welcomes visitors with enthusiasm and from behind his thick glasses and heavy spares no sincere look at anyone.
E 'prof. Guido Pegna, professor of physics education and electronics at the Department of Physics, University of Cagliari, museum director of the department and among the largest producers in the world of scientific exhibits on display inside the museum itself.
With its exhibits, demonstrative tools of reality and physical phenomena, brought physics into our homes, or better out of them, because all materials used in the production of such devices are commonly used: microwave ovens, lamps, plastic bottles, cutlery.
Invite us, students of the master of science communication in his study with the excitement of a child who wants to show its most beautiful toy. E 'come here that his creations, news not yet exposed and tested.
disorder reigns: flasks with colorful liquid, hung a little bird 'everywhere threatening hanging over our heads, electric cables everywhere and pieces of styrofoam.
E 'in this scenario that the Professor. Pledge to begin his show and we, for once, we'll be the lucky spectators.
And so the bulbs will light up magically pressing the ON button of the microwave oven "no repeats experience in your kitchen, "the professor suggested caustically that we do go to becoming a conductor high voltage electrical discharge," no fear "reassures us" are electrically isolated "in reference to a cube of foam under her feet.
Then came the turn of ferrofluid, a liquid that is highly polarized in the presence of a magnetic field and you have created unusual forms like sea urchins, if they're put in contact with a small magnet.
And yet in perfect isolation cages internal electrostatic, to show an old experiment proposed almost 200 years ago by the English physicist Faraday. From an old tin
Pegna pulls out of the strange pietroline, who suffer the attractive power of magnets. But what are you do not know, "I found them in the garden while I tried the bolts of the bike," admits the professor.
But the climax comes when he shows us the wonder of a Tesla transformer, which he assembled material with scratch, flexible aluminum tubes used in old boilers, copper plates that seem derived from gutters threadbare. This instrument is less funny than it sounds harmless and it is indeed capable of producing electric shocks to 800,000 volts, real lightning in a small room a few feet square.
Brandishing a neon light like a sword, the professor makes the flash drive produced by the processor and this lights up like the sword of Luke Skywalker, and he jumps from one place to another and laughs to our wonder.
The visit ends well and we seem to have been the most rides in a physics laboratory.
We turn away in silence and hope that Prof. Pegna tomorrow is not planning to fix the toaster.
0 comments:
Post a Comment