LecDem Blog
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Happy 2023! Welcome to the spring semester at UMD Physics!
The Physics Lecture-Demonstration Facility is here to fulfill your classroom demonstration needs this semester. We’re looking forward to an exciting semester!
Be sure to explore our new online resources as well, including the demonstration videos channel, LecDem blog, and the directory of simulations. Keep an eye out for new material to come!
If you have any questions about finding the right demonstrations or other resources for your class, access to the order form, or anything else we can help with, be sure to call or email.
Please remember to order your demonstrations before the cutoff deadline for the order form system: For morning classes, before 1PM the previous working day; for afternoon classes, before 4AM the day of the class. Where possible, we appreciate having the orders at least one full working day ahead, to ensure plenty of time to make sure everything is ready for you.
We have many events coming up this spring, including Physics is Phun, Physics Discovery Day, and Maryland Day; watch our website for news!
- STEM News Tip: Coming soon to a sky near you! Comet 2022 E23 (ZTF)
- PhysCon 2022!
- Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, Prof. Michelle Girvan
- Welcome to Autumn 2022 at UMD Physics!
- Blog Flashback: Birthday of CS Wu
- Demo Highlight: Air Table
- STEM News Tip: May’s Lunar Eclipse
- Demonstration Highlight: Reflecting Telescope Models
- STEM News Tip: Prof Sarah Eno elected AAAS Fellow
- Demonstration Highlight: Gravitational Lensing Model
- STEM News Tip: JWST Deployment
- Demonstration Highlight: More Fun with Polarization
- Demonstration Highlight: Fourier Synthesizer
- STEM News Tip: AIP Marks 90th Anniversary
- STEM News Tip: JWST Launch Delayed
- Demonstration Highlight: Electromagnetic Can Smasher
- Demonstration Highlight: Refraction
- STEM News Tip: Three New Articles In Science Education
- Demonstration Highlight: The Force on a Current in a Magnetic Field
- Demonstration Highlight: The Tesla Coil, Part Two
- STEM News Tip: Black In Physics Week 2021
- Demonstration Highlight: Tesla Coil, Part 1
- Demonstration Highlight: Parallel Plate Capacitor
- Demonstration Highlight: Friction on an Inclined Plane
- Demonstration Highlight: Rotating Chair and Bicycle Wheel Gyroscope
- Demonstration Highlight: Pulleys and Mechanical Advantage
- STEM News Tip: Updates on Fall Webinars and Virtual Talks from Scientific Organizations
- Demonstration Highlight: Elastic and Inelastic Collisions
- Demonstration Highlight: Double Cone
- Demonstration Highlight: Focusing Heat
- STEM News Tip: Coming events
- On the Physics of Work
- Demonstration Highlight: Buoyancy
- STEM News Tip: Hurricane Ida
- Welcome to Fall 2021!
- Demonstration Highlight: Rotating Chair and Weights
- Demonstration Highlight: Electric Fields
- STEM News Tip: Donna Hammer wins Board of Regents Award
- Demonstration Highlight: Pendula of Different Masses
- STEM News Tip: Keep An Eye Out For Meteors This Month!
- Demonstration Highlight: Galileo's Pendulum
- STEM News Tip: UMD Tech Spin-Offs Highlighted
- STEM News Tip: APS Public Engagement Webinars This Week
- Demonstration Highlight: Chaotic Pendula
- STEM News Tip: AIP Reports on National Survey of High School Physics
- Demonstration Highlight: Charged Balloon
- STEM News Tip: AIP Celebrates 90th Anniversary This Month
- STEM News Tip: Prof. Alicia Kollár Receives NSF Award
- Happy 145th birthday to Harriet Brooks
- Demonstration Highlight: Hookes Law and SHM
- STEM News Tip: NASA STEM Stars Program
- STEM News Tip: Scientific American on the Future of Particle Physics
- Demonstration Highlight: Astro Blaster
- STEM News Tip: AIP TEAM-UP Webinar With Dr. Jami V Miller & Prof Kelly Nash
- Demonstrations Highlight: Lenz's Law
- STEM News Tip: NASA EPDC Outreach Programs
- STEM News Tip: Earth Observation Hackathon
- Profiles in Physics @ UMD: Prof. Manuel Franco Sevilla
- Demonstration Highlight: Inertia of a Lead Brick
- STEM News Tip: #BlackInAstro Week 2021
- STEM News Tip: New Research on the Physics of Viruses
- Demonstration Highlight: Laser Waterfall
- Celebrating the birthday of Chien-Shiung Wu
- Demonstration Highlight: Cosmic Ray Detector
- STEM News Tip: Eclipse Season
- STEM News Tip: Non-Newtonian Fluids for Cookout Season
- Happy Graduation!
