Physics
drorzel | June 25, 2009Consecutive entries in my RSS reader yesterday:
Salty ocean in the depths of Enceladus
Discovery could have implications for the search for extraterrestrial life
An enormous plume of water spurts in giant jets from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. In a report published in the international science journal Nature today (25 June), European researchers provide evidence that this magnificent plume is fed by a salty ocean. The discovery could have implications for the search for extraterrestrial life as well as our understanding of how planetary moons are formed.
and:
Jets on Saturn's…
pontiff | June 24, 2009The latest issue of the newsletter of the APS topical group on Quantum Information, the Quantum Times, is now available. Of particular note is the long article summarizing the Workshop on Quantum Information Science.
drorzel | June 24, 2009Via email, a news story from San Francisco with the headline "Physics discussion ends in skateboard attack":
A homeless man is on trial in San Mateo County on charges that he smacked a fellow transient in the face with a skateboard as the victim was engaged in a conversation about quantum physics, authorities said today.
Jason Everett Keller, 40, allegedly accosted another homeless man, Stephan Fava, on the 200 block of Grand Avenue in South San Francisco at about 1:45 p.m. March 30.
At the time, Fava was chatting with an acquaintance, who is also homeless, about "quantum physics and the…
pontiff | June 24, 2009When I was a postdoc, I made it a habit to try to spend at least one week a year visiting Isaac Chuang's lab at MIT. There were many reason for this, including that Ike has been a collaborator of mine, and Ken Brown, another collaborator was working as a postdoc in the lab. But another reason was...it's damn nice for a theorist to sit in a real experimental lab. Oh sure, you need to keep the theorists away from all the cords and knobs for fear that they might actually touch something. And don't ever let a theorist chose the music being played in the lab or you'll end up hearing some real…
rallain | June 24, 2009I made this screen cast for my algebra-based lab. Maybe you will find it useful also. This is a tutorial using Tracker Video Analysis (an awesome free program as I have said many times). In this tutorial I analyze a moving cart that shoots a ball up and lands back in the moving cart (called a Howitzer cart). The video is available at the LivePhoto Physics site.
Screencasts and videos online
drorzel | June 24, 2009Via a comment by Christina Pikas, there's a post at the Scholarly Kitchen about a new study quantifying the use of the arxiv:
Employing a summer intern, Ingoldsby conducted an arXiv search of nearly 5,000 journal articles published by the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. Their methodology was painstakingly robust, looking for title variations and having all unsuccessful searches repeated by a trained physicist.
The percentage of articles found for each journal in their studied varied greatly. While fields such as elementary particle physics and astrophysics…
drorzel | June 24, 2009There's an interview with me, plus bonus comments from Emmy, over at Paw Talk:
Words of advice for fellow pet owners?
If you're looking to get a dog, I'd recommend visiting your local animal shelter, as you can find lots of great dogs there. And take walks with your dog-- every now and then, I see people who just leave their dogs penned up in the yard, and that's just sad. Get out, see the neighborhood, and get a bit of exercise. Yeah, it's a drag sometimes, especially when it rains, but it's better for both of you.
Emmy: Treats. Lots and lots of treats. Also, don't trust the squirrels. They'…
rallain | June 24, 2009The internet sure can bring some awesome stuff. Chad at Uncertain Principles has a great post about the vision of elves. He refers to a part of The Two Towers where Legolas can count the number of riders of Rohan from a great distance.
Not only is the post great, make sure you read the comments also. Very impressive discussion.
esiegel | June 23, 2009In the 1940s, the Big Bang theory was first conceived and detailed. But, to quote Niels Bohr,
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough.
One of the staunchest opponents of the Big Bang idea was Fred Hoyle, an outstanding, prolific scientist in his own right.
In the 1950s, Fred Hoyle found it inconceivable that all of the heavy elements in the Universe -- practically everything we find on Earth -- would have been made in the Universe's infancy. He…
rallain | June 23, 2009This was on my 'to do' list, but Tom at Swans on Tea beat me to it. Basically, this grocery store has these plates that when depressed produce electrical energy. Tom does a good job pointing out that this is not free energy (the original article says this also). Clearly, the energy comes from the cars. How much would this cost the cars?
As always, let me start with some assumptions.
