To find out how the craft works, Jones spent two years inside Paris’ thriving world of magic. He acquired mentors, passed an examination to join France’s largest magic association, and has emerged with a new book about the experience, Trade of the Tricks, published this month by the University of California Press.
That's Minute Physics, not Minute Physics
via @occam98, who describes this as “The Vi Hart of physics, who speaks a bit more slowly, too”
Wazzap?!
Reminiscent of my navy days; when the enlisted students would walk around outdoors they had an uncanny knack of separating themselves into individuals or small groups, and you would have to return their salutes as you/they walked by. They only called me “Sir” though, not “My Lord”.
Fun Ways of Converting Potential Energy into Kinetic Energy
One word of wisdom about water slides. I used to ride “Der Stuka” at Wet ‘n Wild in Orlando (which is “only” 23 m tall) back when I was stationed on the USS Disney World there. The collective wisdom was that you needed to clench while sliding lest the ride turn into “Das Enema” . ‘Nuff said.
Nerdstracting
Not All Men are Created Prequel
Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Perpertuum Mobile: The Quest for Perpetual Motion
In terms of the laws of physics, at least as we understand them in the early twenty first century, perpetual motion machines are impossibilities. However, a wide variety of machines, theories and devices have been developed and proposed over the years. Here’s a look at some of the more interesting ones here at Dark Roasted Blend.
Motivated by Wanting to Understand the Punchline
Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?
What People Don’t Get About My Job: From A(rmy Soldier) to Z(ookeeper)
I am an engineer. Most people are scientifically and mathematically illiterate. Consequently, most people cannot fathom how much pleasure and delight I derive from my work. Of course I am also lucky to have a great job with great coworkers. But the pleasure of analyzing, say, the overall efficiency of a combined heat and power facility is hard to describe.
Well, this is partially true. My wife actually gets irritated that I never mind going to work. She does not feel exactly the same about her job.
I also wish children could understand how much fun I have. Because we need more engineers in this country for sure if we hope to remain globally competitive.
That goes for scientist, too, as far as I’m concerned.
What the Heck is it, Edgar?
What is public science, and why do you need it?
Here’s the truth: the NIH has funded research that led to 130 Nobel Prizes, and recently funded research that led to the first cancer vaccine. Here are some highlights from the research they funded in 2010 alone. And the NSF has sponsored research that led to 180 Nobel Prizes. Over the past few years, NSF has contributed to research that has made major strides in health, energy efficiency, and exploration. The NSF funded one of the very first web browsers in the 1990s, and is currently funding the development of next-generation robotics. NSF and its sister science agencies are investing in technologies that could one day transform the world.
To sell this idea, I think you have to paint people who are against science funding as being against progress. It’s important to note that it takes time for research advances to work their way into commercial products or otherwise be useful. To pick an example from my area of work, Norman Ramsey won (half of) the Nobel Prize in 1989 “for the invention of the separated oscillatory fields method and its use in the hydrogen maser and other atomic clocks” but the invention was based on microwave/radar work in WWII and the paper on the topic came out in 1950. And yet the technology that it enabled, atomic clocks, became the basis for worldwide timekeeping in 1967. Among other things, atomic clocks enable high-speed communication and GPS. Industries that make billions of dollars a year, but it took decades for the various technologies to come together, mature and be applied. Choking off funding for research puts at risk future discovery that could have the same level of impact. We may not feel it immediately, but it will affect us eventually.