Multimedia Library
The UCSB physics lecture demonstration area has a collection of video tapes (VHS format), LaserDiscs (videodiscs) and DVDs that contain lecture material and demonstrations and also various presentations of material in physics and related topics. We also have a library of 8-mm film loops covering a variety of topics in physics, four sets of transparencies for use on overhead projectors, and an extensive library of 35-mm color transparencies (slides) on astronomy-related topics. In addition, we have several CD-ROMs and other media with a variety of instructional material. This web page contains a catalogue of these materials.
Please feel free to come to room 1630 to preview these materials, or in case you have any questions regarding them. The hyperlinked titles either open files containing tables of contents or go to explanatory material on the web.
1) American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) videos:
a) A Videotape Collection of the AAPT Skylab Films with accompanying teacher’s guides (Total run time: 26:04)
b) The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse with accompanying teacher’s guide (Total run time: 7:30). We now also have this on DVD, and an excerpt (on DVD) from 4:45 to the end.
c) A Videotape Collection of Thirteen Toys in Space Vignettes with accompanying teacher’s guide (Total run time: 60:00)2) The Annenberg/CPB Collection: The Mechanical Universe. . . and Beyond -- Set of 14 tapes containing 52 half-hour programs. The hyperlink above opens a YouTube playlist with all the episodes. You should also feel free to come to room 1630 to view these tapes if you wish. We also have an accompanying manual, The Mechanical Universe. . . and Beyond: A Preview. In addition, we have Part I, chapters 19 and 20 (Angular Momentum, Torques and Gyroscopes) and Part II, chapters 37 and 38 (Electromagnetic Induction and Alternating Current) on videodisc and on DVD.
3) Video tapes from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Only one of these, A Private Universe, still appears on the A.S.P. web site.
a) Cosmic Clips: Animations From Astronomers (A.S.P. in association with John Wiley and Sons), with a booklet that describes each clip and gives background information and references.
b) A Private Universe (Produced by Matthew Schneps and the Science Media Group of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 21:00). Harvard researchers ask graduating college students, faculty, and students at a first-rate high school various questions about astronomy, and in doing so, they reveal startling misconceptions that are surprisingly common, even among those whom one would expect to know better.
c) Voyager: Missions to Jupiter and Saturn (A NASA film, 24:00), with reading list.
d) Voyager Neptune Encounter Films: A Collection of Short Clips (Produced by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before and after the Voyager 2 Neptune encounter, August, 1989), with reading list and contents.
e) Uranus: I Will See Such Things and Miranda: The Movie (two versions)4) Video tapes from Prentice-Hall and the ABC News/Prentice-Hall Video Library. You can view the contents of these tapes here.
a) Comets: A Biannual Subscription for Astronomy Instructors, Volume 1, Number 1. Astronomy Today, First Edition, by Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan, ©1993 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
b) Astronomy Today: Comets — Fall 1993 Edition, ©1993 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
c) Comets: A Biannual Subscription for Astronomy Instructors, Spring 1994. Astronomy Today, by Eric Chaisson and Steve McMillan, ©1994 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
d) Astronomy Today: Comets: Spring 1994 Edition, ©1994 Prentice-Hall, Inc.
e) Astronomy Today: Solar Eclipse, ©1993 Prentice-Hall, Inc.5) The Active Sun Videos, Video 1: Convection. For use with Universe, Fourth Edition, and Discovering the Universe, by William J. Kaufmann III, produced by Lockheed Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory. This is a 12-minute presentation on the photosphere and the process of energy transfer in the sun.
6) Out of This World: The Apollo Moon Landings (60:00), Finley-Holiday Film Corporation, written and produced by Steve Skootsky.
7) Aurora Color Television Project, Second Edition, Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska, ©1985, Brown, Hallinan and Osborne, length: 27:00. There is an accompanying manual, Understanding the Aurora.
