[S]cience has finally come up with an explanation for what comes naturally to most home cooks: Eggs crack best around their equators, says MIT mechanical engineer Pedro Reis, because of their geometry. He and a young colleague, Arnaud Lazarus, have just published a paper in Physical Review Letters demonstrating a link between an eggshell’s geometry (it belongs to a class of shapes known as ovoids) and a mechanical property called rigidity—the quality that, along with strength, determines how much force an object can withstand before it cracks.
Category Archives: Physics
The Gender Bias of Physics
A couple of posts relating to gender issues in physics that I have run across recently.
Scientists, Your Gender Bias Is Showing
To test scientist’s reactions to men and women with precisely equal qualifications, the researchers did a randomized double-blind study in which academic scientists were given application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position. The substance of the applications were all identical, but sometimes a male name was attached, and sometimes a female name.
Results: female applicants were rated lower than men on the measured scales of competence, hireability, and mentoring (whether the scientist would be willing to mentor this student). Both male and female scientists rated the female applicants lower.
*Sigh* For whatever reason I’m having trouble accessing the actual article, so I don’t know if they show how much worse this might be than in general (assuming that there is gender bias elsewhere, and I’m pretty sure there is), and if there is an age component, i.e. is this more of a problem with older folks, who might soon be removing themselves from being part of the problem. However, that’s a small and faint hope, having observed some of the attitudes displayed in some corners of the internets and in the blogohedron, where presumably the age bias might be in the other direction. I recognize that certain types of change might occur on generational time scales, but it’s 2012, and we (well, women, actually) are still dealing with crap like this.
The second post deals with wondering why women stay, and why they drop out of the physics pipeline.
I want to know WHY the percentage of women in physics going down. Right now there is a ton of support for women entering physics. We have conferences and mentorship programs all over the nation. But one crucial voice is missing: the women who dropped out of the physics major, and the women who majored in physics but chose to not go on to graduate school. I write this blog because I want to hear from the women who chose not to continue in physics. They are the ones who can shed the true insight! I also want to hear from women who did continue in physics. What made you pick physics, and what made you stay?
The Old Man is Snoring
xkcd’s what if: What if a rainstorm dropped all of its water in a single giant drop?
If you were floating in the center of this sphere during this episode, you wouldn’t have felt anything unusual up until now. It’d be pretty dark in the middle, but if you had enough time (and lung capacity) to swim a few hundred meters out toward the edge, you’d be able to make out the dim glow of daylight.
As the raindrop approached the ground, the buildup of air resistance would lead to an increase in pressure that would make your ears pop. But seconds later, when the water contacted the surface, you’d be crushed to death—the shock would briefly create pressures exceeding those at the bottom of the Marianas Trench.
That Hairy Ball is Right in Your Face
The hairy ball theorem is a fascinating aspect of the subject of mathematics known as topology, which loosely speaking is concerned with the mathematical characterization of shapes. But hairy balls are of significance in other fields, as well: in fact, many optical scientists are unaware that a hairy ball is, in essence, right in their face every time they do experiments! It is hidden in the polarization of light, i.e. in light’s inherent transverse wave properties. In this post we will uncover this mysterious hairy ball of light.
Didja Know?
Do Not Taunt Boomhappy Fun Balls
Phase change fun.
Scientist + liquid nitrogen + 1500 ping pong balls = boomhappy funtime
Not Measuring the Beauty, Splendor, or the Wonder. Just the Thickness.
A lot of articles compare micron-ish thicknesses to that of a human hair, which makes me wonder if NIST has a standard human hair used for calibration.
This Test Tube, With Whom I Have Never Worked, Will Now Disappear
Demonstrating refractive index
[I]f the refractive index of two materials is the same, as is the case for sunflower oil and Pyrex, then light doesn’t bend at all, and you end up with the nice effect demonstrated [in the video]
…Even Though The Sound of it is Something Quite Atrocious
More superhydrophobic fun
Superhydrophobic Coating Allows Boiling Water without the Creation of Bubbles
Water can be made to boil without any bubbling if a boiling surface is specifically treated so that the vapor cushion does not break down. This is linked to the Leidenfrost effect.
Here Be Dragons
Being a map of physics, containing a brief historical outline of the subject as will be of interest to physicists, students, laymen at large; Also giving a description of the land of physics as seen by the daring sould who venture there; And more particularly the location of villages (named after pioneer physicists) as found by the many rivers; Also the date of founding of each village; As well as the date of its extinction; and finally a collection of various and sundry symbols frequently met with on the trip.
Large version of the map, from The Quantum Pontiff blog.
