Non-Newtonian Fluids
Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 7:45 pm
I was writing up this forum post on Oscilloscopes and escaping smoke: http://forum.swmakers.org/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=34&p=601#p601. It reminded me of this adventure...
Remember back to the naughty's and watching people run up and down on a pool of non-newtonian fluid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid)? My son and I wanted to have a play with it too, but not wanting to splash out and purchase a pool and a truck load of corn starch, instead we dug up my old trusty signal generator and an old loudspeaker and covered it in cling wrap.
My son and I set it all up on the kitchen bench:
While the cling wrap was a good idea, it just wasn't bouncy enough, so I sacrificed the old 1950's loudspeaker to science and just placed the fluid directly on to the speaker surface:
I also needed a louder sound source, so I dug up my first trusty amplifier that I had salvaged back in 1975. It was a 1940's 20Kg mono unit. I initially used it for a fe3w years with my home made crystal radio. I think the speaker was the one I used with the radio as well.
The above poor quality photo (screenshot of an science action video), shows the fingers of fluid starting to rise up... then seconds later...
electrons started to escape...
The unit was quickly turned off and taken outside. While the amplifier had a lot of sentimental value, due to it's size and weight, I knew that restoring it would be down near the bottom of the project list, so it went off to the electronics section of the local tip.
It was a fun science adventure though
Remember back to the naughty's and watching people run up and down on a pool of non-newtonian fluid (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Newtonian_fluid)? My son and I wanted to have a play with it too, but not wanting to splash out and purchase a pool and a truck load of corn starch, instead we dug up my old trusty signal generator and an old loudspeaker and covered it in cling wrap.
My son and I set it all up on the kitchen bench:
- signal generator and speaker.jpg (36.74 KiB) Viewed 4121 times
While the cling wrap was a good idea, it just wasn't bouncy enough, so I sacrificed the old 1950's loudspeaker to science and just placed the fluid directly on to the speaker surface:
- non-newtonian fluid in action.jpg (27.19 KiB) Viewed 4121 times
I also needed a louder sound source, so I dug up my first trusty amplifier that I had salvaged back in 1975. It was a 1940's 20Kg mono unit. I initially used it for a fe3w years with my home made crystal radio. I think the speaker was the one I used with the radio as well.
The above poor quality photo (screenshot of an science action video), shows the fingers of fluid starting to rise up... then seconds later...
electrons started to escape...
- smoking electrons.jpg (50.34 KiB) Viewed 4121 times
The unit was quickly turned off and taken outside. While the amplifier had a lot of sentimental value, due to it's size and weight, I knew that restoring it would be down near the bottom of the project list, so it went off to the electronics section of the local tip.
It was a fun science adventure though