8) Clara Rockmore: The Greatest Theremin Virtuosa, © 1998 Moog Music, Inc. The theremin, invented by Russian physicist Lev Sergeivitch Termen (Léon Theremin) in 1919, is an electronic instrument whose pitch and volume the player controls by changing the placement of his hands relative to two antennae, thus changing the capacitance in two parts of the circuit. When controlling the pitch antenna, the player is changing the capacitance of a variable-frequency rf oscillator, whose output is mixed with that of a fixed-frequency rf oscillator. The resulting beats are in the audio range. In the original theremins, the varying capacitance at the volume antenna took in and out of resonance a second oscillator whose current heated the filament in the tube that formed the output amplifier stage. In more recent instruments, designs vary, but the Moog™ Etherwave® theremin, for example, uses the voltage generated across one of the inductors in the volume antenna circuit to adjust the gain of the voltage controlled amplifier that amplifies the audio signal from the pitch circuit. This is an impressive and entertaining way to introduce the subject of capacitance. You can read about the theremin at Wikipedia, Thereminvox, Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, Oddmusic and Theremin World, among other places. After physical problems cut short her career of concertizing on the violin, Clara Rockmore learned how to play the theremin, and she worked with Léon Theremin on the development of the instrument. This videotape is a series of conversations with Clara Rockmore, Nadia Reisenberg (her sister, a pianist), Robert Moog (inventor of the Moog synthesizer) and Thomas Ray, led by Robert Sherman (Nadia’s son and Clara’s nephew, and host of “The Listening Room” on WQXR in New York City), with performances by Clara and Nadia interspersed. We also have this on DVD with Mastering the Theremin. We also have an actual theremin as demonstration 60.17 -- Theremin.
9) American College of Cardiology and Mayo Clinic, Video Seminar Series on Echocardiography: State of the Art Presentations on 2-D/Doppler with Color Flow Imaging. Volume 2: Doppler and Color Flow Imaging: Physics, Instrumentation and the Normal Exam. Produced by The Heart House Learning Center, ©1988, The American College of Cardiology.
10) Derek Bok Center, Thinking Together/Collaborative Learning in Science (18:00). Interviews with several professors and graduate students in the sciences at Harvard, with footage from their classes, show new techniques they are incorporating into their teaching.
11) EROS Flyovers Video (16:00). This is a series of image sequences from the NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) Shoemaker spacecraft, taken between February and September, 2000, beginning two days before the spacecraft entered orbit around Eros. The video was produced for NASA by the NEAR Shoemaker team, which is part of the Johns-Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. You can view many of these sequences here. This web page also has links to image galleries, including one from JHUAPL, and also to other interesting information on asteroids in general and Eros in particular.
12) Galaxy Formation in Hierarchically Clustering Universes, Matthias Steinmetz, Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik, Garching, Germany. 3-D views of comoving subvolumes of 2.5 Mpc, 40 kpc and 25 kpc, gas and dark matter side by side. You can see other movies by Matthias Steinmetz here.
13) Where the Galaxies Are (8:00), Produced by Heliotrope Studios for the Smithsonian Institution (©1991). Produced and directed by Boyd Estus; written and narrated by Margaret Geller. This film is about mapping galaxies as astronomers find them.
14) Giotto Encounter Tape (Halley Multicolor Camera). This is a sequence from the Halley Multicolor Camera, aboard the Giotto Spacecraft, built and launched by the European Space Agency (ESA), as it encountered comet Halley. You can find a brief description of this mission with the major technical details here, an article about the Giotto results here and a NASA/NSSDC (Nastional Space Science Data Center) page with information on Giotto, with links to more information, here.
15) Viewing the Violent Universe (6:36), The Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland. This film shows the launch of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, introduces the topic of gamma ray imaging and describes some of the types of astronomical phenomena that might give rise to gamma ray emission.
16) Saunders Astronomy Video Tape/A Special Collection of NASA/JPL Video Presentations: Voyager Encounter Highlights; A Collection of Movies (5-Titles); Collection of Magellan Venus Radar Mapping Results, Galileo Earth/Moon 1 Encounter Rotation Movies; Neptune Encounter Highlights. (ISBN 0-03-094440-6) (100:24).
17) Naval Research Laboratory LASCO Imagery, 4/29-5/6/96. This tape contains four sequences (10, 15, 30 and 11 seconds long) of comet Hyakutake’s close encounter with the sun as it passed through the field of view of the number 3 coronagraph of LASCO (Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronograph) on ESA/NASA’s SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Satellite).
