For the last few weeks, John and his friend Roy have been working in their spare time on a neat physics demonstration to show off at the Texas A&M Physics Festival this coming weekend.

If you know what a standing wave is, you’ve probably seen the classic demonstration with a vibrating string. But did you know you can also trace out a standing wave in FIRE? True story.

The apparatus is called a Rubens Tube, after its kind-of inventor. It’s a long metal tube with small holes drilled along its length, filled with a flammable gas and set alight. When you pipe music into one end of the tube, the flames jump into different wave patterns.

Last night I got to stop by campus and videotape their progress. With a little pretending and a little video editing, we almost made it look like they built this contraption in a single evening.

Pretty neat, eh?

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[Source: xkcd.com]

Oh man, do I ever love me some dimensional analysis. It’s so satisfying to line up all the units and cross them out two-by-two until you’re left with the perfect combination…or the mess that confirms that you’ve gravely misunderstood the problem.

If only I could figure out how to apply this fun and useful skill to the study of law, my life would be radically more fulfilling.