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Science's 10 Most Beautiful Physics Experiments

physics-animations.com — Robert P. Crease, a member of the philosophy department at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the historian at Brookhaven National Laboratory, recently asked physicists to nominate the most beautiful experiment of all time.

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  • davescarpetti, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Nice. Can't wait to show my 3-year old tonight!
    • AhmedOmran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Have fun explaining the Millikan experiment =)
  • nazuraki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1No COBE?

    :(
    • achoo5000, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1go polish your nobel prize and don't whine.
  • raymondmarble, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Good list, actually. Not a lot of detail about each one, but I guess you can always look up the ones that interest you in wikipedia or something.

    Though I always thought that the Michelson–Morley experiment was pretty damn cool, even if they didn't detect that luminiferous aether they were looking for.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment
  • mikefitz2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Sweet frames site designer.
    • alamandrax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13mom, i'm ready to tell you my secret now. I see webpages with ... Frames! (gasp!)

      No son, it's not your fault. We'll get you some meds and we'll beat that evil out of you.

      Mom! Listen to me! I see Frames mom! Don't you believe me?!

      No! No! It can't be true. It can't be true. Frames killed your father....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
    • pastasauce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Your father too, eh?
    • detlev409, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12why do we hate frames again?

      Just asking, cause personally, I don't really give a crap.
  • achoo5000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Millikan's oil drops might be beautiful, but it is a pain in my eye and ass.

    (Physics students who've done it know what I'm talking about.)
    • AhmedOmran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I remember the physics lesson where we discussed that. We had the apparatus, and it wasn't working. Lots of calculations, very vague.. Wasn't the best physics lesson for sure..
    • fredricko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This was actually the first one that popped into my head when I read the title. It's certainly one of the most important experiments of the last century (as far as it help facilitate all the technological developments since then).
  • Derrekito, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3I think the Atom Bomb should be up there somewhere.
    • Felectrode, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Beautiful? Maybe. Deadly? Definitely.
  • pastasauce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I see people still haven't learned that when you make a top-ten-list, you're suppost to count DOWN from ten.
  • jhshukla, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1the leaning tower was built after galileo's time.
    • DrakeGTA, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Don't muddle speculation with fact, it's on the internet, so it must be true.
    • pustulio, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Unless your just pointing out a random fact, it said "he held a chair in mathematics at the University of Pisa", not "he did the experiment at the leaning tower of Pisa".
    • Whoblah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@jhshukla
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_tower_of_pisa#History
      "Galileo Galilei is said to have dropped two cannon balls of different masses from the tower to demonstrate that their descending speed was independent of their mass. Many parts of this story, though reported by Galileo's own student, are widely considered to be merely legendary. While Galileo probably did climb to the top of the tower and drop two items to further prove his already-proven theory, more than likely, the items were not two cannonballs."
    • pants428, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2oops, sorry, wrong, the tower was built several hundred years before Galileo...
      The tower was built between 1173 and construction continued until 1372 with the addition of the bell tower.
      Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642)
      Wikipedia and pretty much any other site will confirm these dates... As will your good old Encylclopedia Britanica..
  • bionicvskungfu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Foucault's pendulum is great to watch, to see a fixed point in space that the earth rotates around, pretty cool stuff.

    I always felt the cloud chamber experiments that lead to the discovery of anti particles were quite elegant...
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiparticle
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_chamber

  • BryanJK, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I love science... always my favorite subject. *dugg
  • cracker42, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Can someone please explain to me what's "beautiful" about balls rolling down an incline?
    • AnteChronos, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Can someone please explain to me what's "beautiful" about balls rolling down an incline?"

      The fact that it demonstrated that the speed of falling objects is proportional to the square of time spent falling. It's an experiment that's beautiful in its simplicity.
    • dziban303, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2I think my balls rolling on your mom's chin is far more beautiful.
  • siglesias, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Interferometer and Oersted's discovery of electromagnetism--hello?

    "I'm done wit dis kid."
  • frankkenstein, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I think 8 out of 10 of these experiments have been album covers.
  • neuros, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Heh. I go to Stony Brook.
  • Gagle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Excellent list, as far as I am concerned, the only memorable moments of human lucidity missing are the many attempts to measure the speed of light. But that could be a whole article ....
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