George Stimson Home page of George Stimson Homework and Assignments: A Letter to the Alumni wherever you might be. Science and Engineering: SDA Robotics Team Video The physics of rowing (worksheet) Physics java links Black Holes Fact or Fiction? Social Studies: Course Descriptions for AP European History and Comparative Government History of Education Project (emphasis is generally on, but not limited to, the European and American experience) History and Government Resources The causes of terrorism against the United States (or western culture, for that matter) are varied and complex. If you are interested in politics, social and environmental issues then please consider the following: (if not then please consider the following anyway): Teacher Stuff Calling all physics teachers Did you miss it Tisk! School Related Student Exhibition Day., A history Our Book I had wanted to create something like this for several years. Our Fountain Policy: If you cannot come up with great original ideas, borrow them from others.
Top 10 Best Books For Inquiring Minds Books We have done a number of previous book lists that have featured some very popular books. It seems, with Christmas just around the corner, that we ought to do a special list of books that are perfect as gifts for the kinds of people that frequent out site – people seeking after new knowledge and trivia. This list is books is hand picked by me for no reason other than I have either read them and enjoyed them, or they have been extremely big sellers amongst our readers. Be sure to buy some for your friends or loved ones, or buy one for yourself for some reading over the Christmas break. The Greatest Stories Never Told Rick Beyer Buy this book from Amazon This is history candy — the good stuff. Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things Charles Panati Buy this book at Amazon If you enjoy trivia and unusual facts, then Charles Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, is the perfect book. Book of Secrets Thomas Eaton Buy this book at Amazon The Book of General Ignorance Bill Bryson Bonus
Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear NOTE: Some major wind projects like the proposed TWE Carbon Valley project in Wyoming are already pricing in significantly lower than coal power -- $80 per MWh for wind versus $90 per MWh for coal -- and that is without government subsidies using today's wind turbine technology. The International Clean Energy Analysis (ICEA) gateway estimates that the U.S. possesses 2.2 million km2 of high wind potential (Class 3-7 winds) — about 850,000 square miles of land that could yield high levels of wind energy. This makes the U.S. something of a Saudi Arabia for wind energy, ranked third in the world for total wind energy potential. The United States uses about 26.6 billion MWh's, so at the above rate we could satisfy a full one-third of our total annual energy needs. Now what if a breakthrough came along that potentially tripled the energy output of those turbines? Well, such a breakthrough has been made, and it's called the "wind lens." Editor's note: Want more info?
Einstein for Everyone Einstein for Everyone Nullarbor Press 2007revisions 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Copyright 2007, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 John D. Norton Published by Nullarbor Press, 500 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 with offices in Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15222 All Rights Reserved John D. An advanced sequel is planned in this series:Einstein for Almost Everyone 2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1 ePrinted in the United States of America no trees were harmed web*bookTM This book is a continuing work in progress. January 1, 2015. Preface For over a decade I have taught an introductory, undergraduate class, "Einstein for Everyone," at the University of Pittsburgh to anyone interested enough to walk through door. With each new offering of the course, I had the chance to find out what content worked and which of my ever so clever pedagogical inventions were failures. At the same time, my lecture notes have evolved. This text owes a lot to many. i i i
Richard Feynman videos Videos This page has been recently updated. The Fantastic Mr Feynman - BBC documentary, May 2013 Feynman's 1984 lecture on Tiny Machines (79 minutes) Richard Phillips Feynman - The Last Journey Of A Genius (full version, 54 minutes) The Challenger - BBC movie (full version, 89 minutes) Richard Feynman - Los Alamos From Below (audio, 69 minutes) The Character of Physical Law - The Messenger Series of Physics Lectures: Fun to Imagine: The Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures: Take the World from Another Point of View: BBC Horizon 1964 - Strangeness Minus Three The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Distinction of Past and Future Quantum Mechanical View of Reality 1 Quantum Mechanical View of Reality 2 Quantum Mechanical View of Reality 3 Quantum Mechanical View of Reality 4 Feynman on Wave Particle Duality Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics - The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures Joining the Challenger Commission Evidence to the Challenger Commission On computers (75 minutes) Playing bongos Home
First universal quantum network prototype links two separate labs An article from Scientific American. Quantum technologies are the way of the future, but will that future ever arrive? Maybe so. Physicists have cleared a bit more of the path to a plausible quantum future by constructing an elementary network for exchanging and storing quantum information. The network features two all-purpose nodes that can send, receive and store quantum information, linked by a fiber-optic cable that carries it from one node to another on a single photon. Daniel Brunner/iStockphoto Networks based on single atoms, linked by the exchange of single photons, could form the basis of versatile quantum networks. The network is only a prototype, but if it can be refined and scaled up, it could form the basis of communication channels for relaying quantum information. Quantum bits, or qubits, are at the heart of quantum information technologies. Physicists have used all manner of quantum objects to store qubits—electrons, atomic nuclei, photons and so on.
