Modern Physics Experiments in Newton's Time: A Look Back in Time

[Loren Booda]

What modern physics experiments could you, brought back to the time of Newton, have reproduced with then existing technology?

 

[Njorl]

With static electricity, microscopes and even a poor vacuum, you can do Milliken's oil drop. Of course, when I did it as an undergrad (in the 1980's) using fairly modern equipment (from the 1960's) I got +/- 300% error. Not quite good enough to prove quantization of charge.

Njorl

 

[Loren Booda]

Njorl,

With an excellent lab partner in freshman advanced physics at Yale, I performed the oil-drop experiment, and from his statistics obtained an e/m_e accuracy of +/- 1%. My swan song.

I was thinking that Newton could have found an approximation for the blackbody spectrum using prisms.

 

[Artman]

Simple demostration of Beurnulli's (sp?) findings on lift. Just hold a piece of paper and blow across the top and watch as the paper rises because of the lower pressure of the high speed air across the top.

 

[Adrian Baker]

Well they had magnets, and they had copper, so the whole field of electromagnetism would be a good one. Not exactly 'modern' I suppose but once you had some electricity to play with, you could cobble together so many different experiments...