Physical Sciences
tfk | December 11, 2009
A few weeks ago, the makers of water-rocket launcher the Aquapod sent me a review copy of their device. It's a plastic tripod with a bike pump nozzle and a pressure valve to prevent your pressurized water bottle from exploding on the launch pad. A string and simple latch hold the bottle in place, and a tug launches the bottle up to 100 feet into the air.
One fine autumn afternoon, several of my NCSE colleagues and I headed out to test the Aquapod in a nearby park. There's nothing like people fussing around with strange equipment to draw a crowd, and we soon had a dozen or so…
omnibrain | October 5, 2009I've previously explored Superman's X-Ray vision and its scientific basis. Now it seems that someone has FINALLY come up with a reasonable explanation of his flight. I'm pretty sure I could breed some Supermen now given the right lab space. Postdoc here I come!
Anyway, here's the abstract:
Since Time immemorial, man has sought to explain the powers of Kal-El, a.k.a. Superman. Siegel et al. Supposed that His mighty strength stems from His origin on another planet whose density and as a result, gravity, was much higher than our own. Natural selection on the planet of krypton would therefore…
omnibrain | December 23, 2007The answer is a resounding sorta. Scientists at Harvard have done that calculations and found that "the aerodynamics of a flexible, rippling sheet moving through a fluid" ... should make it "possible to make one that will stay aloft in air." However,
No such carpet is going to ferry people around, though. The researchers say that to stay afloat in air, a sheet measuring about 10 centimetres long and 0.1 millimetres thick would need to vibrate at about 10 hertz with an amplitude of about 0.25 millimetres. Making a heavier carpet 'fly' is not forbidden by the laws of physics. But the…
tfk | August 28, 2007Last night I didn't get to bed until 4 am. Along with a couple hundred other people, I hung out at the Chabot Observatory, watching the Earth slide in between the Sun and the Moon. One of the Observatory's telescopes was open, and several people brought their own 'scopes, some homemade. The viewpieces were big enough to allow me to take some pictures through the telescopes.
The focus is a bit off there, but you can see the craters and plains of the Moon's surface, and at the lower right corner, you can see the surface starting to darken as the penumbra of the Earth's shadow begins to…
tfk | August 27, 2007At around 3:37 am, Pacific time, the moon will be entirely swathed in Earth's shadow. If you live in the right areas, and are prepared to stay up late, you can watch it happen.
Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center and Wichita's Lake Afton Observatory are both holding special events all night long. You can watch the eclipse through their telescopes, listen to presentations about what you're seeing, and stay up way too late (or get up way too early) with a bunch of other science nerds. What's not to like?
Those of you not in Kansas or the Bay area are encouraged to start driving, or…
tfk | July 30, 2007Reposted from the old TfK, while I Travel from Kansas.
Everyone is answering Seed's Question of the Week: If you could shake the public and make them understand one scientific idea, what would it be?
I'm down with this answer:
I want people to understand that there is no law of averages. There are no laws of probability (at least not if you mean something like "Really improbable things don't happen"). You can't prove just anything with statistics.
My inclination would actually have been phrased the exact opposite way, though getting at the same point.
It's true that there's no law which…
omnibrain | June 8, 2007I'm going to make a bold bold prediction right here on Omni Brain. With the announcement of wireless electricity there will soon be a group of crazed wackjobs protesting it (well.. that is if it ever actually makes it to the consumer level) because the electricity flowing through the air causes Cancer, Autism, Genital Warts, or something else silly. Yes yes.. you've heard it first right here on Omni Brain!
Here's some of the details from BBC News:
US researchers have successfully tested an experimental system to deliver power to devices without the need for wires.
The setup, reported in the…
tfk | February 28, 2007Chad is bemoaning the increase of "stat-geekery" in sports:
I'll admit that I'm somewhat torn about this. I am, after all, a professional nerd, and enjoy working with numbers, so I can see the appeal of quantitative data. And a lot of the regular statistics used in basketball are pretty crude measures, so I can understand trying to develop better statistics.
Very, very crude. And that is where my beef comes from. Can you think of a sports' statistic that includes a measure of error?
Statistics as a field studies the distribution of random variables, which means considering both a measure of…
omnibrain | February 11, 2007As an academic your currency is your reputation, and how often your papers get cited (well assuming they aren't citing you for making up data). The inevitable result of this are battles of ideas being fought out at conferences, in special issues of journals and in review articles. If you discover something interesting and the mechanisms are not clearly visible (as they usually are not - especially in something like psychology!) other scientists begin to attack you - especially if your new idea challenges theirs!
In the science of the brain there are a few debates that immediately come to…
tfk | January 9, 2007In your astounding brilliance, you've managed to make the coolest thing ever. Again. The iPhone has an 8 gig hard drive, a 2 megapixel camera, and OS X. It can play video, it can connect to WiFi networks and view normal websites.
In my bag, I usually carry my laptop, a black and white Palm device, a lovely iPod, my cell phone, and my 4 megapixel Olympus 4040Z. I love all of them, and have no deep desire to part with any of them (though upgrades are always welcome).
This new iPhone can do much of what each of those devices can do, and it looks damn good while doing it. It even has push…
tfk | December 24, 2006Little known fact: Kansas is (apparently) the world's leading producer of helium, accounting for 4 billion cubic feet per year out of the world's production of 6 billion cubic feet. Alas, production problems in Algeria and Qatar are leaving global shortages, as are problems with the helium pipeline leading from Bushton, KS to Amarillo, TX:
Industry experts aren't sure exactly when the shortage will end. Balloon retailers, which use 8 percent of helium supply annually, are hoping normal production levels return in time for Valentine's Day, typically one of the busiest flower and balloon sales…