Now on ScienceBlogs: Oldest Human-Made Object in Space
What happens when you take some basic, introductory physics and apply them to cool things you see? Dot Physics happens. This blog looks at movies, experiments, demos and other topics typically aimed at the introductory physics level.
Rhett Allain is an Associate Professor of Physics at Southeastern Louisiana University. He
enjoys teaching and talking about physics. Sometimes he takes things apart and can't
put them back together.
September 14, 2010
Category: blogging
Maybe you have already seen an announcement, or maybe this is the first time you heard that wired.com is starting a new science blogs section. Oh yeah, and they invited me to join. So, I did. This brings a couple...
Posted by Rhett Allain at 2:03 PM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 10, 2010
Category: what is it
Here is the next item. There is a threaded plug on the top. I took it off so you could see inside. The whole thing is pretty heavy. Good luck, and let's be careful out there....
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:16 AM • 29 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 9, 2010
Category: acceleration
Through random surfing, I found this clip from The Amazing Race (which is apparently some type of reality show). Don't really know the set up except that it appears some girl is trying to launch watermelons with a slingshot. This looks bad, but she seems to not be seriously injured.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 3:37 PM • 11 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 8, 2010
Category: acceleration
Actually, it should be called Happy "Magnitude of the local Earth gravitational field" day. You know, 9.8 N/kg on September 8 (9/8). Get it?
Posted by Rhett Allain at 12:36 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 7, 2010
Category: what is it
It is of course a gas discharge tube. You put these tubes in there (as shown above) with helium or neon or whatever in there and it excites the gas to give off light
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:37 AM • 5 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: air resistance
Oh, and they have a diagram - which doesn't seem to come form the original paper and they also have some nifty real-life soccer videos. I think this story is a little too light on the details. They could have done just a little bit more to make this a much better article. Essentially they said that the ball curves because of magic (but magic is physics).
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:11 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 3, 2010
Category: Demo
Here is the item:
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:11 AM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 2, 2010
Category: graph
Sometimes I figure out new things (things that programmers already know) and sometimes I forget these things. So, here are a few tips and tricks that I use from time to time. Really, I am writing this for future Rhett when he does a google search for "how do you save data to a file in python".
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:25 PM • 12 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: current
A 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.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 11:50 AM • 9 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: education
Basically, one of the local School Board wants to use a learning tool (Interval Testing) as a teacher evaluation tool. The Interval Testing program gives students spaced out evaluations through out the year to help them (and teachers) assess the preparedness of the students.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:20 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Orac 02.14.2012
Tim Lambert 02.01.2012
Jason Rosenhouse 02.12.2012
Orac 01.26.2012
Steinn Sigurðsson 02.14.2012
