No abstract

Infrared thermal imaging is a valuable tool in physics education at the university level. It can help to visualize and thereby enhance understanding of physical phenomena from mechanics, thermal physics, electromagnetism, optics and radiation physics, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. We report on its use as lecture demonstrations, student projects and practical lab work.

The enormous progress in the fields of microsystem technology, microelectronics and computer science has led to the development of powerful high speed cameras. Recently a number of such cameras became available as low cost consumer products which can also be used for the teaching of physics. The technology of high speed cameras is discussed, facilitating an understanding of the problems and restrictions in using these cameras.

This paper briefly describes the method of infrared imaging and gives a selection of its numerous possible applications. Emphasis will be on the visualization of phenomena discussed in high school physics or introductory physics courses at college/university.

A selection of hands-on experiments from different fields of physics, which happen too fast for the eye or video cameras to properly observe and analyse the phenomena, is presented. They are recorded and analysed using modern high speed cameras. Two types of cameras were used: the first were rather inexpensive consumer products such as Casio Exilim cameras operating at frame rates of up to 1200 Hz for reduced image sizes and the second were higher quality research cameras, which allow much higher frame rates at larger image sizes. In this first article, examples are presented from exploding balloons demonstrating retardation in mechanics, karate hits, deformations associated with the bouncing of balls, strange trajectories of 'superballs' as well as the breaking of spaghetti. S Online supplementary data available from stacks.