energy

You probably already know how I feel about the "media" and their physics explanations (see attacks). Let me summarize the problem. There are a whole bunch of cool shows on tv that deal with sciency stuff - that is good. These shows then try to teach some science along with their demos and explosions and stuff. This is also good. However, they usually butcher the explanation part. Some of them (ESPN's Sport Science) must just literally make stuff up that sounds cool. I understand that in common usage, things like "force" can be used lots of different ways. I am ok with that. Also,…

What's the application? The goal of laser ignition fusion experiments is to heat and compress a target to the point where the nuclei of the atoms making up the sample fuse together to form a new, heavier nucleus, releasing energy in the process. Nuclear fusion is, of course, what powers stars, and creating fusion in the laboratory has been the holy grail (well, a holy grail, at any rate) of nuclear physics research for the last sixty-plus years. What problem(s) is it the solution to? 1) "Can we create fusion reactions in a laboratory setting on Earth?" 2) "How can we get more helium without…

[This post comes courtesy of the State Department's Katherine Musgrove, who is an economic officer in the Office of Economic Policy and Summit Coordination in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas is having its first ministerial right now in Washington D.C., and you can watch the end of it here Katherine is ready to field any questions you have about the ECPA and the Ministerial, so ask away in comments.] In the Western Hemisphere Affairs bureau at the U.S. Department of State, we have been working to advance policies and programs to…

The webcast of day two is , starting at 8:30 Eastern. Update:The feed is down until 12:30, when Todd Stern (U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change) and Jacques Gabriel (Minister of Transportation and Communications, Haiti) will speak.

At last summer's Summit of the Americas, President Obama announced the formation of a multinational organization aimed at increasing renewable energy usage, confronting climate change, and promoting tech transfer and sustainability practices amongst its members. The Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas is holding its first ministerial in DC tomorrow and Friday, and The Inter-American Development Bank is hosting a live webcast of it, which you can watch here. The event starts tomorrow at 8:30am Eastern, with Energy Secretary Stephen Chu speaking at 8:50. Hillary Clinton will also…

In the last episode of MythBusters, they tried to reproduce the following experiment. Suppose you are driving in a car at 60 mph and you shoot a ball backwards at 60 mph (with respect to the car). Will the ball just drop (with respect to the ground)? Actually, it is a cool demo - I saw some Japanese show did this a while ago. So, what is the problem? The problem is with the MythBusters' use of their terms to explain this thing. Let me look at a couple of the things they said to explain this (surprisingly, they described it several different ways). This first one is my favorite. Bad…

I'm a day late with Nate Hagen's piece, but I just have to link here - it has a beauty and elegance I really admire, and Id do wish him the very best of luck in his new venture. In fact, I'm starting to think that maybe I can cash in too! OK - here it is in a nutshell - though I used to think the main problem with economic theory was that it ignored biology on the demand side and ecology on the supply side, I now see the reality is that neither biology nor ecology has incorporated enough economic theory. Basically, my efforts at falsification of positive economics even down to the day to day…

I already looked at ESPN's Sport Science episode where they calculate that Marshawn Lynch produces 54,000 watts when pulling some tires. Yes, that is way too high. However, what would happen if some was actually that powerful? What could that person do? How fast could they run 100 meters? That is what I am going to calculate. First, I am going to assume that Marshawn has a mass of about 100 kg. Also, let me say that he can produce 54,000 watts no matter what his speed. Take a short time interval. During this time, Marshawn will increase his speed from say v1 to v2 this would be a…

Let me be clear. I am not really an attacker. If someone wrote a report about ski jumping or something and misused the word "momentum", no big deal. However, if you have a show that claims to be about SCIENCE and you are obviously putting a lot of money into this show AND a whole bunch of people will see and think this is science - then you need to be a little careful. I think shows like ESPN's Sport Science are a good idea - you know, introduce some cool science ideas by using cool sports. This show just needs some help. Yes, I know I make mistakes. I try to correct them when I become…

A bad day for your ego is a great day for your soul. -Jillian Michaels One of the most popular exercises at the gym is the treadmill. And why wouldn't it be? Whether you're running or walking, it's a great way to get your heart rate up, get your body moving, and for many people, a great way to burn calories. But however you use a treadmill, there's one extremely simple thing you can do to dramatically intensify your workout: incline it! If you're an outdoor walker/runner, this is the equivalent of going uphill instead of over level ground. There are many physiological differences in walking…

