A scientific demonstration is a scientific experiment carried out for the purposes of demonstrating scientific principles, rather than for hypothesis testing or knowledge gathering (although they may originally have been carried out for these purposes).
Many scientific demonstrations are chosen for their combination of educational merit and entertainment value, which is often provided by dramatic phenomena such as explosions.
Some famous scientific demonstrations include:
- Al-Biruni's reaction time
- Alhazen's camera obscura, lamp experiment and magnifying lens
- Al-Jazari's crankshaft, elephant clock and programmable robots
- Avenzoar's parasites
- Detonating a cloud of flour
- Foucault's pendulum
- Galileo Galilei's ball experiments, pendulum and telescope
- Heron's fountain and aeolipile
- Ibn al-Nafis' pulmonary circulation and coronary circulation
- Gyroscopic bicycle wheel
- Prince Rupert's Drops
- Shooting a candle through a plank
- Taqi al-Din's alarm clock, steam turbine
- Using a linear motor as a gun
- Using compressed air to drive a water rocket
- Using liquid nitrogen to shatter a rose
- William Harvey's circulatory system
Note: many scientific demonstrations are potentially dangerous, and should not be attempted without considerable laboratory experience and appropriate safety precautions. Many older well-known scientific demonstrations, once mainstays of science education, are now effectively impossible to demonstrate to an audience without breaking health and safety laws. Some older demonstrations, such as allowing the audience to play with liquid mercury, are sufficiently dangerous that they should not be attempted by anyone under any circumstances.
Famous quotes containing the word scientific:
“Philosophers of science constantly discuss theories and representation of reality, but say almost nothing about experiment, technology, or the use of knowledge to alter the world. This is odd, because ‘experimental method’ used to be just another name for scientific method.... I hope [to] initiate a Back-to-Bacon movement, in which we attend more seriously to experimental science. Experimentation has a life of its own.”
—Ian Hacking (b. 1936)