UIUC Physics
Lecture Demonstration
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• "Mirror Lens"
  A bright light shines on an object. A shaving mirror can be used as a lens to produce an image on the screen.
• Air Lens and Air Prism
  Used to illustrate index of refraction. Put under water, they act as the lens/prism because of the creation of the air/water interface.
• Angel and Snowman - Optical Illusions
  The angel and snowman are concave structures, but they appear to be convex. They appear to follow the viewer around the room.
• Ball in Tub of Water
  The audience cannot see the billiard ball sitting in the empty tub. However, when water is added to the tub, it becomes visible due to the index of refraction of water.
• Bent and Straight Rods in Water
  Refraction is demonstrated with putting an aluminum rod in a tank of water.
• Blackboard Optics
  The concepts of refraction, lens optics, and mirror optics can be demonstrated using a raybox light source, a plastic block, plastic lenses, and mirrors. This can be done on the blackboard as well as on a table with a white background.
• Bragg Reflection
  A lens is mounted at an angle to a partially translucent material. A light source is shown through the lens. Some light passes through the material, some is reflected. A piece of polarizing material can be used to cut out either the reflected or transmitted light.
• Camera Parts
  Photographic camera- shutter, lens and film plane.
• Caustics
  Jim Wolfe's demo from a Saturday Physics Honors lecture A laser (green/red/both) shines on this foil and is reflected onto a screen. This is similar to seeing sunlight on the bottom of a swimming pool.
• Chromatic Aberration
  A light source (carbon arc) is focused with the lens on the curved slits in the black face. The image projected on a screen will show colors. When placed between the black face and screen, the long color correcting lens "pulls" the colors back together to show white light.
• Commercial Microscope
  This microscope allows for the magnification of small objects, which can then be projected onto a screen for the whole class to see.
• Commercial Telescope
  By a system of lenses, a telescope makes distant objects appear closer than they actually are.
• Corrective Lens Demo
  The circle represents the eye. One lens (top) is used to show how an image is focused in a good eye. A lens with a longer focal length (bottom left) shows how an image is focused in a bad eye, and then a second corrective lens (bottom right) is added to show how glasses correct vision problems.
• Flat Mirror
  This flat mirror demonstrates the reflective properties of a plane mirror.
• Flat Mirrors with Objects
  A object's image is seen in the mirrors, to show how flat mirrors reflect light.
• Flower Image
  This demonstrates how a concave mirror can produce a image that is right-side up from an object that is actually upside down.
• Focal Length
  A light bulb is fixed in place in front of a large concave mirror. A piece of paper is held at various distances from the light bulb, to find the focal length of the mirror.
• Focal Length: Light Bulb with Hand held Lens
  Converging lenses with different focal lengths are used to see what happens to the formed image as a result of focal length.
• Half-Sphere Concave Mirror
  This mirror reflects itself and other objects to make interesting images.
• Image, 2 big lenses, and screen
  Projecting the filament in a clear light bulb.
• Immersion Oil Jars (Refraction)
  Each of these three identical jars contains a glass stir rod. One jar is empty, and the entire rod is visible. The second jar contains immersion oil, which has the same refractive index as glass, making the rod invisible. The third jar contains water, and the rod appears bent.
• Kaleidoscope
  A Kaleidoscope is made up of mirrors and movable colored pieces. The view field of a Kaleidoscope shows a segment of the colored pieces. This view field is reflected off of several mirrors to produce the effect shown here.
• Large Fresnel Lens
  A Fresnel lens is a ribbed circular surface, which enlarges objects behind it. It is much like a simplified convex lens.
• Large Lens with Black Frame
  We also have a bigger lens in a green frame that is not pictured.
• Laser Through Prism
  The light from laser shined directly at a prism gets bounced off and hits the chalkboard instead of just going straight.
• Laser with Beam Splitter, Small Water Tank, and Geometric Optical Elements
  Parallel beams from a laser enter the water tank. Various lenses and mirrors can be used to divert the beam(s) in the water.
• Laser with Convex Lens
  Shine a laser box onto a convex lens and watch the pattern of the lines converge behind the lens
• Laser with Curved and Flat Mirror
  Shine a laser box onto a flat and a curved mirror and watch the rays reflect off the mirror's surface.