18) NOVA:
a) Is Anybody Out There? (58:00) Host Lily Tomlin narrates this film about SETI — the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
b) The Best Mind Since Einstein (~60 minutes) Through a collection of interviews of friends, colleagues and family of Richard Feynman and of Feynman himself, and excerpts from some of Feynman’s lectures, this film gives a wonderful portrait of Richard Feynman.19) Physical Science Study Committee:
a) Excerpt I from Frames of Reference. This excerpt shows a ball dropping on a cart when it is fixed, while it is moving at a constant velocity and when it is accelerating, both in the laboratory frame in in the cart's frame of reference.
b) Excerpt II from Frames of Reference. This excerpt shows a CO2 puck on a table in a rotating frame of reference, both in the table's frame of reference and in the laboratory frame.The complete Frames of Reference is available on DVD (see below).
20) Pyramid Media , Powers of Ten (9:00). Starting at the scale of one meter, this film zooms out from the scene of a picnic at the rate of one order of magnitude every ten seconds, out to 1024 meters, then back, then in to 10-16 meters, showing at each step the features we observe. You can view this film here.
21) Ward’s Natural Science Establishment, Inc.
a) Coriolis Effect (8:00) A ball dropped onto a rotating turntable, and satellite images of the earth at the poles demonstrate the Coriolis effect.
b) Hydrogen Atom (Advanced) (19:20) An explanation of the (electronic) structure of the hydrogen atom, with an introduction to the quantum mechanics that underlies it.
c) Mars: Chemistry Looks for Life (25:30) This film explores the question of whether there might be life on other planets, Mars in particular, and explains the chemical principles some are using to search for an answer to this question.
d) Moon: Motion and Phases (7:00) The phases of the moon are demonstrated by means of an illuminated model of the earth-moon system.
e) Seasons (9:00) An illuminated model of the earth-sun system shows the origin of seasons.
f) Vibrations of Molecules (11:40) This film illustrates molecular vibrations for nonlinear and linear molecules via animations, showing how one determines the number of distinct vibrations a particular molecule has and qualitatively describing the relationships between the masses of the vibrating atoms and the vibrational frequency, and between the bond strength and vibrational frequency.
DVDs: 1) The Annenberg/CPB Collection: The Mechanical Universe. . . and Beyond. We have four chapters on DVD (transcribed from videodisc), as listed below. You can view information about these chapters via the link given above in the video tape section.
2) The Education Group:a) Part I: 19 – Angular Momentum; 20 – Torques and Gyroscopes
b) Part II: 37 – Electromagnetic Induction; 38 – Alternating Currenta) The Video Encyclopedia of Physics Demonstrations, Bilingual Edition • English/Español. This is a 68-chapter, 25-disc set of physics demonstrations. You can view the complete contents here.
b) The Video Encyclopedia of Physics Demonstrations, Bilingual Middle School Edition • English/Español. This is a 10-chapter, 4-disc set of physics demonstrations. You can view the complete contents here.3) Mastering the Theremin and Clara Rockmore: The Greatest Theremin Virtuosa, © 1998, 2004 Moog Music, Inc. This DVD has a series of lessons by Lydia Kavina, a theremin virtuosa. Ms. Kavina studied with Leon Theremin, who was her grandfather’s cousin (so her first cousin twice removed). The lesson portion includes performances of three of Lydia Kavina’s own compositions, a brief biography of Leon Theremin, and an appearance by Bob Moog. The other part of the CD is Clara Rockmore: The World’s Greatest Theremin Virtuosa, which we also have on videotape. For a brief description of the theremin and of the contents of this second part of the DVD, please click on this link to the entry above in the videotape section.
4) NOVA: The Elegant Universe, episodes 1-3. In this series, Brian Green (Columbia University) gives a presentation of string theory, with comments from many other physicists in the field.