- Demonstration Highlight: Coănda Effect
- STEM News Tip: Raman Spectroscopy for COVID-19 Testing
- STEM News Tip: NMAAHC on Experiences of African Americans in STEM
- STEM News Tip: Physics Today features classic article on computers in physics education
- Demonstration Highlight: Diffusion Distribution Models
- STEM News Tip: APS Begins Public Engagement Webinar Series
- STEM News Tip: KiNET-X Experiment Launches from Wallops Tonight
- Demonstration Highlight: Projectile Motion - Pellet and Falling Target
- UMD Physics Summer Programs 2021
- STEM News Tip: Prof. Buonanno elected to NAS
- Demonstration Highlight: Hill Track
- STEM News Tip: Physics Today interviews Shirley Ann Jackson
- Demonstration Highlight: Rotating Rings
- STEM News Tip: Earth Day 2021
- Demonstration Highlight: Tyndall's Experiment
- STEM News Tip: Atom interferometry in free fall
- Demonstration Highlight: Smoke Vortex
- Demonstration Highlight: Eddy Current Pendulum
- STEM News Tip: Measuring the gravitational force of tiny masses
- Demonstration Highlight: Plane Mirror
- STEM News Tip: The Physics of Music Recital Rooms
- Demonstration Highlight: Diameter and Circumference
- Demonstration Highlight: The Theremin
- STEM News Tip: Physics Today on Physicists & Mental Health in the Pandemic
- Demonstration Highlight: Centers of Mass
- STEM News Tip: Follow Along With Mars In March!
- Demonstration Highlight: Visible and Invisible Spectra
- Demonstration Highlight: Brass Barbell
- STEM News Tip: NASA's Mars 2020 Has Landed!
- Profiles in Physics @ UMD: Dr. Kate O'Neill
- Demonstration Highlight: Discharging capacitor
- STEM News Tip: This Week on Mars
- Demonstration Highlight: Simple Harmonic Motion Video
- STEM News Tip: Science Policy 2021
- Demonstration Highlight: Flame Tube
- UMD Research Commons workshops return for 2021
- STEM News Tip: TRAPPIST-1 Planets
- Demo Highlight: Funnel Cart
- STEM News Tip: Space Launch News
- STEM News Tip: Comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard)
- Demo Highlight: Hydraulic Press
- STEM News Tip: NANOGrav and Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves
- Demo Highlight: Polarizers and Light Source
- STEM News Tip: AIP Oral History Interviews
- Demo Highlight: Newton's Cradle
- STEM News Tip: Phosphine and Venus Update: The Research Goes On
- A Festive Time: Happy Isaac Newton's Birthday
- STEM News Tip: Winter Solstice 2020
- Demo Highlight: Rolling vs. Sliding
- STEM News Tip: Space, Sun, Stones, and Streaming
- Demo Highlight: Suspended Slinky
- STEM News Tip: Geminids Meteors
- STEM News Tip: Physics Today Features Music & Acoustics for International Year of Sound
- STEM News Tip: National Math Festival Online
- Demo Highlight: Pendulum Length Ratio
- STEM News Tip: Arecibo Observatory to be Decomissioned
- Demonstration Highlight: Potential Well
- STEM News Tip: UMD Data Challenge 2021
- STEM News Tip: Space Launch System Tests Resume
- STEM News Tip: The Mathematics of a Pandemic
- STEM News Tip: Try NASA’s Eyes on for size!
