Analysis of a jackassian video…
Category Archives: Video
The Bohring Part of Physics is Wrong
Overall I agree — there are a lot of people who seem to remember the Bohr atom but not that it’s wrong. Unfortunately, some of them seem to want to build their own personal physics theories on it. I understand the motivation to teach it — there is an historical context, and it’s an opportunity to dip one’s toe into some quantum theory rather than jumping into the deep end.
One nit, though. Even thinking of electrons as “buzzing around the nucleus” still implies a trajectory and motion, and you get into trouble trying to reconcile those classical notions with angular momentum, which is one of the failures of the Bohr model: the S orbital has no orbital angular momentum.
I do like the orbital ballon animals, but I don’t recommend a science clown doing them for kids’ parties.
Slingshots and Arrows of Outrageous Video
What happens when you take the slingshot guy and add in a high speed camera? You get an awesome video.
Shouldn't this be Stereoscopic?
This is a piece created to question whether it was possible to film animation in realtime. Part of my CSM 3rd year disseration project I was looking at proto animation (really early basic animation) in contemporary design.
Arr, the Mysteries of the Briny Deep
This Creeping Underwater Ice Tornado Kills Everything It Touches
Brinicles are columns of ice that form under very calm ocean conditions, when there’s a big differential between the water temperature (around -1.9C) and the air temperature about the sea ice (below -20C). The warmer sea flows up to the air, freezing into new ice. According to the BBC, “the salt in this newly formed ice is concentrated and pushed into the brine channels. And because it is very cold and salty, it is denser than the water beneath.” This makes it fall down into the water, creating an ice plume that grows into the brinicle.
When it gets to the ground, it starts to expand, killing everything it touches. The whole process takes five to six hours, according to the team, which is surprisingly fast.
Too Late for Turkey-Day
You can’t wow the family for Thanksgiving, but maybe the gang is still around, or you can store these away for a future family gathering.
One step better would be an explanation for the inevitable “How does that work?” (or similar) question that arises, so here’s a quick explanation of the physics-y ones. The ping-pong ball tends to stay in the column of air owing to Bernoulli’s principle — pressure decreases the faster the air moves, so there is lateral pressure gradient which gives you a restoring force. The coin and card trick works because the force on the card is probably larger than the force on the coin, and even if they are comparable, card is less massive so it undergoes a much larger acceleration. Consequently, it moves away much faster than the coin, so the coin doesn’t get displaced very far.
Jabbing a sharp pencil through a bag tends to form a hole that conforms to the pencil, and water seals small gaps at low pressure owing to the surface tension. Straws are stronger along their length and covering then end with your thumb means air can’t escape; the increased pressure from the potato being forced into it makes it even stronger against collapsing. Matches burning heat up air and make it expand, so the density is lower than outside. When the matches go out the air cools, lowering the pressure. The egg provides a good seal, and the outside pressure forces the egg inside.
The others have elements of chemistry biology/physiology. So I will pass on those explanations.
See Me, Feel Me
The technique builds on a piece of technology developed for the study of mechanical vibration; the laser vibrometer, and relies on a phenomenon called the acousto-optic effect. This describes the slight change in the speed of light in air when it passes through an acoustic field, causing a phase shift in the light that can be detected using the vibrometer.
The construction of the walls of that studio is baffling.
Finding Nimmo
(Yeah, I stole that from Boston Legal)
A 360º panoramic movie shot from a helicopter at/near Nimmo bay in British Columbia, Canada. You can pan the screen like any 360º shot, while the movie is running.
A Lesson in Friction
via @rjallain
Hate the Sin, Love the Sinter
In this video, researchers at the University of Texas, Austin, guide viewers through the process of laser sintering. This technique, a type of 3-D printing, produces solid objects from polymer and metal powders.