Benjamin Apffel
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View article: Science of a coffee cup: A physicist walks into a bar…
Science of a coffee cup: A physicist walks into a bar… Open
… and annoys everyone with unsolicited experiments. The present paper proposes a short pedagogical review of the various phenomena that can be observed in a coffee cup with little to no equipment. The physical domains spanned include acous…
View article: The spinorial ball: A macroscopic object of spin-1/2
The spinorial ball: A macroscopic object of spin-1/2 Open
In quantum physics lectures, half-integer spins are generally introduced as “objects that do not come back to their original state after one full turn but that do after two.” As a consequence, students often consider this behavior to be pu…
View article: Science of a coffee cup: a physicist walks into a bar...
Science of a coffee cup: a physicist walks into a bar... Open
... and annoys everyone with unsolicited experiments. The present paper proposes a short pedagogical review of the various phenomena that can be observed in a coffee cup with little to no equipment. The physical domains spanned include aco…
View article: Motion of a floating sphere pulled by a string and induced flows
Motion of a floating sphere pulled by a string and induced flows Open
We study in this article the motion of a floating ball attached to a soft string set in circular motion through its other end. Although simple, the system exhibits rich dynamics that we investigate experimentally and theoretically. At low …
View article: The spinorial ball (II): a manipulable qubit at human scale
The spinorial ball (II): a manipulable qubit at human scale Open
The spinorial ball is an electronic manipulable device that we recently introduced to discuss the origin of spin-1/2 from rotations group representation, without relying on the quantum mechanics framework. Nevertheless, it is also a macros…
View article: Experimental observation of parabolic wakes in thin plates
Experimental observation of parabolic wakes in thin plates Open
Wakes are medium perturbations created by a moving object, such as wave patterns behind boats, or wingtip vortices following an aircraft. Here, we report about an experimental study of an uncharted form of parabolic wakes occurring in medi…
View article: Motion of a floating sphere pulled by a string and induced flows
Motion of a floating sphere pulled by a string and induced flows Open
We study in this article the motion of a floating ball attached to a soft string set in circular motion through its other end. Although simple, the system exhibits rich dynamics that we investigate experimentally and theoretically. At low …
View article: Experimental observation of topological transition in linear and nonlinear parametric oscillators
Experimental observation of topological transition in linear and nonlinear parametric oscillators Open
Parametric oscillators are examples of externally driven systems that can exhibit two stable states with opposite phase depending on the initial conditions. In this work, we propose to study what happens when the external forcing is pertur…
View article: Renormalization group of topological scattering networks
Renormalization group of topological scattering networks Open
Exploring and understanding topological phases in systems with strong distributed disorder requires developing fundamentally new approaches to replace traditional tools such as topological band theory. Here, we present a general real-space…
View article: Experimental observation of parabolic wakes in thin plates
Experimental observation of parabolic wakes in thin plates Open
Wakes are medium perturbations created by a moving object, such as wave patterns behind boats, or wingtip vortices following an aircraft. Here, we report about an experimental study of an uncharted form of parabolic wakes occurring in medi…
View article: Experimental observation of topological transition in linear and non-linear parametric oscillators
Experimental observation of topological transition in linear and non-linear parametric oscillators Open
Parametric oscillators are examples of externally driven systems that can exhibit two stable states with opposite phase depending on the initial conditions. In this work, we propose to study what happens when the external forcing is pertur…
View article: The spinorial ball: a macroscopic object of spin-1/2
The spinorial ball: a macroscopic object of spin-1/2 Open
Historically, the observation of half-spin particles was one of the most surprising features of quantum mechanics. They are often described as "objects that do not come back to their initial state after one turn but do after two turns". Th…
View article: Comprehensive refractive manipulation of water waves using electrostriction
Comprehensive refractive manipulation of water waves using electrostriction Open
The control of wave propagation based on refraction principles offers unparalleled possibilities as shown by the striking example of optics. This approach is unfortunately limited for water waves as it relies mainly on variations of the li…
View article: Liquid walls and interfaces in arbitrary directions stabilized by vibrations
Liquid walls and interfaces in arbitrary directions stabilized by vibrations Open
Significance On Earth, the surface of a liquid is expected to be horizontal due to gravity. However, new equilibria with an arbitrary direction can be created by shaking the bath hard enough at a few tens of Hertz. The inertial forces resu…
View article: Liquid walls and interfaces in arbitrary directions stabilized by\n vibrations
Liquid walls and interfaces in arbitrary directions stabilized by\n vibrations Open
Gravity shapes liquids and play a crucial role in their internal balance.\nCreating new equilibrium configurations irrespective of the presence of a\ngravitational field is challenging with applications on earth as well as in\nzero-gravity…
View article: Time localization of energy in disordered time-modulated systems
Time localization of energy in disordered time-modulated systems Open
Wave localization induced by spatial disorder is ubiquitous in physics. Here, we study the temporal analog of such phenomenon on water waves. Our time disordered media consists in a collection of temporal interfaces achieved through electr…