Strobe light and falling water droplets
Category Archives: Physics
Sweet!
Key Molecule for Life Found in Habitable Region of the Galaxy
The molecule, called glycolaldehyde, was spotted in a large star-forming area of space around 26,000 light-years from Earth in the less-chaotic outer regions of the Milky Way. This suggests the sugar could be common across the universe, which is good news for extraterrestrial-life seekers.
“This is an important discovery as it is the first time glycolaldehyde, a basic sugar, has been detected towards a star-forming region where planets that could potentially harbor life may exist,” Serena Viti of University College London said in a press release.
E is for Equilibrium
Piiiiics iiiiin Spaaaaaace!
No, not the Swinetrek. The International Space Station turns 10
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the first launched module of the International Space Station (ISS). The module Zarya was lifted into orbit on November 20th, 1998 by a Russian Proton rocket lifting off from Baikonur, Kazhakstan. In the decade since, 44 manned flights and 34 unmanned flights have carried further modules, solar arrays, support equipment, supplies and a total of 167 human beings from 15 countries to the ISS, and it still has a ways to go until it is done. Originally planned to be complete in 2003, the target date for completion is now 2011. Aside from time spent on construction, ISS crew members work on a good deal of research involving biology and physics in conditions of microgravity. If humans are ever to leave the Earth for extended periods, the ISS is designed to be the place where we will discover the best materials, procedures and safety measures to make it a reality. (32 photos total)
The Little Picture
It’s really the Big Picture, but the topic is Peering into the micro world
A team of University of Michigan researchers has recently created a set of electron microscope images of carbon nanotube structures depicting images of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama. John Hart, leader of the research team says it wasn’t a political statement, but an attempt to draw attention to what is possible these days with nanotechnology, and imaging at the very small scale. I’ll take him up on this invitation and share with you some other images of very tiny things in our world. For visualizing the scale, most measurements below are in microns – one micron is a millionth of a meter – human hair is approximately 100 microns thick. (32 photos total)
My own electron microscope pictures are not quite so ornate.
Asked and Answered
Stephanie did the research, and now has written an article about Why physics teachers should read blogs for The Physics Teacher, and here’s a link to the director’s cut in which she says a few nice things about me, and has several links, and links to links (but AFAICT no links to links about links, or links to links about lynx)
The Billy Preston Effect
Will it Go ‘Round in Circles?
Building The Amazing Steam Candle
This is a variant of the pop-pop engine — if you point the tubes parallel rater than in opposite directions, you’ll get linear propulsion.
At first glance you might think this couldn’t work. Once you hit steady-state, the rate at which water enters and exits the tube has to be equal. Inside the tubes, that means that the momenta must be equal in magnitude, but opposite in direction, meaning no net momentum for the water, and no propulsion for the boat. The effect is a little more subtle — one has to consider what happens at the entrance to the tube. The water exiting will have its velocity vector along the direction of the tube. But the incoming water is drawn from different directions; it only has to have a component of its velocity in the direction of the tube, meaning the ejected water exerts a greater force.
Plasmas Can Be Cool
Molecular Plasma is Cooler Than You Think
Plasma inside the sun blazes at millions of degrees, but much of the matter between the stars is also plasma, in a colder form. In the lab, cold plasmas have always been made from ionized atoms, but a team reports in the 14 November Physical Review Letters that molecules can also be turned into an ultracold plasma. They created the molecular plasma by cooling a beam of nitric oxide molecules and then hitting it with lasers. They say the technique can work for any molecule that can be vaporized. Ultracold molecular plasmas probably don’t exist in nature, yet they share characteristics with very dense plasmas in the centers of some stars and gaseous planets. On Earth they may be used to explore more complex plasma dynamics, or help researchers create even colder atomic plasmas.
Follow the Bouncing … Droplet
How to make water bounce.
Using a high-speed camera setup in the lab, GE scientists captured details of water droplets dancing on amazing superhydrophobic surfaces developed in GE Global Research’s Nanotechnology lab.
Proton Mass Calculated
It’s confirmed: Matter is merely vacuum fluctuations
Each proton (or neutron) is made of three quarks – but the individual masses of these quarks only add up to about 1% of the proton’s mass. So what accounts for the rest of it?
Theory says it is created by the force that binds quarks together, called the strong nuclear force. In quantum terms, the strong force is carried by a field of virtual particles called gluons, randomly popping into existence and disappearing again. The energy of these vacuum fluctuations has to be included in the total mass of the proton and neutron.
Ab Initio Determination of Light Hadron Masses
Dürr, et al. Science 21 November 2008:Vol. 322. no. 5905, pp. 1224 – 1227
(h/t to Martin)