Littlest Guy is working on his school science project (making a calorimeter), and so he’s starting to learn some of the basics of thermodynamics (it’s hard to explain the difference between temperature and heat, isn’t it?).
While he was digging he came up with this video, which he’s been playing enough to be annoying.
So in the interests of making you annoyed too, I give you – the Large Hadron Collider rap video…
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This was better than I expected it to be – but the Hayek/ Keynes vid at econstories.tv is still #1.
If you’re having problems with an explanation that might make sense to a kid, point out that temperature is what a person would feel if (hypothetically) touching something, while heat is what produces the feeling.
Make an analogy to feeling the breeze produced by uncorking two balloons with the same size tap (or whatever you call it). One balloon is a foot across, with an internal overpressure of one PSI. Untie the balloon and you’ll feel a certain pressure (about one PSI) against your hand for a certain time.
The other balloon is 50 feet across, with an overpressure of one PSI. Untie this balloon and you’ll feel the same wind pressure, but for a lot longer time, because the big balloon is holding a lot more air (heat) than the small balloon.
This leads to fruitful discussions of specific heat of materials, modes of heat conductivity, and eventually into the superiority of cast iron cookware over flimsy non-stick stuff.
Nice!