Extras

 

As time permitted, and the students were very inquisitive, the idea that the speed of light is dictated by the medium it travels through was used to topically cover Cherenkov Radiation. An analogy was made to a sonic boom, but instead of an acoustic wave, charged particles travelling faster than light through a polarizable medium create an "optic boom" due to excitation and relaxation of an electric field in the medium. This is the reason why submerged radioactive material will "glow".

 

The students were then given the opportunity to ask questions regarding the presentation and physics in general. Many interesting questions were posed both on and off topic ranging from "Can sound kill you?" to "Why is it that you can have reflective material that only reflects 1 color, but will seem to reflect white light if you shine a bright enough light on it?"