Physics Made Easy

Hi Physics Lovers !


Electromagnetic Induction is the process by which mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy and vice et versa. In other words, it is at the heart of modern technology. This is why any student interested in physics or/and engineering should possess a solid understanding of electromagnetic Induction.


And this is also why I am releasing a mini-series of 2 episodes that visits the two pillars of electromagnetic induction: Faraday’s law and Lenz’s law.


In the first episode, we derive Faraday’s laws step by step using only mathematics tools of high school level so that the viewer can acquire a good understanding of what is actually going when an emf is induced.


In the second video, we dive even deeper into Faraday’s law by looking at the significance of the minus sign that pops up during its derivation. In other words, we dive into Lenz’s Law!


The first episode comes tomorrow Sunday 22nd. The second episode is planned for Sunday 29nth! So, activate this notification bell so you don’t miss these releases!


Take good care of yourself,


Edouard.

4 months ago | [YT] | 65

Physics Made Easy

Something new is coming to the Physics Made Easy channel!

Do you remember how it feels when, during a study session, you are “in the zone”. Everything seems clear, you move forwards with efficacy, and you come out of there satisfied of your progress. Being in the zone is actually so pleasant that it feels more like pleasure than work!

Have you ever wished you could enter this state of mind on demand? Well, I am proposing on Physics Made Easy a tool that will help you do just that! It might not work for everyone, but because it works with me, I suspect it will work with many others.

I created a new Playlist called: “relaxing ambience and sounds for study, rest and meditation”. This playlist contains 2-hour long videos of a natural landscapes and soundscapes (water sounds, wind, birdsongs etc…).

It all started when I arrived to my new home in countryside Britanny (France). I enjoy hiking, and so I went for long walks exploring the surroundings. Man! What a wonderful place I had landed in! One day, I took my DSLR camera and an audio recorder and made a video of a scenery.

I realized I could use the resulting video to calm my brain when it was becoming too busy. Then, I started using it when I needed to focus (for example when preparing lessons). From that day on, I have one of these videos running in the background when I need to focus on intellectual work: my efficacy gets boosted significantly and when the session ends, I feel satisfied of what I accomplished

So, I thought, why not share this tool with the students I help on Physics Made Easy? High school students need clarity of thought when confronted with physics notions that often can appear foggy at first approach. Being focused can help connect the dots, and get a clearer picture.

So here we go, I’m launching the playlist today. The first video will appear tomorrow April 9th, 2025: It shows a beautiful water stream I discovered when hiking near the ponds of Bodean. This is one of my favorites and the natural sound of water is quite immersive. It is gentle and dynamic. It has a strange property: Put the sound loud, and you get a dynamic white noise, put it low, and it feels like a restful and gentle water stream.

The second video will show up on the April 12th, 2025. This one is very calm, with a gentle water sound sparkled with beautiful birdsongs. I actually use this one more to rest or to calm my thoughts. I hope you will like it too!

Since I discovered the benefits of these videos, I have been taking my video and audio equipment much more often when going on a hike. Now, I have quite some raw data to play with. So, expect videos of the kind in the close future.

Let me know if you like these, and if they help you to focus and improve the way you study!

I wish you the best, ❤️



Edouard

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6 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 19

Physics Made Easy

Hi Physics Lovers!


A new video is cooking, it is nearly ready so will be released very soon 😊.


This time, we will be resuming our exploration of electromagnetism.

I had originally planned to discuss Faraday’s law, but while I was preparing the plan of that video, I realized very quickly that there was still something I needed to review with you before doing so: the relationship between electric potential with electric field strength.


So, I was back to the drawing board, and I devised a new lesson that dives into this relationship.

First, I derive a formula for the electric potential energy that a test charge gets when placed in a field generated by a punctual source charge. From that, I deduce a formula for the electric potential at any position of that field.


Then, I graph that potential function, and demonstrate that the absolute value of the derivative of that function is actually... the electric field strength! Here is where the viewer meets the heart of the video: At any given position of an electric field, the electric field strength is defined as how the electric potential changes in space.

Now, everything should be in place to dive into Faraday’s law. It may take some time, as April-May is usually my busiest period of the year, but I’ll make sure it’s worth the wait!


There is also a surprise coming up in parallel with this new video… A tool that I will make available on the channel, and that will improve the effectiveness of your study sessions… It’s kind of ready… I’ll talk about it in another post 😉.


In the meantime, I wish you all the best ❤️!

Edouard

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6 months ago | [YT] | 65

Physics Made Easy

Hi Physics Lovers !

Two new videos coming up soon!
Both will be related to escape velocity:

In the first one, that hopefully should be out tomorrow, you will learn how to calculate the size that would have any object if it were a black hole. The example that I took in this video is the Earth.
Do you have an idea of how large the Earth would be if, suddenly, it collapsed into a black hole? The answer is mesmerizing! Watch the video to find out. And even better, you will learn how to calculate that yourself!

