Hello,
A few years ago, at the physics workshops at the Palais de la découverte, I saw the so-called "triple point of water" experience.
The experimenter told us that this experience was part of the "10 characteristic experiments of physics".
Unfortunately, I have not succeeded to find these "10 characteristic experiences of physics" on the internet and the Palais de la découverte has been closed.
Can you help me, please?
If not, would you know a list of other physics experiments that are as spectacular and relatively simple to perform?
Thank you and best regards.
Christian

Christian wrote:Hello,
A few years ago, at the physics workshops at the Palais de la découverte, I saw the so-called "triple point of water" experience.
The experimenter told us that this experience was part of the "10 characteristic experiments of physics".
Unfortunately, I have not succeeded to find these "10 characteristic experiences of physics" on the internet and the Palais de la découverte has been closed.
Can you help me, please?
If not, would you know a list of other physics experiments that are as spectacular and relatively simple to perform?
Thank you and best regards.
Christian

Are you sure you mean "triple point"? The triple point is relatively unimpressive as a demonstration, where ice, water, and water vapor coexist in equilibrium, probably in a closed container, a fraction of a degree above the freezing point in a normal atmosphere.

Perhaps what you mean is that you saw the critical point demonstration, where the phase boundary between liquid and vapor disappears and a two-phase system transforms into a single phase without an obvious transport of material. For water, this is at a fairly high temperature and pressure.

Nevertheless, thanks for introducing a fascinating topic. I'm sure someone will contribute additional experiments in this spirit.

I know about a fairly abstruse demonstration of a tubeless siphon with polymeric liquids, but this is probably not on the radar of "characteristic experiments'. Ice skating is another demonstration in the physical chemistry vein -- the skater floats nearly frictionlessly on a cushion of steam created by the pressure of the skate blade on the ice. The pirouetting skater pulling in the arms and spinning faster, demonstrating conservation of angular momentum. And so on, and so forth. Characteristic experiments? I don't know. Maybe you need the resources of a museum to present ten such demonstrations.

With Google I found this
The greatest physics experiments of all time
The Top 10 Greatest Physics Experiments of All Time

From the 2nd link^
6.Robert Millikan’s Measurement of the Charge of Electron

None of my 60-odd fellow undergrads managed to repeat this experiment (to measure e/m for electrons) to any reasonable degree of accuracy in 1978-ish.