Here’s the teaser (which also shows up in the post)
which should make you want to read Charged Tape, Toy Models, and Dimensionless Parameters
A glimpse into the world of a physicist solving a problem
Category Archives: Physics
Boom, Boom, On Goes the Light
The Final Countdown Before a Supernova
A discussion of a few stars that might go supernova soon. Unfortunately, “soon” in this context is a galactic “soon”.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
‘You’re Invisible, But I’ll Eat You Anyway.’ Secrets Of Snow-Diving Foxes
Here’s a link to Ed Yong’s piece this is based on.
It’s hard to really critique analysis based on a popular summary of research, but to me the explanation of using the earth’s magnetic field as a “rangefinder” seems lacking, since the foxes aren’t jumping a fixed distance to nab their prey. Still, however they are doing this it’s neat.
There’s an additional bit on kottke, showing acoustic location instruments (“war tubas”) which were used until radar took over. Cool.
When You're Hot You're Hot, and I'll Be Able to Tell
The FLIR ONE Case Gives Your iPhone Thermal Vision
This looks pretty neat. I’m not sure of the exact technology — the sensors that detect out near 8-10 microns are quite expensive, so I doubt those devices just dropped in price by an order of magnitude or more. Some DIY projects use thermopiles (which you can find in point-and-shoot style temperature probes), so perhaps the technology has advanced to where you can make an array of these and project an image onto them. Or perhaps sensors that have a response that doesn’t extend to ~10 microns, but are still sensitive out to 5 or so, are cheap enough. Maybe the device quickly rasters so the sensor can be much cheaper. The fact that it has a regular camera makes me think the IR sensor will have a lesser resolution than the camera, and you get some of the subtlety of shapes from the regular camera with the IR overlaid on its image (if there’s enough visible light).
At first, I was a little skeptical about the potential use cases for a thermal iPhone case for the average consumer, but the company’s representative at CES explained that you could use it for something as simple as figuring out whether your dog is climbing up onto your bed when you leave or not. It could also be used for home security, detecting thermal leaks in your house, or finding water leaks in pipes behind the walls.
Mostly, though, it will be for IR images of cats.
Can’t wait until this comes out so I can get one and also have an excuse to get a new phone.
Make it a Triple, Bartender
Fast-Spinning Star Tests Einstein’s General Relativity Theory
This triple system gives us a natural cosmic laboratory far better than anything found before for learning exactly how such three-body systems work, and potentially for detecting problems with general relativity that physicists expect to see under extreme conditions
Pay Attention to What's Behind the Curtain
Rhett Allain explains the physics behind the sound levitation video I linked to the other day. How Do You Levitate Things With Sound?
When You Can't Duck and Cover, Ride it Out
The whole video is fun, but there’s a very neat bit at the end
It Sounds Uplifting to Me
Killing Me Softly
The phrase “lethal dose of neutrino radiation” is a weird one. I had to turn it over in my head a few times after I heard it.
If you’re not a physics person, it might not sound odd to you, so here’s a little context for why it’s such a surprising idea
Xanadu Physics
The Cubli Can
Ah, the joys of angular momentum
More info and video at the Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control website