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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.
Category: attack
At the beginning of one show, Zahi is all pumped up about some new discovery. They found some tombs near the great pyramids that seem to be the tombs of workers that did all the construction. Zahi then goes on a small rant (it seemed like a rant to me) to the media and press claiming that THE BUILDERS OF THE PYRAMIDS WERE NOT SLAVES!!!!
Posted by Rhett Allain at 2:09 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: math
I was having a discussion with my father about the budgetpocalypse for universities. I don't know how it came up, but he asked: "What college is the department of Math in?"
Posted by Rhett Allain at 10:13 AM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: acceleration
What would you do if you came to see this video? If I had not made it, I would say it is an unrealistic video. It does not agree with my basic model of how things move after being thrown or shot or whatever.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 12:07 PM • 85 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: air resistance
There is this "mini-conference" with three schools: Southeastern Louisiana University, Southern Mississippi University, and the University of South Alabama. The purpose is to give students (and some faculty) a chance to present their work at a smaller conference.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 9:40 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: education
The kind folks over at BloggingHeads TV were nice enough to offer me an opportunity to discuss some science stuff with Ed Grabianowski from io9.com. Here it is: In this discussion, we talk about: Learning physics and physics education research...
Posted by Rhett Allain at 12:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Content
Maybe you really, really want to win this science fair. I applaud your effort. However, there is something you must know. Science fair judging can (but is not always) sometimes a little bit arbitrary. Sometimes a project gets a higher score than another one, just because. It is not personal, it is just arbitrary.
Posted by Rhett Allain at 6:53 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: science
I have been meaning to write about this for quite some time. Really, I wanted to reply to Chad's article on science at Uncertain Principles, but you know how things go. So, here are my key and interesting points about...
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:00 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Analysis
Some time ago, I wrote about the awesome things the Greeks did in astronomy. Basically they calculated the size of the Earth, distance and size of the moon and distance and size of the sun. The value obtained for the distance to the sun was a bit off, but still a bang up job if you ask me. (where bang-up is meant as a good thing) If the greeks were in my introductory physics lab, they would need to include uncertainties with their measurements. What would the uncertainty in the final value look like?
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:00 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: science
One of things I like to think about in science is "how do we know that?" It is interesting how one thing builds on another. This is a story of how the Greeks estimated the distance from the Earth to the Sun
Posted by Rhett Allain at 8:00 AM • 6 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: physics
"A simple question for which I can't find an answer: Why do you have to collimate light spectroscopy? What would happen if you didn't collimate it?"
Posted by Rhett Allain at 3:56 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
denialism blog 02.14.2012
respectful insolence 02.14.2012
uncertain principles 02.13.2012
confessions of a science librarian 02.13.2012
starts with a bang! 02.13.2012
