Magnetically Coupled Rotors
 It all started when physics major Tiara Norris got a "Geomag" set for Christmas. She put together the structure you see in the video (at right), and immediately noticed some rather odd behavior. The two rotors were switching back and forth: one would spin rapidly, then the other, then the first one again.
She and fellow physics major Brendan Diamond began to investigate further. They were taking a course in computational physics from Dr. Eric Ayars, and used the tools they learned there to build a computer model of the system. They also built an experimental setup in Dr. Ayars' lab that allowed them to accurately measure the motion of both rotors. The theoretical model on the computer matched the experiment perfectly!
With a College of Natural Sciences grant, they were able to travel to the American Association of Physics Teachers national meeting to present their results to physics professors from around the world. They also published an article describing their work, which appears in the September 2006 issue of American Journal of Physics.
If you are curious about this article, you can read it here. |
