Twenty First Century Science

For students and teachers

Electrostatics

http://amasci.com/emotor/vdg.html
Bill Beaty (Eskimo Bill)’s Van de Graaff generator pages. Lots of information about Van de Graaff generators.

Electric circuits

http://amasci.com/miscon/elect.html
William Beaty’s ‘Bad Physics’ site, which explores many of the common mistakes people make when they talk about electricity. Even the textbooks get things wrong sometimes. There are lots of interesting links.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/question501.htm
This site a nswers the question ‘What are amps, watts, volts, and ohms?’. You may find it useful for revision.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/light-bulb2.htm
A good explanation about how light is produced in a filament bulb, and why the bulb is designed the way it is.

Generating electricity

http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/electromag/java/faraday2/index.html
Try this simulation of electromagnetic induction – putting a magnet into a coil.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/hydropower-plant2.htm
For diagrams of a hydroelectric generator with an animation and lots of interesting stuff about hydroelectric power.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/rockey/luna/Recipe/Recipe2/Main/No01/eng_no01.html
This site has photos of a motor bike engine being disassembled – at one stage you can see the dynamo very clearly.
http://www.creative-science.org.uk/main.html
The Creative Science Centre at the University of Sussex has a link to ‘Things to make’. For example, it tells you how to make your own simple hand-shaken generator (a ‘shake-a-gen’).
http://www.k-wz.de/physik/threephasegenerator.html
This generator has three coils, each generating electricity. You can switch off two of them, and then see what happens as you change the speed of the magnet rotation.

Distributing electricity

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question291.htm
Find out about transformers, especially the small power cube transformers that are used for charging mobile phones, calculators, etc.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/power.htm
This site e xplains the grid distribution system.

For teachers

http://pro.corbis.com/
A photo agency site which has photographs of electrical distribution equipment, e.g. search for transformers, pylons, etc.

Suppliers

Useful Websites