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Physics sketches

Explore sketches, drawings, and illustrations that simplify ideas related to Physics.

Mirage explained: what causes a mirage and why it looks like water, showing hot air bending light from the sky so it appears as a reflection on the ground.Mirage: why do we see a pool of water?The Buttered Cat Paradox meme explained with the buttered toast phenomenon and the cat righting reflexThe Buttered Cat ParadoxThe Figure Skater's Spin and Conservation of Angular Momentum Illustrated with equationsThe Figure Skater's Spin and the Conservation of Angular MomentumLooking back in time as we look to the stars: A visual explanation of how light from the Moon, Sun, stars, and galaxies shows us the past because light takes time to travel.Looking Back in Time: The Speed of Light and the Night SkyHow canal works to allow a boat to travel uphillCanal LocksBuoyancy and how ships float explained showing 1m3 of water displaced supporting a tonne of weight and the same principle floating a 50,000 tonne shipBuoyancyIceberg floating orientation explained: Icebergs are usually drawn floating vertically, while a stable iceberg orientation is usually on its sideIceberg orientationWhat is parallax explanation - how parallax works showing different layers moving at different speedsParallaxOrbit illustration: how a satellite stays in orbit - the balance between its velocity and gravity pulling it towards EarthOrbitThe two primary temperature scales of Celsius and Fahrenheit side-by-side calling out water freezing, body temperature and water boilingTemperature Scales: Fahrenheit and CelsiusWhat is redshift diagram: Astronomer watching the light of one star moving away being redshifted and one star moving towards being blueshiftedRedshiftTwo hikers look at distant lightning and count how long it takes to hear the thunder to estimate how far the lightning is awayFlash-to-bang methodBanner cloud on the Matterhorn showing strong wind of cold dry air on one side and warmer humid air on the other producing the cloud in a banner shapeBanner cloudPhysics envy: a football coach looks on exasperated as none of his young team play according to the planPhysics EnvySonic Boom illustration: a series of increasingly fast planes flying in the sky is shown from left to right, along with their position in relation to the sound shockwaves produced as the air in front of each plane is compressed. The plane on the left travels slower than the speed of sound and is thus behind its shockwaves. In the middle, the aircraft travels at the speed of sound and the shockwaves are shown bunching up near the nose of the plane. On the right, the supersonic, speedy aircraft surpasses the speed of sound creating a loud boom to the delight and / or fright of those on the ground nearby. Sonic boomDiagram of the states of matter showing a solid, liquid, and gas, showing all the transitions between each stateStates of matterThe Keeling Curve illustration: A line graph shows a tight zig-zag red line rising from around 310 parts per million (ppm) monthly average CO2 concentration in the air at the top of Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii in 1960, up to 410 ppm in 2020. The smaller graph at the top shows the reason for the zig-zag nature of the line; the seasonal variation of CO2 concentration in the air due to more plants blooming and photosynthesising in Spring and Summer. The Keeling curveWhat is the scale of solar system distances explained: show how big is the solar system, what is an astronomical unit and the distances between planetsSolar system planets: how big is the solar system?What is The Doppler effect example showing how a wave changes from a static source and gets either bunched up or spread out if you're standing in front of or behind a moving source like a sirenThe Doppler EffectSquare cube law illustration with volume increasing faster than length and an elephant, an ant carrying a giant leaf and a child on the monkey bars as examplesThe Square-Cube lawHow a lip stops drips illustration: a glass of water is tipped up to pour out its contents. Close-ups of the mouth of the glass show how without a lip, water trickles down the side of the glass and that with a lip the side of the glass stays dry. How a lip stops drips.Atmospheric Perspective illustration: a large vista shows undulating hilltops for as far as the eye can see, but we note that the further away these contours are, the colour and tone that we experience becomes more and more washed out. Atmospheric perspectiveEarth is a big magnetEarth is a big magnet.What is the potato radius example explained: showing a bumpy potato-like asteroid at the centre of an expanding circle and how it becomes rounder and more planet like as it gets largerThe Potato Radius: When Asteroids Turn SphericalDirty thunderstorm definition, explanation and exampleDirty thunderstormBortle ScaleKoomey's LawKoomey’s LawMoore’s LawAn explanation of the plimsoll line, the international load line, for how high a ship sits in the waterThe Plimsoll lineThunder cloudsSink a strawpedoSink a strawpedoKnow your cloudsThe magic of soapMake a wine glass singOur atmosphere is as thick for the Earth as the skin on an appleOur atmosphere is as thick for the Earth as the skin on an appleDark and light are the keys to one-way mirrorsThe position of a rainbow is predictableWhy ice doesn’t sinkSupermoon illustration: showing the moon large at its perigee, when it is closet to Earth, and smaller at it's apogee, when it's furthest from EarthSupermoonAnatomy of a wave illustration showing the key features of crest, amplitude, trough, wavelength and when it starts to break on a beachAnatomy of a waveOn microwavesIncredibly, we only ever see one side of the moonthe Angle of Incidence equals the Angle of Reflection
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