At last year’s Physics Phun Nite, UA physics department professors demonstrated the popular “bed of nails” experiment.
In the experiment, a person lies on a bed of hundreds of closely packed nails. A brick is placed on their stomach, and a second person hits the brick — but the first person is not harmed by the nails. Why? Physics.
This year, the University of Arizona physics departments will hold its annual Physics Phun Nite on Wednesday, Nov. 28, on campus. The free event will run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the Physics and Atmospheric Sciences Building, Room 201.
The event features professors, staff members and graduate students demonstrating interesting physics experiments. For some of the demonstrations, the instructors will even ask for audience participants.
Karina Valdez, administrative assistant for the department, said this year will include witnessing the “dancing flame,” a “flying bear” and “speaker balloons,” all of which can, and will, be explained during the event.
The department has been holding this event for about 20 years, Valdez said, to get the public more involved in the science happening at the UA and to help people understand what physics is, as it’s mostly known as being a difficult subject in the sciences.
“It’s just something the department likes to do so that way the public is more informed of what physics is, and also that way students can get an idea, if they’re planning on going to college, if they want to study physics,” Valdez said.
Overall, Valdez said it is a fun and interesting night for everyone, as the professors enjoy this way of teaching physics, and you certainly don’t need to be a physicist to enjoy it.
“It’s honestly very interesting. All the instructors like to make it fun. … It’s science, it’s things that you wouldn’t really experience unless you know how to do them, because there are some things they do that you would have never thought to do,” Valdez said.
Oh, and the reason a person isn’t hurt by lying on a bed of nails? Their weight is distributed across all the nails, so the pressure isn’t strong enough for a nail to break the skin.
