Serious questions
“Mom, photons violate E = mc² and gluons violate E = mc²!” – Simon shouts, but what about the w and z bosons? He writes down the masses of the w … Continue reading Serious questions
Category: Simon teaching
Physics Experiments: Hydrodynamic Levitation
A really fun phenomenon that Simon learned from the Veritasium channel, based upon the Coanda effect. Simon later went on to repeat this experiment several times, even in the cold … Continue reading Physics Experiments: Hydrodynamic Levitation
Physics Experiments: Light and trapped inside the water stream
Another take at our light trapping experiment, this time using a red laser pointer. We punched a hole in the plastic bottle and filled the bottle with water. As the … Continue reading Physics Experiments: Light and trapped inside the water stream
Physics Experiments: Standing wave
“It’s so mesmerising!” Simon explains what a standing wave is and the nodes in a wave, using a Slinky. Standing waves can be polarised in any direction (horizontally, vertically or … Continue reading Physics Experiments: Standing wave
Physics Experiments: The Color Wheel and Mind Blending
Inspired by Physics Girl, here come a couple crafty color wheel experiments involving what Physics Girl calls “mind blending” (it may not be the real name) – mixing color wave … Continue reading Physics Experiments: The Color Wheel and Mind Blending
Happy not back to school
Simon and Neva work on the math problem called ‘The Dollar Game’ late in the evening before the day school officially starts in Belgium and continue as soon as they … Continue reading Happy not back to school
Simon made his own foam Rubik’s Cube
Simon saw this design in a video by Mathologer and adapted it slightly (Mathologer used glue and no screws). He had dreamt of making a cube like this for months, … Continue reading Simon made his own foam Rubik’s Cube
The Standard Model
Simon, let’s go to the beach, let’s get your shoes on! What’s that on your foot? – Oh, I was just building the Standard Model of Elementary Particles. Simon is … Continue reading The Standard Model
Experimenting with electromagnetism
Here Simon tried to induce a magnetic field by allowing electric current to go through a conductor that is normally not magnetic (copper wire). The green stick is a magnet … Continue reading Experimenting with electromagnetism
Some more memories from Friesland. Binary Calculator.
A couple more images from our trip to Friesland. Simon’s binary calculator: Doing math at a restaurant where we were celebrating his friend’s birthday:
The Leaning Tower of Lire
Also known as the Book-Stacking Problem. Simon had tried to build this tower at the Fries Museum where we visited a huge Escher exhibition (to the annoyance of the museum … Continue reading The Leaning Tower of Lire
Simon’s proof that every Fibonacci number is a sum of its neighbouring Lucas numbers divided by 5
This has probably been proven before, but Simon likes to come up with his own proof. Here he uses proof by induction, that is a proof that proves that some … Continue reading Simon’s proof that every Fibonacci number is a sum of its neighbouring Lucas numbers divided by 5
Geeks out of the box 