How to make a cloud chamber
Why Physics Stack Exchange recommends it
Physics Stack Exchange answerers point people to it when they want a simple, working recipe for a homemade cloud chamber and an explanation of how the temperature gradient and alcohol saturation produce visible tracks.
Recommended by 3 people across 4 different months, 2014 to 2016.
What it is
A short how-to video in which physicist Suzie Sheehy builds a cloud chamber from mostly household items to watch cosmic ray tracks, using dry ice and alcohol vapor. It was filmed by Andrew Steele and adapted from a CERN cloud chamber workshop run at Oxford's John Adams Institute.
Cited in 1 Wikipedia article, including Suzie Sheehy.
What people said
Recommends Selena Ballerina · 2014-12 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Quantum random numbers from a laser -- simplest setup?”
To add to Nathaniel's Answer [LINK] because (1) it is a good answer and (2) I get nervous recommending radioactive materials handling to anybody I don't know: I would really think about the cloud chamber idea, especially since you're a software guy with a math background. It would need to be inside a darkened container, but you could run a webcam to show what is going on. You can run your cloud chamber satisfactorily on either of the following sources: Uranium glass. This is a low level source, the uranium is in glass so you can't ingest any and it's readily available as uranium glass marbles. See my answer here [LINK] for possible suppliers. There is a youtube clip of a homemade cloudchambe
Recommends anna v · 2015-03 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Cloud chamber with normal ice”
From this video [this video] you could do the experiment with normal ice and see what happens. As explained the whole depends on the temperature differential and the saturation of alcohol molecules. It may be that the fact that the dry ice does not run and that the effect is seen faster that it is used , and that with some extra difficulty you could use normal ice.
Recommends anna v · 2015-05 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “What minimum energy is required to create tracks in a cloud chamber?”
This is to be read together with the checked answer. There are easy cloud chambers to be home made, like this one. [this video] It is easy to make, and the reason you should watch it is to realize that in a cloud chamber there will always be muon tracks ionizing the air vapor mix and creating seeds for a track. You will need a type of anti-coincidence to make sure that any tracks you see come from particles of your flowers: 1) in a basement under meters of cement the muons are less 2) mu metal is a good shield for muons, but that means a lab 3) You could get a statistical effect by taking two measurements, flowers in the cup, flowers off and count the tracks in both cases for the same length of t
Recommends Farcher · 2016-09 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “What is wrong with my setup of cloud chamber?”
Have a look at this video. [this video] You need to leave the device alone for a few minutes for the temperature gradient to be established within the device. It might help to have some small wedges under the apparatus to level the metal base.
Cites Selena Ballerina · 2014-10 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Is it possible for larger antimatter atoms to decay to matter and visa versa?”
I (a non particle physicist) believe the answer is no. The interaction has to conserve all quantum numbers, which are opposite between particles and their antiparticles. Thus, for example, anti-Silicon has 14 anti-protons, thus an electric charge of $-14\,e$ and carbon has $+6\,e$. It's the nucleusses that interact in any collision, so the nucleusses emerging from the reaction would need to have a total charge of $-8\,e$: there would need to be eight anti-protons in the products. Now you might think that this doesn't prevent the reaction if somehow the system's electrons and positrons are involved in the reaction to balance electrical charge. However, as I said, there are many conserved quan
Cites anna v · 2015-03 · Physics Stack Exchange · on “Can the brain detect the passage of a neutrino?”
If you are that fast in detecting light, you are seeing cosmic ray muons. [LINK] They are charged and leave an ionizing track in anything they cross and Cerenkov light. [LINK] in liquid, and the eye is mainly liquid. They are the most numerous energetic particles arriving at sea level, with a flux of about 1 muon per square centimeter per minute. This can be compared to a solar neutrino flux of about 5 x 10^6 per square centimeter per second. Even though there are a lot more neutrinos they do not generate photons to first order so as to be detectable in bubble and spark etc chambers, and therefore not even to the eye. The easy creation of cloud chambers showing muon tracks is recorded on sev