Monthly Archives: July 2008

Here's What's Happening on the Aloha Deck

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Because of the timekeeping implications of what we do in the lab and especially so because of the gee-whiz nature of table-top-ish atomic physics, I’m sometimes called upon to give (or assist with) lab tours to various visitors. Sometimes it’s scientists whom we’ve invited, and those are usually the best because you get to discuss interesting (to us) topics, and the value of the information exchange can be fairly high, exceeded only by workshops and conferences. But often enough it’s someone whose importance is on the bureaucratic side of the coin (i.e funding), or worse, whose importance is not at all apparent, though the powers that be have assured us that it’s necessary. Those can be more of a chore, especially with someone without a technical background and who is only doing it because (like me) they were told it was important. Then it’s an issue of how quickly one wants their eyes to glaze over. We can really shovel the geek.

So anyway, I helped give a lab tour on Wednesday. And let me tell you, it was NOT one of those that falls into the “chore” category.
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Give 'Til it Hurts

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NASA Wants Your Urine

Yes, you read that right: NASA needs your urine.

The drive is to benefit NASA’s fledgling Orion Program, which aims to put astronauts back on the moon by 2020. The pee drive is to help engineers working on designing the new spaceship’s toilet.

I’ve got other NASA-related news, but I’m holding that in until tomorrow, even though I’m bursting to tell you.

Looking for Energy in all the Right Places

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Bionic bra: Victoria’s circuit

An attempt to harness, as it were, the kinetic energy stored in the ones that bounce.

It turns out that the physics of breast motion has been studied closely for the last two decades by a gamut of researchers – most of them women.

Formally, perhaps.

Lawson explains that breasts move on three different axes: from side to side, front to back, and up and down. The most motion is generated on the vertical axis. Naturally, the bigger the breast, the more momentum it generates. “Let’s face it – if you’re a double-A marathoner, you’re probably not going to get that iPod up and running,” Lawson says. Measurements compiled by Lawson and her colleagues show that a D-cup in a low-support bra can travel as much as 35 inches (89cm) up and down (35 inches!) during exercise, while a B-cup in a high-support bra barely moves an inch.

Again, something that a motivated amateur scientist might have also observed.

via O, Teh Interwebz!

Gettin' Plushy

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What’s with the plush toys? John at Cosmic Variance displays “The Particle Zoo” and then Chad at Uncertain Principles goes all squishy with some animal toys, presumably for futurebaby.

I gotta say, the fundamental particles creep me out a little — x-ed out eyes signifies “dead” in cartooning, and it upsets my sensibilities that you can purchase individual quarks, and in any color. What kind of message is that to send to a young physicist, getting asymptotic freedom and color charge wrong right out of the gate?

Is it a Spice Rack?

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No, it’s a DIY Michelson interferometer by the Celtic Mad Scientist.

In a standard Michelson interferometer, the beamsplitter would actually go at 90º to the shown orientation, so that each beam hits a mirror, but it’s all good. If your light is polarized, you’ll want to make sure that’s vertical, lest you be near Brewster’s angle when you bounce off the beam splitter.

Homer says, “Safen up! Do not look into laser with remaining eye”

Don’t end up like the Russian Ravers who were injured when the organizers erected a tent and used the lasers “indoors.”