Let's Measure the Wavelength of Light - with NO lab equipment!

Рет қаралды 24,706

4 ай бұрын

The wavelength of light is so small we normally don't see its effects or even appreciate how tiny it actually is. Measuring the wavelength of light used to require lab equipment but these days everything you need is commonly available in your home or office and this video shows you how to do it.
The most exotic thing needed for this experiment is laser printer compatible transparency sheets, sill available but less common these days now that overhead projectors have largely been supplanted by video projectors. What else do you need? A laser printer with a network port, and something with laser - I used an IR temperature gun but a laser pointer would work too. And a measuring tape.
Software and files to print the diffraction grating are now on github.
github.com/electromagneticvid...
Download everything and read the README_and_HOWTO to file for instructions.
There is a pinned first comment for this video. Please put any comments or discussion concerning the software as a reply to that pinned comment so all the software related stuff is together.

Пікірлер: 247

@ElectromagneticVideos

PRINTER FILES:

@gonnaenodaethat6198

Not gonna lie, the manor of which you chose to describe the wavey nature of light ended up being more interesting then the fact one can use a office printer to do a sophisticated experiment. Very good explanation indeed :3

@hhwilly-ng

This is the best kind of content! Calm and clear teacher showing how to do physics experiments at home for cheap.

@retrozmachine1189

As usual a fascinating video.

@jimquinn

Nice video. Two things. I have been teaching this for 30 years. We use TEM grids which are very cheap and accurate.

@ThriftyToolShed

That was a really neat experiment. Amazing how accurate that was. Thanks for sharing!

@jukees3658

Interesting and well presented.

@JoonasD6

Okay, printing a diffraction grating was definitely an idea I have never heard of before!

@johanndohmann1281

amazing how you made your diffraction grating. thank you very much for sharing this idea. would be great to great the code. i will try this with my students soon. best wishes from overseas

@sparkyy0007

How science was done in the renaissance period before lab equipment , brains and creativity.

@freescape08

This was very well presented (if a little slow) and actually gave me a much deeper understanding of diffraction gratings than school ever offered. Thank you for this.

@LFTRnow

About 1-2 decades ago, I used the trick of laser printing to transparancies to make PCBs using the photo process. I don't bother anymore and those sheets are hard to come by since no one uses overhead projectors now as well. I think it was cool to show making your own diffraction grating, but they are cheap and easy to come by if you just want to buy one. It would also be fun to try other lasers. Green and Blue are pretty easy to get.

@jimmylightfinger1216

Thank you for the best lab experiments on the tube. ❤

@henrykoplien1007

Great job. The physics behind were wellknown, but doing this with a 20 yr old laser printer for no money is awesome ☝️

@pompeymonkey3271

It's interesting to see this empirical experiment support the theory again.

@arglebargle42

Ok this was absolutely fascinating, I love seeing constants derived from practical easily done experiments. Subbed and going to check out that speed of light video. Thanks for creating this!

@Sparky-ww5re

Really cool experiment, monochromatic light sources can make for some pretty interesting effects. Such is the case for low pressure sodium lamps if you've ever seen or heard of them, not to be confused with high pressure sodium that was the dominant choice for street lighting and outdoor parking lots and security lighting from roughly the early 1970s to about 10 years ago when advancements in LED technology made LED a more suitable and sustainable alternative HID lamps. Because low pressure sodium lamps are a monochromatic yellow, with a CRI of 0,everything under a low pressure sodium light source appears as a yellow version of black and white, and this fact had severely limited their use and acceptance to very niche uses, notably astronomy observatories, even though their efficiency in lumens per watt was among the highest of all known electric light sources, 180 lumens/watt give or take.

@louco2

Thank you for doing these videos! love to learn something new.

@MarcusHCrawford

First time here. Will probably be coming back. Great work.

@khaitomretro

This gets a like before I've even watched it because I know it's not clickbait and the algorithm needs to learn what I actually like. Added to my "watch later" list because I'll eant to watch it again.