PTSOS2: Don't miss the heat wave this Saturday

It's not too late to join the PTSOS party in Sacramento this Saturday, 1/28/12. The forecast calls for a heat wave. A physical heat wave.

We'll start with coffee donuts, etc., as we do. Then it's off to heat and thermodynamics. Kinetic Theory will be demonstrated with baby food jars.

The ball and ring will be fully exploited and extended to what we call "Leidenball."

The improperly-named "radiometer" will be leveraged (and its more correct name revealed). What good is a bimetallic strip? Ove-gloves? Food coloring? Is a Miracle Thaw really miraculous? We'll see!

All this and more before we even get to lunch. We'll literally fire up Steve's Ruben's Tube to connect morning and afternoon topics.

After lunch, we'll delve into the wonderful world of waves: mechanical waves and sound, specifically. We'll slow a tuning fork to a crawl (if not a stop), make a plastic tape talk, whirl a singing pipe (and ponder the meaning of its song), and fact-check the tagline from Alien.We'll use high-tech to "see" sound and low-tech to measure its speed.

It's a day of demos and labs and presos. And goodie bags, oh my!

To get in on this extravaganza, send an email to PTSOS Outreach Coordinator, Stephanie Finander, at sfinander@sbcglobal.net. She'll send you the details. One important detail is that PTSOS workshops are free of charge (even the next one, where we discuss electrostatics). Lunch is sponsored by CENCO/Sargent-Welch and other food and "goodies" are provided by the Karl Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund.

PTSOS is sponsored by the Northern California and Nevada section of the American Association of Physics Teachers and made possible by a grant from the Karl Brown Memorial Scholarship Fund.