The second one is more of a full lecture regarding the concept of escape velocity. In order for you to really understand what it is, we will first review the energetics of a system of two masses. By understanding the relationship between kinetic energy and potential energy of such a system, you will be able to spot what an object needs to definitely escape from a gravitational field.

To do so, we will take the example of a rocket trying to leave a planet. Finding conditions on the energies of such a system will allow us to derive a formula for escape velocity. We will then use this formula to determine the size of the Earth if it were a black hole. So, you see, the first video is kind of a teaser to the full lesson.

Moreover, for students that are actually studying this subject at school, I will add some slides at the very end of the second video with training exercises. Like this, you can be a master of the topic in your physics class!

In this video, there are many animations that I am currently building. With the limited tools I have at my disposure, it is quite head-scratching to make these animations accurate in regards to the physical reality. But I’m getting there! I expect this video to be out in a week or so.

I hope you enjoy these videos, and wish you the best!

Ciao!

Edouard


PS - And of course, the little self-promotion section 😊:

Encourage me by listening to the Physics Made Easy music album here: edouardreny.bandcamp.com/album/physics-made-easy-t….

I am not too fond of Patreon stuff, I prefer giving something concrete in exchange for any financial support, so if you like the music, please download the album!

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1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 88

Physics Made Easy

Hi Physics Lovers !


New video coming up very soon about a fascinating physical phenomenon at the heart of many of today’s technologies: The Photoelectric Effect!


Think that without it, I would not have been able to record this video haha !

I never talked about this subject on the channel although it is one of my favorites. Actually, it is the kind of physics that got me hooked, and made me choose what direction I wanted to go when I was in high school. And, I ended up with a Ph.D. in a neighboring field!


After a brief reminder of the quantum nature of a photon, we will dive straight into the meat by looking at how the photoelectric effect occurs, and quantify it with Einstein’s photoelectric equation.


In a second section, we’ll dive a little deeper in the physical meaning of this equation. To do so, we’ll discuss why, out of all photoelectrons emitted by a surface, this equation only applies to those of highest kinetic energy.


Do not skip the conclusion that follows, because that’s where I put all pieces together for you. It will help you get a simple global view of this phenomena.


And after the conclusion, it will be time to listen to some “Physics Made Easy Music” But you can already do that here 😉:

edouardreny.bandcamp.com/album/physics-made-easy-t…

With this upcoming video, I just had the time to scratch the surface of this topic. So, after watching it, let me know if you would like me to dive a little deeper…

I hope you enjoy it, and wish you the best!

Ciao,

Edouard

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1 year ago | [YT] | 47

Physics Made Easy

Hi Physics Lovers !


It’s been a while and I have been preparing some goodies for you:

A new video is close to completion, I just have to do some final adjustments and then work on subtitles, and it will be ready for posting. So stay alert, because I will be ringing your little Youtube bell very soon!

So what will this video be about?

I noticed that some of my students manage well solving simple resistive circuits. But when it comes to dealing with light bulbs that burn out in a circuit, they struggle understanding the effects is has on the brightness of the other light bulbs of the circuit … I reflected on how to make this easy to understand… hence this video. And it is a good occasion to review some resistive circuits, which I haven’t done for ages on the channel.


The first section of the video is a review of the notions required to solve these questions:
_ What is the brightness of a light bulb?
_ How to restructure an electric circuit when a component burns out?
_ Potential dividers, and how to use them to solve circuits?

The second section is on the whiteboard:
_ I show how to solve this type of question using the notions reviewed in the first section,
_ And then, you try it for yourself with an exercise.


Out of the pictures I attached to this post , you might see one of them that is a little different :-)!

Yes, at the moment I am writing this post, we are 49963 members of the physics made easy community… The 50K will be coming very soon. So, I feel like celebrating, and in preparation of this I have been working on something…


Some of you know that I am a music producer. So I was not going to pay for the background music of the channel. I just made it myself. All the music on the channel has been composed and produced by me.

And I was thinking, why not rework some of the tracks to make them more interesting, and compile them into an album. Well, the album is now completed, and I published it… today! I discuss a little about that in the video, and will probably talk about it in more detail in future posts.


In the meantime. while you wait for this next video, why don’t you give a listen to the album here and tell me what you think:

edouardreny.bandcamp.com/album/physics-made-easy-t…


And if you are curious about this other facet of my professional life, you should visit my brand new music website:
www.er-music.com

Now, for me, back to working on the video : if everything goes well, I should be able to release it in the coming days, so I’ll see you soon, and wish you the best,

Edouard

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1 year ago | [YT] | 62

Physics Made Easy

Hello Physics Lovers !

I am supper happy to announce that the 100nth video is on its way!

So, this one, I made it a special one. It discusses a topic that you, my dear subscribers have been requesting: Special Relativity.

Special Relativity only entered high school physics’ curricula in recent years. And to be fully honest, I never studied it neither at school, nor at university. I kind of knew what it was about, but never looked into it seriously. As it enters the new IB program this year, I will need to teach it very soon, so I became a student again!

