During the AAPT summer meeting at Creighton University in 2011, Vacek Miglus and I took pictures of early apparatus at the Creighton physics department. The apparatus in the left-hand picture, shown with the spigot closed, appeared to be a liquid-level device: the water level was the same in both the narrow tube and the flaring glass vase. However, when I came back nine months later to give a talk about the apparatus, I realized that it was really an early Bernoulli effect demonstration. In the right-hand picture the spigot is open and water can be seen coming out of the spout. The water level in the narrow tube has fallen appreciably, thus showing that the pressure at this point has decreased, in agreement with the non-zero velocity of the water in the horizontal tube. The device was made ca. 1880 by E. S. Ritchie of Boston, MA. (Photos by Thomas B. Greenslade Jr.)

Topics
Educational aids, Bernoulli's principle, Public policy and governance
© 2013 American Association of Physics Teachers.
2013
American Association of Physics Teachers
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