Demonstrating the magic of physics at the University of Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — University of Utah professor Adam Beehler's workday included shrink-wrapping a student and levitating another with a leaf blower.

The concepts he demonstrates are old, but the job doesn't get old.

Beehler manages the school's large collection of demonstration equipment, runs demonstrations for instructors, and teaches a class of his own, entitled The Way Things Work, a kind of physics show-and-tell.

To demonstrate atmospheric pressure, he puts a student — all but the head, of course — in a plastic bag and evacuates the air inside.

To show that pressure in a confined liquid is transferred throughout, or "Pascal's Principle", a student on a leaf-blower-powered hovercraft floats across the classroom floor.

And for his last trick, Beehler holds two fluorescent tubes and inches them towards a large Van de Graaff generator until they attract loud, crackling bolts of purple lightning.

It then lights up the bulbs and turns Beehler into a modern-day Zeus — while Sprach Zarathustra, the theme from "2001 – A Space Odyssey," plays.

"Sometimes the students will think, 'Oh, that's magic,' but physics seems like magic," he said. "It's just magic of the universe. It just naturally works that way."

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