Forgive me for all the posts on ESPN's Sport Science (example: Pulling and Power). I can't help myself. In the short episode recently, Sport Science compared a football player pulling a sled with huge tires on it to a truck pulling stuff. I think their goal was to compare the power per kg from for the player and the truck to show how awesome humans are (and let me just say that humans ARE awesome). The problem was that they really didn't give the truck a fair chance. For the first test, they had Marshawn Lynch pull 585 pounds of stuff. The real question should be: how hard does he have to…

Note: This is part of my ongoing attack of ESPN's show Sport Science. Really, I am continuing to look at the episode where they calculate a football player can produce 57,000 Watts by pulling some stuff. Wait...I don't want to limit my stuff to Sport Science. I see this stuff all the time. The problem is that people confuse the force needed to move something with its weight. So, you want me to pull something? Great, I am a physics guy. I could probably pull maybe 100 pounds. That seems reasonable? But wait! I will increase it to 500 pounds! That is like two huge football players.…

I would like to continue my attack on the show Sport Science - ESPN. In this short episode, they are comparing the power of NFL player Marshawn Lynch with that of a truck. You can watch it here if you would like. There are two things that are not quite right with this episode, first, the power thing. I will save the friction problem for another post. So, if you didn't watch that clip, the basic idea is that Marshawn pulls some heavy tires. Sport Science then calculates the power needed to do this and then repeats a similar thing for a truck. Quick review. What is power? In short,…

This one has been on my mind for quite some time. What kind of power source would you need to run a lightsaber? I was actually worried recently about this post when I saw the Discovery Channel show "Sci Fi Science". In that particular episode Michio Kaku talks about how you would actually build a lightsaber. The episode was a little silly, but the science wasn't too bad. In end Michio decides to build a type of hand held plasma torch. Doing this, he estimated that the lightsaber would need a power source on the order of mega-watts. He didn't do what I was thinking. I am thinking about…

Merry Tuesday. Links fahr ya. Science: The Case for 'Gray Power' How many Americans received the H1N1 vaccine? The Intellectual Property Fight That Could Kill Millions The Duration of PostDoc Training Dual Function Of Post-Doctoral Training Other: Mr. Obama's Junk Economics: Democrats Relinquish the Populist Option to the Republicans World hunger and the locavores The futurist weighs in: The things we leave behind Lies of rightwing populism: Those evil liberal elites After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday's Web Site What A Coincidence!

It's always seemed to me that nuclear power would have to be part of the solution of the global warming problem: even if the planet's population were to remain constant, and even if planet-wide energy use were to remain steady, we would still have to dramatically cut CO2 per capita emissions. The problem with nuclear power--or more accurately, uranium-based nuclear power--is the waste product. Not only is radioactive waste produced, but the byproducts of the reaction can be used to build nuclear weapons. So I was very intrigued by this Wired article about thorium-based nuclear power: When…

Wow. In xkcd 681 comic, there is an impressive illustration of the common term "gravity well". Here is a small part of that large image: I can't resist. I must talk about this awesome illustration. My goal for this post is to help someone understand that comic (although the comic itself does a pretty good job). Energy Energy is the key here. Here, I will talk about two types of energy - kinetic energy and field energy. In this case, kinetic energy is basically just the energy associated with something moving. Field energy is the energy stored in the gravitational field. You could…

I saw this post about Panasonic's home battery. The claim is that this will lead a battery that can power a house for a week. I wonder if I can estimate how big this battery would be. First - to estimate the energy a house consumes. My first approximation is that you could probably run a house off of a 5000 Watt generator, but this probably isn't the average power use for a house. It is probably lower. I am going to go with an estimate of 2000 Watts as the average power over 1 day. How much energy would this be for 1 week? The article above claims that it is a lithium ion battery.…

What happens when your kids won't give you a turn on the Wii? Simple. You take their LEGO bricks and their slinky and do some physics. I will keep this simple. Basically, I created a slinky holder out of LEGO pieces and added LEGO bricks to the end to stretch it. Here is the video. Lego + Slinky = Physics from Rhett Allain on Vimeo. Maybe in an un-Dot Physics fashion, I am not going to analyze this data. I am not going to even describe the physics. Instead, I will leave this as a What Can You Do With This in the style of Dan Meyer. I will give a couple of hints. First, I put this on…

Which wastes more fuel? (and thus produces more carbon dioxide). This is a difficult to question to answer for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that a speed change from 71 mph to 70 mph is different than a reduction from 56 to 55 mph. First, let me be clear that the question of how much fuel is wasted using daytime running lights (or DRL as they are called) has already been addressed. The first source I found was howstuffworks.com Assumptions The daytime running lights on a car run at about 100 watts (for the pair) The energy density of gasoline is 1.21 x 108 Joules/gallon. A car is…