Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog

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Ingredients: What’s in the stuff we buy?

A project started by the question, “Why is there salt in my shampoo?”

There are thousands of chemical compounds in the ingredients lists of products we buy every day. Knowing what each one is doing in the product has obvious benefits in comparison-shopping. However, it also provides a sneaky way of teaching simple chemistry to people who had no idea they would find it so interesting. I am always looking for ways to make science more interesting to people who think it is only for people who use masking tape on their eyeglasses.

Here’s part of an example —

Sodium benzoate is used in acidic foods and products to control bacteria, mold, yeasts, and other microbes. It interferes with their ability to make energy.

Because it only converts to benzoic acid in acidic environments, it is not used for its anti-microbial action unless the pH is below about 3.6. In the food industry, it is used in items such as jams, salad dressing, juices, pickles, and carbonated drinks.

Thinking Outside the Ball

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Physicists trap light in a bottle

To get light into an optical cavity, it has to fit. That is, when the photon travels a complete circuit of the sphere, it must travel a whole number of half-wavelengths. The spheres are tiny, so the color difference between two wavelengths that fit is huge. This becomes a problem because we can’t precisely control the size of the spheres during manufacture, and nature chooses which colors of light atoms will interact with—the two rarely end up matching.

The usual solution is to make a bajillion spheres and find one that is close to right. Then you can heat the sphere so that it expands until you get to exactly the right color. It would be much better to just have a resonator that could adapt itself to any color of light.

Treekiller!

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How did I miss this? XKCD is coming out (no, not like that) — as a real book. Oh, the humanity! Trees! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Oh, gawd, they can’t!

NY Times: When Pixels Find New Life on Real Paper

“It’s not supposed to be a punch line, but hopefully if you didn’t laugh, you’ll laugh at this,” he said. The title text will appear where the tiny copyright notice would appear on a traditional strip.

Does that mean that the book won’t carry a traditional copyright and instead take its lead from the online comic strip itself, which Mr. Munroe licenses under Creative Commons, allowing noncommercial re-use as long as credit is given?

“To anyone who wants to photocopy, bind, and give a copy of the book to their loved one — more power to them,” he said. “He/She will likely be disappointed that you’re so cheap, though.”

Randall notes on his blag

Note: Some of the stuff in the article is no longer accurate – since then, I’ve gone back and redone the layout and comic selection myself.

Ptole … Doh!

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Reconstruction of a planet’s bizarre orbit with Ptolemy’s system of epicycles and deferents.

What’s behind this? Any periodic function can be represented as a Fourier series. All that’s really happening here is one is plotting it in polar coordinates, and the Fourier components become epicycles. Any one-line drawing made without the pen leaving the paper and starting where it stops, should be able to be represented this way.

The Emperor's New Phone

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The Onion: Apple Claims New iPhone Only Visible To Most Loyal Of Customers

“I am proud today to introduce to those who really, truly deserve it, our most incredible iPhone yet,” announced Apple CEO Steve Jobs, extending his seemingly empty left palm toward the eagerly awaiting crowd. “Not only is this our lightest and slimmest model ever, but as any truly savvy Apple customer can clearly see, it’s also the most handsome product we’ve ever designed.”

Yes, it Is

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Long day of driving yesterday, and at some point I’ll start wading through all of my RSS feeds, etc., but for now, here’s a sign from just outside of Ridgeway, PA (“Avoid carpal-tunnel: just keep your headlights turned on!”)

bender