• Laser with Splitter for Multiple Beams and Globe Lens
  A laser beam is directed at a beam splitter, which has gold foil on one side and is only partially reflective on the other side. The laser beam passes through a hole in the gold foil and hits the partially reflective surface. At this point, part of the beam passes through the surface and the other part is reflected back to the gold foil at an angle. The gold foil reflects this beam back to the partially reflective surface to begin the cycle again. This continues until the beam reaches the end of the cube. As the beam is further split, its intensity decreases. All of the beams passing through the partially reflective surface leave the cube parallel to each other. A beam splitter has uses similar to a ray box. It may be used to show properties of mirrors and lenses.
• Light Travels in Straight Lines
  An object is placed in front of a light source (the overhead projector) to produce a shadow on a screen. The lecturer should point out that the edges of the shadow are clearly defined because light travels in a straight line (from the source to the screen).
• Lucite Refraction on Overhead
  A grid transparency and a block of Lucite are used to show refraction. The overhead projector's light travels through the Lucite, making the grid lines appear to shift.
• Magnifying Glass
  This is a thick convex lens used to create a larger image of an object.
• Multistep Aperture
  No description available
• Mystery Periscope (Light Guide)
  No description available
• Near/Far Sighted Demo
  Convex and concave lenses are used to show how both near and farsightedness can be corrected by changing the eye's effective focal point.
• Nicol Prism
  A Nicol prism, formed by a cut calcite crystal, uses total internal reflection of one of the two polarization components to achieve polarization of a light beam. Use this with the pinhole slide for the overhead projector.
• Parabolic - Concave and Convex Mirrors
  24 inch mega mirrors for optic demonstrations.
• Penny Mirage
  As a result of the curved surfaces of the dish on which the penny lays, it appears to float.
• Periscope Prism
  It is used with a laser. The periscope prism changes the direction of the laser beam.
• Pinhole Camera
  A pinhole camera has a very small hole that lets light in. When the light enters, an upside-down image is formed on the opposite wall, due to the straight-line trajectory of light rays.
• Projection of Image withTwo Lenses
  The combination of negative and positive lenses are used to project an image of a rocket.
• Reflection with a Plane Mirror
  The "mirror" is a large sheet of glass. The object is a 7 1/2 watt light bulb. A second bulb is placed at the image point, and this may be turned on to show that the image is at the same place, no matter where the observer sits in the lecture room.
• Skate Wheel Refraction
  The skate wheels are rolled on a flat surface toward the rug at an angle, such that only one wheel will roll over the rug. As the wheel rolls onto the rug, it slows while the other wheel continues at its original speed. This difference in wheel speeds causes the skate to turn. This is a macroscopic model of light refraction as light waves enter an interface at an angle.
• Snell's Law
  This is an apparatus wherein we can shine a light through a medium and then measure the angles of both the incident and transmitted light. Knowing this, we can calculate the index of refraction of the medium in the apparatus using Snell's Law.
• Spherical Aberration
  A light source (carbon arc) is focused with the lens on the plugged holes in the black face. The holes are plugged with corks. One by one, the corks are removed to show light on the screen behind the black face. The holes near the edges will produce an aberration on the screen.
• Stelzer's Flat Mirror and No Feet
  The proportion of an image that can be seen in a plane mirror is independent of the distance between the object and the mirror. So, if both you and the mirror are perfectly vertical, and you cannot see your feet, then moving further or closer to the mirror will still not allow you to see your feet.
• Telescope and Microscope on TV
  A small video camera is fixed at one end of the aluminum optical bench. Various lenses are then placed along the bench to demonstrate a microscope or a telescope.
• Total Internal Reflection: Microwave and Salt Blocks
  When the two triangularly shaped salt blocks are pushed together to form a cube, the microwaves are transmitted clearly through the medium. However, as the blocks are moved slightly away from one another, the microwaves are not transmitted as well due to the increase in internal reflection.
• Trick Cylindrical Lens
  A cylindrical lens is placed in front of a sign and the resulting image is observed to be inverted, as with a convex lens.
• Variable Iris
  Mounted, 5" x 5". For use with some lenses demonstrations.

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