Stories by Jearl Walker

A homemade copper chloride laser emits powerful bursts of green and yellow light

When a polymer sheet is stretched, it may "neck" long before it snaps

A backyard version of a Stirling engine can be built with common materials

Why are the first few puffs the hardest when you blow up a balloon?

Colored segments of a grid can shed a diffuse glow like tht from a neon tube

How to build a Hele-Shaw cell and watch bubbles Playing tag in a viscous fluid

A drop of water becomes a gateway into the world catastrOPhe optics

How to analyze the shock waves that sweep through expressway traffic

The mechanics of rock climbing, or surviving the ultimate physics exam

How to stop worrying about vibration and make holograms viewable in white light

How to get the playground swing going: a first lesson in the mechanics of rotation

In an emergency stop, should a car's wheels be locked or should the braking be controlled?

The colors seen in the sky offer lessons optical scattering

The distorted images seen in Christmas-tree ornaments and reflecting balls

The cafe-wall illusion, in which rows of tiles tilt that should not tilt at all

Drop two stacked balls from waist height the top ball may bounce up to the ceiling;

Shock-front phenomena and other oddities to entertain a bored airline passenger

Some entertaining lessons in optics that may make air travel easier to endure

Shadows cast on the bottom of a pool are not like other shadows. Why?

Does convection or the Bernoulli principle make the shower curtain flutter inward?

Icicles ensheathe a number of puzzles: just how does the water freeze?

How to map electrically charged patches with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme

Why sidespin helps the bowler and how to keep scoring strikes.

The feathery wake of a moving boat is a complex interference pattern