Category Archives: Physics
The Smartest Cooker in the World
Cook Your Meat in a Beer Cooler: The World’s Best (and Cheapest) Sous-Vide Hack
In an effort to help those who’d like to experiment with sous-vide cookery without having to put in the capital, a couple weeks ago I devised a novel solution to the problem: Cook your food in a beer cooler.
But … how does the cooler know you’re cooking?!? [wink]
Here’s how it works: A beer cooler is designed to keep things cool. It accomplishes this with a two-walled plastic chamber with an air space in between. This airspace acts as an insulator, preventing thermal energy (a.k.a. heat) from outside to reach the cold food inside. Of course, insulators work both ways. Once you realize that a beer cooler is just as good at keeping hot things hot as it is at keeping cold things cold, then the rest is easy
I haven’t tried this, but there’s quite a bit of interesting discussion in the comments.
Candle, Candle, Burning Bright Meets Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall
Futility Closet: The Black Hole
The idea arose in the 1950s, when Ernst Straus wondered whether a room lined with mirrors would always be illuminated completely by a single match.
The Quantum Physics of Whiteboards
Uncertain Principles: On the Quantum Physics of Whiteboards
The black markers write very clearly on the board, but when I attempted to erase the board at the end of class, the erasers just sort of smeared the ink around leaving a greyish smudge on the board.
From this, we can deduce that the operator W, which describes wiping the board clean, and the operator M, which describes making marks on the board, are non-commuting operators.
It's Not Really an Ant
APOD: 2010 April 25 The Ant Nebula
I will say this: I, for one, welcome our new ant overlords. Because there’s no chance a phrase from The Simpsons could ever become hackneyed.
The Eyes Have It
The retina is at the rear of the eye and includes the light-sensing cells called photoreceptors. But across most of the retina, the photoreceptors are obscured behind three or four coats of additional retinal cells–networked neurons–and a carpet of cellular cables to the brain. Apparently, the retina processes an image by blurring it first. Biologists reference this odd “design” to illustrate that nature’s creations are not all so “intelligent.” Vision scientists have just tried to make sense of how it works as well as it does.
Here Comes the Sun
These are more than alright.
Stunning new images of the sun (photos)
While many people celebrated Earth Day on Thursday, NASA had its eye on the sun.
The space agency released stunning new images of the sun that have been sent back by its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which was launched into space on February 11.
Double the Freedom
The Burger Lab: Why Double Fry French Fries?
Now this is food science.
Eight years ago my mother sent me a fancy set of calipers in a vain attempt to draw me out of the dark depths of the restaurant kitchens and back to a much more sensible career like mechanical engineering or gunsmithing. Who knew that their inaugural run would be on a couple of potatoes?
Well mom, your gift has finally paid off.
What a World! What a World!
Ice, with some food coloring added, melting. Time lapse, 5-sec intervals
Volcanic Lightning
Sounds like the latest superhero. Hi, I’m Volcanic Lightning. Criminals can kiss my ash.
Volcanic Lightning, Eyjafjallajökull, and how it works
First off, I’d like to be concrete about this. The way it looks — that the lightning originates in the volcanic ash — is exactly the way it is!