- STEM News Tip: AIP Foundation & TEAM-UP Report
- Demo Highlight: Free Fall in Vacuum
- STEM News Tip: New Comet in the Neighborhood
- Demo Highlight: Van de Graaff and Pie Pans
- STEM News Tip: Upcoming Virtual Events with UMD Science
- Demo Highlight: The Shive Wave Machine with Prof. Peter Shawhan
- The Physics of Bats
- Demo Highlight: Electromagnet With Bang
- STEM News Tip: Webinar Series
- STEM News Tip: Sci-Fi Costumes at Air&Space Museum
- STEM News Tip: DOE on STEM Careers
- Demonstration Highlight: The Egg Crusher
- STEM News Tip: Upcoming SPS Virtual Colloquium with Dr. Nicole Gugliucci
- STEM News Tip: Physics Comedy at the Maryland STEM Festival
- STEM News Tip: Dean Steve Fetter wins APS Leo Szilard Lectureship Award
- Demonstration Highlight: Guitar & Oscilloscope
- STEM News Tip: 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics Announced
- Demo Highlight: Racing Balls 2
- STEM News Tip: Maryland STEM Festival 2020
- Demonstration Highlight: Fourier Analysis
- STEM News Tip: Learning Resources for Nuclear Power
- Today in Physics History: Neptune
- Highlight: Van de Graaff Generator Animation
- STEM News Tip: Exoplanet around a White Dwarf Star
- Animation Highlight: Pendulum Waves
- STEM News Tip: Quantum Fireside Chat with Nobel Laureate Bill Phillips
- Demo Highlight: Laser and Double Slit
- STEM News Tip: Phosphine on Venus
- STEM News Tip: COVID-19 and the Physics Job Market
- Highlight: Radio Waves and Faraday Cage
- Remote Teaching Resources
- STEM News Tip: New Gravitational Waves Discoveries!
- Atwood's Machine: Testing Newton’s Second Law
- STEM News Tip: Some new articles in science teaching & information, August 2020
- Demonstration Highlight: Masses Dropped and Shot
- STEM News Tip: Native American Physics & Astronomy
- STEM News Tip: Titan and its Atmosphere on APOD
- STEM News Tip: COVID-19 impact on research
- The Tablecloth, the Coin, and Other Adventures with Inertia
- Quantum Demonstration and Simulation: The Hydrogen Atom
- STEM News Tip: New Atmospheric Phenomena Spotted on Venus
- STEM News Tip: SPS Virtual Colloquium
- Demonstration Highlight: Simple Harmonic Motion & Uniform Circular Motion
- STEM News Tip: Meteor Showers and Rain Showers
- STEM News Tip: Sonic Tourism
- Demonstration Highlight: Electromagnet
- STEM News Tip: Mars 2020 launches this week!
- STEM News Tip: Nova Reticuli 2020
- How many demonstrations?
- STEM News Tip: Solar Observer webcast this week!
- STEM News Tip: Children Learning About Gears
- Space News: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
- Demo Highlight: Vector Addition
- Demonstration Highlight: The Pencil and Plywood Experiment
- Demo Highlight: The Ripple Tank and a Ripple Tank Simulator
- Demo Highlight: The Racing Balls in Slow Motion
- Happy birthday, Alexander Müller
- New Demonstration: The Paramagnetism of a Dysprosium Pendulum
- Welcome to Spring 2020
- Light Up the Night: Neon and "Neon" Lights
- A Heated Discussion In Class
- The Physics Soda Can Returns: Electrostatic Induction
- Physics Teatime 3: Do Not Try This At Home
- Introducing Our Newest Center of Mass Demonstration
- FLIGHT!
- Happy Birthday Carl Sagan
- Hot Air Balloon
- Upcoming Events at UMD Physics!
- Welcome to Fall 2019!
- Summer Hiatus
- Phun with Electrons: Particle or Wave?
- Physics Teatime 2: On The Making Of Tea
- On the Choosing of Demonstrations
- Teatime in Physics
- Happy Birthday to Émilie du Châtelet
- Seeing Sound: Vibrations on a Plate
- Women Nobel Laureates in Physics
- Coming Soon: Physics is Phun presents Induction and Deduction
- New Portable Ripple Tank
- Irene Joliot-Curie
- New Demos: Buoyancy and Electromagnetic Forces
- Falling into Free Fall
- Happy 100th Birthday Katherine Johnson!
- Demonstration Orders for the Fall Semester
- Welcome!