On 8/30/2015 12:40 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 08/30/2015 12:11 PM, Don Y wrote:
My "cream my pants" idea would be to *levitate* BOWLING BALLS to
varying heights depending on the current time. Yeah, it's relatively
easy to do this with ping-pong balls, etc. What would make *this*
impressive would be the fact that lifting and suspending 8-10 pound
balls would, itself, be a significant technical challenge!

I had a professor who had a demonstration where he suspended a bowling ball on
about a 20' wire. He would stand on the side of the podium, place the ball
firmly against his chin, let go, and stand perfectly still while the ball
described its arc. It convinced first year physics students he knew more about
physics than they did.

Presumably, the position at his cheek was *not* the "rest" position!

We had a Foucault (sp?) pendulum at school. It was *really* LLLLOOOOONNNNGGGGG
and had a period of oscillation that was LOTS of seconds! It almost looked
like it was moving in slow motion!

They apparently have a newer, bigger one, now! (I guess it's relatively
cheap to build such a thing compared to, say, a superconducting magnet!)

The same guy was also known for firing off a model pulse jet in the lecture
hall. That convinced the students he was completely insane.