I dug into 4 different text books, to circumvent any imprecisions or errors that high school or early university text books always have (unfortunately). I also filtered out all elitism (I sometimes wonder why some concepts, which are not really difficult, appear to have been made so hard to get…). Once I felt competent on the subject, I came up with my own way of teaching it, understand I made Physics Easy ;-).

The proper way to learn special relativity seriously is to understand and learn how to apply Lorentzian transformations that allow you to derive all relativistic effects that are (at first) so counterintuitive. Yet, there is one effect that can be derived without using such a laborious starting point: Time Dilation. The advantage when discussing the time dilation effect is that the Lorentzian background machinery doesn’t need to be exposed openly. But, make no mistake, these transformations are indeed laying in the background.

Why did I approach it that way? Because trying to teach Special Relativity from scratch and comprehensively in a 20-minute video is nonsense. That is why I preferred to focus on time dilation as an introduction to the subject. See this video as a super teaser, and a motivator to learn more.

What will you learn in this video:
_ What is an inertial frame of reference (and detecting those frames which are not inertial),
_ The 2 postulates at the heart of special relativity and what these imply (basically, that’s what started the whole story),
_ What is time dilation and how to visualize it,
_ A derivation of the time dilation formula (where the most advanced mathematics that are used is the Pythagorean Theorem!),
_ The notion of proper time interval, that allows you to spot immediately which frame of reference has the shortest time interval between two events (very useful to solve problems),
_ Application example + exercise to check that you’ve got it, and that you can solve high school and early university time dilation questions.

Since the beginning of the year, my life has been like a fast bullet train, but I did manage to pick up a few hours here and there, to study, prepare a teaching plan, shoot, produce the animations and then edit the video. There are just a few final refinements I need to make, and then, I will publish the video. Probably this week, maybe next week, so stay tuned, and prepare to fasten your seatbelts: we will be travelling in rockets!

In the meantime, I wish you the best, and I'll see you soon in this next episode of Physics Made Easy,

Edouard

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1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 67

Physics Made Easy

Hello Physics Lovers!

There is a new video in the pipeline nearly ready to get published, and the topic originates from… you guys 😊

Each time I post a video related to electricity, in the comment section, systematically, some of you mention that in a circuit, it is not positive charges that move from + to - but electrons that move from – to +…

Fundamentally this is correct, but practically, it is a convention to say that a current is a flow of positive charges: such current is called the conventional current. Why do we do that? and why it is OK to do so?

The video will answer these two questions. First, we’ll look at the why. The reasons are historical. So, for the first time, I invite you for a time travel, through some of the history of discovery of electricity. This will make you understand why we use the conventional current model instead of the more accurate electron flow model.

Then, we’ll check that considering a conventional current when studying an electric circuit produces an equivalent impact on the relative charge displacement in the circuit. And we'll also see that this does not impact calculation related to the energy conversion that the circuit provides.

I am very close to finishing the editing, so the video should be posted in the coming days, maybe even tomorrow, so stay tuned to Physics Made Easy!

See you all soon, and be well,

Edouard

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1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 67

Physics Made Easy

Hello Physics Lovers !


A new video is cooking! This third dive into electromagnetism will explore the concept of dipole moments. Maybe, You heard about these guys at school or at university? Yet, do you actually know what these things truely represent? Well, with this video, you will!

The notion of dipole moment is super useful in understanding the interaction of a dipole (electric or magnetic) with its surroundings. So, the first part of the video introduces the viewer to electric dipole moments, and builds on these to present magnetic dipole moments.


When the video ends, stay a little… After the shooting, I took a few improvised rushes just for fun. For the first time, I share a thought while in a state of complete improvisation (so please forgive my elocution when I do that...). If you want more of these no-script interventions in future videos, let me know in the comment section of the video when it comes out:

Yes, the video will be out be soon, I just need to work on the sound, hard-write the subtitles, and correct a few minor glitches I have spotted here and there. So, get ready to attach your seatbelts, it will be released in just a few days!

Enjoy,

Edouard

2 years ago | [YT] | 77

Physics Made Easy

Hi physics Lovers!


I just wanted to share with you that a new video is close to completion and will be released this week. I made sure to make it about a fun subject!

I am pretty sure that 100% of you have heard of magnetic fields. Some of you have probably manipulated them in physics class. Now, ask yourself: do you actually know what a magnetic field truly is?

During your studies, you can get by up to a pretty high level just by considering magnetic fields like an misty abstract concept, understanding its consequence on the surroundings systems, and by trusting the equations when solving questions. I know, as a student, I used to be like that.

It’s only when I really started asking myself deeper questions about electromagnetism, that I needed to give a physical meaning to the concept of magnetic field. Once I did that, oh, man, everything started to fall into place. Thanks Einstein!

Well, this is why I made this video: so that you too, can get a sense of the true nature of magnetic fields… And, if you do not already know, you might get quite surprised.

How our Universe works never ceases to amaze me!

Enjoy!

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2 years ago | [YT] | 62