5) VIDEODISCOVERY®: Physics of Flight. This is a two-DVD transcription of the videodisc, one side per DVD. The set has 16 chapters per DVD, eight sets of movies on one DVD and five sets of movies on the second DVD, which cover various aspects of aerodynamics, flight in nature, the history of human flight, features of aircraft design and instrumentation. The videodisc set includes an index, a teacher's manual and six student manuals. You can view the front of the videodisc cover here, and the contents of the set here. (If the contents are not sufficiently clear, click on the “expand to regular view” button that will appear when you hold your mouse over the lower right corner of the photograph. You may have to move the mouse off the photograph and then back to the lower right corner first. In Mozilla Firefox and Netscape, a magnifying glass with a ‘+’ inside it will appear. Click on this to enlarge the photograph.)
6) Ztek® Company, CINEMA CLASSICS and other material under the PHYSICS Views®/PHYSICS Views™ label. CINEMA CLASSICS is a collection of 245 classic physics demonstrations from a wide variety of sources including the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC), Project Physics and Ealing, compiled by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and Ztek Co. You can view the contents of each DVD via the links below. The information sheets give the various sources for the material. The UCSB lecture demonstration set appears to be missing disc A, Mechanics (I). We do, however, also have the complete set (A through F) on videodisc.
We also have the teacher’s guide to the PSSC films, whose foreword and contents you can view here.
a) Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS—B – Mechanics (II) and Heat
b) Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS—C – Waves(I)
c) Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS—D – Waves (II) & Electricity and Magnetism
d) Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS—E – Conservation Laws
e) Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS—F – Angular Momentum and Modern Physics
f) Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS – Ancillary Materials and Teacher's Guide
g) Frames of Reference
h) Physics Single-concept Films Collection 27) American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) with the United States Air Force Academy (distributed by Ztek Co.™). DVD transcription of Skylab Physics Videodisc with accompanying teacher's guide.
8) American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) The Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse with accompanying teacher's guide (Total run time: 7:30). A second DVD contains an excerpt from 4:45 to the end.
1) American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT): Physics: CINEMA CLASSICS. You can view the contents of this set here. The chapter headings are identical to those for the set on DVD.
a) Disc 1 –
Side A: Mechanics (I)
Side B: Mechanics (II) and Heatb) Disc 2 –
Side C: Waves (I)
Side D: Waves (II) & Electricity and Magnetismc) Disc 3 –
Side E: Conservation Laws
Side F: Angular Momentum and Modern Physics2) American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) with the United States Air Force Academy (distributed by Ztek Co.™). Skylab Physics Videodisc with accompanying teacher's guide.
3) The Annenberg/CPB Collection: The Mechanical Universe. . . and Beyond. We have four chapters on videodisc, as listed below. You can view information about these chapters via the link given above in the video tape section.
a) Part I: 19 – Angular Momentum; 20 – Torques and Gyroscopes
b) Part II: 37 – Electromagnetic Induction; 38 – Alternating Currenta) The Video Encyclopedia of Physics Demonstrations. This is a 68-chapter, 25-disc set of physics demonstrations. You can view the complete contents here.
5) VIDEODISCOVERY®: Physics of Flight. This is a single videodisc that has 16 chapters on each side, eight sets of movies on side A and five sets of movies on side B, which cover various aspects of aerodynamics, flight in nature, the history of human flight, features of aircraft design and instrumentation. The set includes an index, a teacher's manual and six student manuals. You can view the front of the videodisc cover here, and the contents of the set here. (If the contents are not sufficiently clear, click on the “expand to regular view” button that will appear when you hold your mouse over the lower right corner of the photograph. You may have to move the mouse off the photograph and then back to the lower right corner first. In Mozilla Firefox and Netscape, a magnifying glass with a '+' inside it will appear. Click on this to enlarge the photograph.)
1) SPECTRA™ Physics Transparencies by Keuffel and Esser Co., Educational/Audiovisual Division.
2) Physics Transparencies by Walter Eppenstein (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and Benjamin E. Chi (SUNY Albany), ©1971 by John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
3) Transparencies to accompany Physics by Hans C. Ohanian ©1985 by W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.
4) Transparencies to accompany Physics: A Practical and Conceptual Approach, Second Edition by Jerry D. Wilson ©1989 by Saunders College Publishing.
We have a collection of 8-mm film loops, mostly from the Ealing series, covering a wide variety of topics, a list of which you can find here.
