The Magic of Physics Trivia Quiz

Answer: Laws of Motion

Though all "laws" are physics concepts, only Newton's laws of motion describe what happened. There are three "laws" to Newton's law of motion. The first states that "an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an unbalanced force". The second says that "acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass".

The law that describes the scenario in the question, however, is the third law, which states that "for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". This means that force is applied to something (me pushing the boulder) and that something (the rock) pushes back with equal force, so neither thing moves.

Answer: Moment (torque)

Moment, also called torque, is the rotating around an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. It can be thought of as a twist. Examples include pivoting in basketball, where you are 'twisting' around the joint in the leg, playing on a seesaw (fulcrum), or turning a screwdriver (axis).

Answer: Change in electrical charge

Changing a battery means you have increased the electric charge. When a battery gets old, it no longer has an electric charge strong enough to work the device (such as a remote), so it needs to be replaced. It is far from being "magic"!

Answer: Electrostatics

Electrostatics is the study of stationary (or very slow moving) electric charges. This charge attracts some objects. For instance, if you rub a balloon on your hair or in the carpet, it will gain a negative charge, and it can stick to your clothing and body. Or, if you are opening a CD case, and the plastic wrapper is stuck to you, this is because of electrostatics.

Another example is rubbing your socks on the carpet and shocking people. We know all this to be 'static electricity'.

Answer: Thermometer

A thermometer checks the temperature of something. The silvery stuff inside a thermometer is oftentimes mercury, which is the only metal that is a liquid at room temperature. It rises up the tube as you stick it in your mouth, because it gets warmer, which causes the mercury to expand.

Mercury is poisonous, and because of that, many countries have banned mercury thermometers.

Answer: It is a non-Newtonian fluid

Oobleck is a mixture of one part water to two parts cornstarch. This 'magical' substance is known as a non-Newtonian fluid. Basically, a non-Newtonian fluid can be described as a liquidy solid. Oobleck is such a fluid. At rest, it acts as a liquid, and can fill containers just as water would (albeit much slower). However, when you apply any sort of force to it, the substance hardens, thus becoming a 'solid'. For instance, if you put oobleck on a drum, it will start to "ooze" on the drum, but if the drum is beating, the oobleck will stop in its tracks, and seem to solidify. The vibrations from the drum keep the mixture as a solid. Once the drum stops vibrating, the oobleck will run as a liquid again.

If a large amount of oobleck is made and put in a large container, a human can run across it. This is because the force applied, in this case, the feet, is strong enough to keep the fluid as a "solid", but once the feet stop applying force, the human would sink in the quicksand-like substance, as it is now at rest and acting as a "liquid".

Answer: Angular momentum

It is a combination of friction, drag, and gravity that bring a ball back to the ground. Of course, gravity holds everything to the earth, so that is a huge contributor to the ball falling back to the ground. "What goes up must come down", after all. Drag, or air resistance, is when the air is pushing back on an object, causing it to slow down. Therefore, a ball traveling in the air will meet with some air resistance. The air itself also causes friction to the ball. Friction can be thought of as the opposite of slipperiness. A ball is always touching air, so it always has something to "rub" against.

It doesn't matter what the mass of the ball is. Either way, it's going to fall back down to the earth!

If you have no gravity working against you, no drag, and no friction, theoretically, a ball will keep going in the direction you throw it, until it hits something or you stop it. But good luck finding a place where you can do that!

Answer: Shock wave

When a jet breaks the sound barrier, it creates a shock wave. The sound made when a shock wave is created is often known as a sonic boom.

A sound wave, or acoustic wave, is a wavelength in which sound travels. A microwave is an electromagnetic wave that is used in microwave ovens to cook foods, because these waves "shake" water molecules inside food so much they heat up. Seismic waves are waves created by earthquakes.

Answer: Degaussing

Degaussing is the process of demagnetizing something you really do not want to be magnetized. It was named after Carl Friedrich Gauss, who was a magnetism researcher. It is not usually possible to completely demagnetize, or 'degauss', something, but you can get awfully close, as if it WAS completely demagnetized.

Answer: Second law

The second law states that heat cannot travel from a colder body to a warmer body. This means that the water is heating the ice, albeit very slowly, so the ice begins to melt, thus getting smaller. Entropy is a macroscopic property of this law.

The zeroth law of thermodynamics basically just defines temperature, the first law of thermodynamics states that the flow of heat is a type of energy transfer, and the third law of thermodynamics involves entropy at the absolute zero level.