Stop for a moment and think of all of the places where magnets are used in your home. There are the magnetic catches on the...

Physics Narrative 5-11 11-14

The everyday world of magnets is really all about those magnetic materials that can be magnetised to make permanent magnets...

Physics Narrative 5-11 11-14

Supposing you take a bar magnet and suspend it freely at its mid-point on a length of thread. Once the magnet stops spinning...

Physics Narrative 5-11 11-14

Take a simple bar magnet–the sort that is found in physics lessons–in the form of a rectangular block of steel. Bring another...

Physics Narrative 5-11 11-14

Imagine two bars of iron placed side-by-side on a table. One of them is a bar magnet, the other is not. From the outside it is...

Physics Narrative 11-14

Over the last 50 years, satellites have become as commonplace as other tools of technology before them, such as clocks...

Physics Narrative 11-14

To make anything move along a circular path it is essential to have a force that acts towards the centre of that path.

Physics Narrative 11-14

The centripetal force is interesting in that it acts at right angles to the direction of travel of the object moving along a...

Physics Narrative 11-14

Perhaps the first question to think about is how they get into orbit in the first place. Let's try a thought experiment that...

Physics Narrative 11-14

Satellites can operate in several different types of Earth orbit. A geostationary orbit is one in which the satellite is...

Physics Narrative 11-14

A satellite that stays above one place on the Earth's surface has to sit above the Equator. Then the centre of the circle...

Physics Narrative 11-14

Covering the whole of the Earth with communications satellites requires a minimum of three satellites evenly distributed.

Physics Narrative 11-14