Physics: Age 13
12 illustrated Physics lessons for Age 13.
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Sail, keel, and forward motion Wind moving past the curved sail creates a force that points at an angle from the sail. The keel in the water … -
Hot Rock Moves Earth's Plates Rock deep in the mantle gets heated, becomes lighter, and rises. Cooler rock sinks, and this slow churn drags … -
Drone Camera Stays Level A drone's body can tilt as it moves, but its camera can stay level. A fast-spinning gyroscope senses the tilt,… -
Hollow hull and solid marble A ship's hull is mostly air-filled space, so the whole ship pushes aside more water than it weighs. A solid gl… -
Signals Under the Sea Digital information moves as fast pulses through cables. Some of these cables run across the ocean floor betwe… -
Spinning Cloud Becomes a Star A huge cloud of gas and dust pulls inward and begins to spin. As it shrinks, it flattens into a disk, and its … -
Arms In, Spin Faster When a spinning person pulls weights closer to their body, the spin gets faster. Moving mass inward makes the … -
Light Bending at a Glass Surface A ray of light travels through the air and meets the flat face of a glass block. Part of the light bounces bac… -
Snow Layers and Cup Crystals Inside snow, some layers are warmer than others. That difference slowly changes star-shaped crystals into loos… -
Falling in Two Tubes In a tube with no air, a feather and a lead ball fall together. In open air, the feather falls more slowly tha… -
Feather colors from grains and air pockets Some feather colors come from pigments, which absorb most light and reflect one color. Other feather colors co… -
Series Circuit and Parallel Circuit On the left board a single loop of wire joins the battery to both bulbs. On the right board the wire splits in…