Tagged With: gravity, gravity & falling apple, laws of motion, Sir Issac Newton's biography

Weightless

By Janice VanCleave

The photo shows me and others inside NASA’s KC-135, which is a plane used by NASA to produce apparent weightlessness.I’d given up on losing weight so I decided to achieve weightlessness –believe me once the plane started it path that resulted in our apparent weightlessness I was positive that it was the ultimate weight-loss program. […]

Filed Under: Physics

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Welcome to Janice’s Science Extravaganza!

The spoon hanging from the string vibrates when struck and these vibrations are transmitted through the string and the sound is amplified by the plastic cups. ABOUT ME: Hi, I am Janice VanCleave, author of 50 best-selling science experiment books for children ages 4 through high school. I taught science for 27 years. MORE.....

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