Wake up and smell the bacon.
Monthly Archives: March 2012
Beyond Death and Taxes
One more thing is certain: some beginners will trip up on physics concepts. It’s a new way of thinking, and it takes getting used to.
Dot Physics: Constant Force and Constant Motion
It seems that every semester when this discussion comes up, someone says this:
“Well, I think that a constant force will make the thing go at a constant speed. It just makes sense. Look at your car. You push on the gas pedal with a constant force and the car goes at a constant speed.”
For some reason, the students think of pushing the gas pedal with a constant force as the same as pushing the CAR with a constant force. Perhaps this is because the gas pedal is part of the car. Maybe they are just trying to bring one of their own experiences into the discussion.
I don’t think that this is unreasonable — a constant amount of gas to the engine should mean a constant force. But it’s not the only force, since there is air resistance and rolling friction balancing the effect of the engine. I think that the problem is more the difficulty in conceptualizing a single force without any other forces on the object — we don’t have much experience driving in a vacuum.
Thinking About Thinking
Here's the Antidote
All too often the peripheral sports stories we hear or read — the ones that aren’t game summaries — are about people (or organizations) behaving badly. This is one of the exceptions: When There’s More To Winning Than Winning
When last we left the NCAA, it was February madness, colleges were jumping conferences, suing each other, coaches were claiming rivals had cheated in recruiting — the usual nobility of college sports.
And then, in the midst of all this, the men’s basketball team at Washington College of Chestertown, Md., journeyed to Pennsylvania to play Gettysburg College in a Division III Centennial Conference game.
Another story from a few years back, cut from the same cloth.
Soon to Replace The Javelin in Indoor Track Meets
Joe Ayoob throws a John Collins design, officially breaking the world record by 19 feet, 6 inches.
All Hail Our New Fish Robots Overlords
What Makes a Robot Fish Attractive? (Hint: It’s in the Moves)
The researchers designed their bio-inspired robotic fish to mimic the tail propulsion of a swimming fish, and conducted experiments at varying tail beat frequencies and flow speeds. In nature, fish positioned at the front of a school beat their tails with greater frequency, creating a wake in which their followers gather. The followers display a notably slower frequency of tail movement, leading researchers to believe that the followers are enjoying a hydrodynamic advantage from the leaders’ efforts.
Writing About Science, When You’re Not A Scientist
The Promise & Pitfalls of Public Outreach Part 2: Writing About Science, When You’re Not A Scientist
I’m often surprised by how much scientists think the general public knows about their fields of study. For example, a researcher I was interviewing recently said “Surely most people know what tissue engineering is?” Actually, I think most people probably have no idea what tissue engineering is. We have to explain it to them.
Powered by Vodka Martinis, No Doubt
Flying robot quadrotors perform the James Bond Theme by playing various instruments including the keyboard, drums and maracas, a cymbal, and the debut of an adapted guitar built from a couch frame.
…
These flying quadrotors are completely autonomous, meaning humans are not controlling them; rather they are controlled by a computer programed with instructions to play the instruments.
Velocitas Eradico
A test shot fires from the Office of Naval Research-funded Electromagnetic Railgun prototype launcher located at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division.
A story from a little over a year ago reported a 33 MegaJoule test. A blog post at Scientific American puts the design range at 20-32 MJ, so it seems the refinements are now in areas other than the energy (e.g. better efficiency, moving from a research device to a better-engineered on that can be deployed). That article also refines the expected range of the gun.
The Navy says that the railgun project, initiated in 2005, will yield a 20- to 32-megajoule weapon that shoots a distance of 50 to 100 nautical miles (roughly 90 to 185 kilometers).
Sexier than Lab Rats
Some of them, anyway.
I remember an experiment I did at the age of 11. My test subjects were Cub Scouts. My hypothesis (that nobody would see me sneak a fishbowl under a shawl) proved false and the Scouts pelted me with hard candy. If I could have avoided those welts by visiting an MRI lab, I surely would have.
But magic’s not easy to pick apart with machines, because it’s not really about the mechanics of your senses. Magic’s about understanding—and then manipulating—how viewers digest the sensory information.