The original article says that the bumps will generate 30 kW of energy every hour. That is an odd thing to say. I am going to interpret that as 30 kW of power for all hours (every hour). They couldn't have…
drorzel | June 23, 2009Kate's Tolkien re-read has reached Rohan, and her latest re-read post includes a reference to a comment I made about Legolas's improbable visual acuity:
Re: Legolas seeing the Riders: I have since been advised by the resident physicist that the size of a pupil is a limiting factor on the resolution possible--if I understood properly, basically it boils down to how much light can come in--and under the laws of physics as we know them, it is not actually physically possible for Legolas to have resolved that level of detail at 5 leagues, regardless of how good his brain is at decoding images or…
drorzel | June 23, 2009A wag of my finger at the Corporate Masters, for their new article about traffic jams, with the subhead "For particle physicists who study phase transitions, a traffic jam is simply a solid made up of idling cars." In the body of the article, we find:
While the concept of critical density has been repeatedly demonstrated using computer simulations--drivers are surprisingly easy to model as a system of interacting particles--it wasn't until last year that this theory of traffic was experimentally confirmed. A team of physicists at Nagoya University wanted to see how many cars could maintain a…
rallain | June 22, 2009Note: This is an old post from the time before my blog was in wordpress. I noticed there was some incoming link for this, and I never moved it over. Here it is in it's unaltered (except for this part) format.
I don't know why I even suggest a new energy source. Fusion power is only a few years away in the future (just like it as always been). This will replace any other sources of energy that we could come up with. But, I can't help myself, I need to share my idea and save the world. It's what I do. (call me a superhero is you want).
We can get all of our energy from the rotation of the…
esiegel | June 22, 2009We have a treat for you this week: Starts With A Bang gets to host this week's Carnival of Space! We take the best space and astronomy posts from around the internet and pull them together in one great extravaganza! I've gotten to host twice before, and this is a very special edition for astronomers. Why, you ask?
Yesterday was the Summer Solstice! Longest day of the year (for us Northern Hemisphere folk), most sunlight, the Sun gets highest in the sky, and shadows are the shortest. If you want to go all the way back, this was the day that allowed us to discover the Earth was round! Let's…
rallain | June 22, 2009Maybe this isn't the best video to analyze, but it sure is funny. I am not sure why it is so funny - maybe you should just watch it first.
Sledgehammer Funby Stressmaker
I don't really know why these guys are putting explosive on sledge hammers. Sure it looks fun, but I think I would pass. Anyway, here is the part I was curious about.
Did the exploding hammer lift him off the ground, or did he jump as a reaction to the explosion. It kind of looks like he was lifted, but I am not sure that is possible. Video analysis to the rescue. (using Tracker Video) So, I assumed the sledge hammer…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
There once was a dog from Niskayuna...
The previous post announced a photo caption contest for a chance to win an advance proof copy of my book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog, six(-ish) months before it's available for purchase. I thought I should include something for the less visually inclined, though, and I do have two extra galley proofs, so...
Announcing the Official How to Teach Physics to Your Dog Poetry contest. The idea is simple: write a short poem involving both dogs and physics in one of the usual short verse forms (haiku, limerick, double dactyl, whatever, as long as it has…
drorzel | June 22, 2009
Today is six months to the day from the official release date of my book, How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. It feels like I ought to do something promotion-like to mark this date, and I have a couple of extra bound galley proofs (seen above with Emmy), sooo.....
I hereby announce the first of two contests giving you, the blog reader, a chance to win an uncorrected galley proof copy of the book six months (ish) before you can buy it. The idea is simple: below the fold are two pictures that just cry out for amusing captions of some sort. The person who comes up with the best caption will get…
drorzel | June 21, 2009Via Steve Hsu, a lengthy rant by Bruce Charlton about the dullness of modern scientists:
Question: why are so many leading modern scientists so dull and lacking in scientific ambition? Answer: because the science selection process ruthlessly weeds-out interesting and imaginative people. At each level in education, training and career progression there is a tendency to exclude smart and creative people by preferring Conscientious and Agreeable people. The progressive lengthening of scientific training and the reduced independence of career scientists have tended to deter vocational '…
rallain | June 19, 2009I have been wanting to look at this whole curved bullet thing, but I wasn't sure how to approach it. In case you are familiar with the myth, this is from the movie WANTED (which I did not see). Apparently, some people learn how to make bullets curve by moving their gun. Here is a shot of a bullet curving in front of someone.
Maybe the picture doesn't do the clip justice, but it is enough for you to get an idea. Before I do an analysis, this reminds me of a great educational activity. In the activity, you give groups of students a full sheet of paper with lines that look something like…
rallain | June 18, 2009Ok, this is a post about a particular curriculum, in particular Physics for Everyday Thinking. Let me start with a story.
Some time ago, our college of education was going through an NCATE accreditation review. For some reason, they needed a science course that was just for education majors. As it so happens, we (the department of Chemistry and Physics) already had a similar course that was in the catalog, but no longer being taught. So, we resurrected this course. I was in charge of the curriculum.
The course is a 5 contact hour (4 credit) course that counts for both a lecture and a lab…