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An exploration of physics and the quest to understand our world.
Matt Springer is a graduate student of physics at Texas A&M university. He is also an occasional writer and tinkerer, and he is probably too curious for his own good.
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June 30, 2010
The laser pointer, much beloved of PowerPoint lecturers, cat owners, amateur scientists, and middle school boys at movie theaters, is actually a pretty amazing device. There's quite a bit you can do with a relatively cheap laser, and they're just...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:05 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 24, 2010
I'm not normally much of a soccer fan, but the World Cup doesn't happen every day and it's pretty interesting to see all the excitement and high level of play. I personally think the rules need a little tweaking to...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:19 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 18, 2010
On a web forum I frequent, a person asked if it would be possible to extract energy from the Earth's magnetic field. He was told no - static magnetic fields can't transfer energy. For all practical purposes this is true,...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:34 AM • 31 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 17, 2010
As you might expect for a guy who does experimental optical physics, I get to spend a tremendous amount of time in labs with some fairly snazzy lasers. Most of them are fairly specialized pieces of equipment that aren't really...
Posted by Matt Springer at 10:00 AM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 13, 2010
Category: Sunday Function
A while back I mentioned the St. Petersburg paradox. It's a hypothetical gambling scenario where you win money based on the outcome of a coin toss. If you get your first tails on the first throw, you get $1. If...
Posted by Matt Springer at 6:55 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 9, 2010
This is a poster in a hallway here in the Texas A&M physics building: Sort of an odd question, but an interesting one. Sound waves carry energy, and if that energy we being absorbed by your coffee because you were...
Posted by Matt Springer at 3:47 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 6, 2010
Category: Sunday Function
Back in 2003, I was a college freshman sitting in my first college math class - Honors Calculus I. On what was probably the second or third day of class, the professor gave us a surprise quiz. It was something...
Posted by Matt Springer at 1:36 PM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
June 1, 2010
Grab a particle and put it in a box. According to elementary quantum mechanics, that particle isn't described by the classical model in which it can have any value of energy as it bounces around. Instead, the possible energy levels...
Posted by Matt Springer at 9:31 AM • 10 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
