The time of infrared imaging in classrooms has arrived

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2014, FLIR Systems debuted the FLIR ONE, the first thermal imager for smartphones that sells for $349. Compared with standalone IR cameras that often cost between $1,000 and $60,000, this is a huge leap forward for the IR technology to be adopted by millions.

With this price tag, FLIR ONE finally brings the power of infrared imaging to science classrooms. Our unparalleled Infrared Tube is dedicated to IR imaging experiments for science and engineering education. This website publishes the experiments I have designed to showcase cool IR visualizations of natural phenomena. Each experiment comes with an illustration of the setup (so you can do it yourself) and a short IR video recorded from the experiment. Teachers and students may watch these YouTube videos to get an idea about how the unseen world of thermodynamics and heat transfer looks like through an IR camera -- before deciding to buy such a camera.

For example, this post shows one of my IR videos that probably can give you some idea why the northern people are spraying salt on the road like crazy in this bone-chilling weather. The video demonstrates a phenomenon called freezing point depression, a process in which adding a solute to a solvent decreases the freezing point of the solvent. Spraying salt to the road melts the ice and prevents water from freezing. Check out this video for an infrared view of this mechanism!