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rallain | September 2, 2010A while ago, we had a ton of lightning. As a bonus, it always happened in the middle of the night. I love sleeping where it sounds like I am on the front line in WWI - no, I don't. But, while lying awake waiting for the next BOOM I thought of something. Instead of just counting the time between flash and boom, maybe I could make a lightning detector.
For mere mortals, the first step might be to google "lightning detector". I don't want to do that. What fun would that be? I did look up something. The current in a typical lightning strike is on the order of 30,000 amps. How could I…
rallain | August 31, 2010Reader Fruity was the first to correctly name this device - on just the 9th comment. Impressive. Honestly, when I found this thing I had no clue. I asked other physicists and none of us were sure. However, I did find the answer. Let me show you my secret.
I don't know how old this thing is, but it is old. When I open it, my nose and eyes get all tingly - probably from the mold. Here is that apparatus in the book (tome):
I can't show you the whole page because it has other stuff of awesomeness that I want to show you later. But, I can show you the description for that item.
I am…
rallain | May 31, 2010We went to the aquarium, the kids like it. In the Amazon river section, they have an electric eel. Here is the sign next to the Eel.
Sorry for the poor image quality. I took the picture with my crappy phone and didn't even realize it was bad until later. I used some magic on it to make parts of it readable, but if that was not good enough, here is what it says:
The Electric Eel is the most powerful of all the electric fishes. It can discharge up to 650 volts: six times the power of a household current. A shock can fend off attackers or stun prey so the eel doesn't risk getting hurt in…
rallain | February 15, 2009Someone complained about a teacher using this question and the answer was disputed. After some time, the teacher claimed that the answer was that lightning is static electricity because she looked it up on the internet. So, I decided to look also, here is what I found searching for "what kind of electricity is lightning?" in google:
Electricity Facts - Dialogue for Kids (Idaho Public Television)
A couple of complaints about this site:
First, I am not fond of the term "Science Facts". What is a science fact? Something that is proven true? This really is not how science works.
Second, I am…
rallain | December 5, 2008Let me start off by saying I think I first read about this on HowStuffWorks.com (many years ago). So, why are christmas lights so cool? They are cool because they are a whole bunch of lights in series, but they still work if one of the bulbs gets burnt out. If you are not familiar with circuits, a series circuit is one in which all of the current goes through all of the items in that circuit (as compared to the case where the current gets split up). Here is an example of a series circuit with two bulbs.
In this case, the current comes out of the battery, goes through one filament and…