Statistical Mechanics Demo & Mr. Wizard

[solarblast]

I'm looking for a demo on video that illustrates some elementary point about Maxwell and stat mechanics.

I have a video from TV of the Mr. Wizard (one of the first science programs on TV) show that talks about "Predicting the Improbable." I'd like to show it to a class, but it's one of his more incomplete programs. He's talking about molecules getting out of a box with a hole in it, and gets into what I think is Brownian motion. He uses some fairly elementary probability ideas to generate paths. He works with a young person to map it out on paper. His programs were aimed at kids of HS age. It's possible he was really aiming at some element of stat mechanic. The segment just sorts of collapses at the end. It would be nice to augment it with a short video on the subject. If not, possibly Brownian motion. This should be about HS level.

 

[LightHero]

One video you could show is "The Brownian Motion: Explaining The Unpredictable" by the Khan Academy. It explains how particles move randomly and how this is related to the gas laws. It also explains how Maxwell used this information to create his famous distribution. This video is about 11 minutes long and is suitable for high school students.