Sonoluminescence Single-bubble sonoluminescence - A single, cavitating bubble. Video of synthetic wound cavity collapsing creating sonoluminescence. Long exposure image of multi-bubble sonoluminescence created by a high-intensity ultrasonic horn immersed in a beaker of liquid History[edit] The sonoluminescence effect was first discovered at the University of Cologne in 1934 as a result of work on sonar. In 1989 an experimental advance was introduced by Felipe Gaitan and Lawrence Crum, who produced stable single-bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL). Properties[edit] Sonoluminescence can occur when a sound wave of sufficient intensity induces a gaseous cavity within a liquid to collapse quickly. Some facts about sonoluminescence: Rayleigh–Plesset equation[edit] The dynamics of the motion of the bubble is characterized to a first approximation by the Rayleigh-Plesset equation (named after Lord Rayleigh and Milton Plesset): Mechanism of phenomenon[edit] In 2002, M. Other proposals[edit] Quantum explanations[edit] [edit]
10 Awesome Online Classes You Can Take For Free Cool, but you need iTunes for nearly everything, and that gets an 'F.' Are there really no other places to get these lessons? I was sure there are some on Academic Earth. Flagged 1. 7 of them are available via YouTube. 2. iTunes is free. 1. 2. Don't worry, we're looking out for you! While I have no personal beef with iTunes, I know that many people share your sentiments — so I actually made a concerted effort to include relevant youtube links when possible.
10 Real Sea Creatures Lifted Directly from Your Nightmares Any fan of this site knows that the core of our mission statement is "Nature is terrifying and you should only leave the house if it's an emergency." But in the course of our relentless examination of horrifying insects and vicious predators, we have to say that consistently all of them pale in comparison to the stuff that lives in the water. The ocean is the earth's last frontier, and just as we always suspected, it's full of sea monsters. Like ... #10. io9.com Well, it has the Predator's mouth, anyway. The Featured CreatureIf reincarnation is real, this is what Nixon's coming back as. ... before its entire face opens up into a gaping sprawl of predatory terror. And no, we don't know why they are called that. Discovery"No, dude, totally, eat all my fries, I didn't pay for them or anything." #9. io9.com They look like something you'd find in a meteor impact crater, but really, predatory tunicates are a kind of sea squirt that live in deep-sea canyons off California. #8. mabusincarnate.com
Relativistic Baseball What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light? - Ellen McManis Let’s set aside the question of how we got the baseball moving that fast. We'll suppose it's a normal pitch, except in the instant the pitcher releases the ball, it magically accelerates to 0.9c. The answer turns out to be “a lot of things”, and they all happen very quickly, and it doesn’t end well for the batter (or the pitcher). The ball is going so fast that everything else is practically stationary. The ideas of aerodynamics don’t apply here. These gamma rays and debris expand outward in a bubble centered on the pitcher’s mound. The constant fusion at the front of the ball pushes back on it, slowing it down, as if the ball were a rocket flying tail-first while firing its engines. After about 70 nanoseconds the ball arrives at home plate. When it reaches the batter, the center of the cloud is still moving at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light.
How to Trick Your Brain for Happiness This month, we feature videos of a Greater Good presentation by Rick Hanson, the best-selling author and trailblazing psychologist. In this excerpt from his talk, Dr. Hanson explains how we can take advantage of the brain’s natural “plasticity”—it’s ability to change shape over time. gobyg There’s this great line by Ani Tenzin Palmo, an English woman who spent 12 years in a cave in Tibet: “We do not know what a thought is, yet we’re thinking them all the time.” It’s true. In recent years, though, we have started to better understand the neural bases of states like happiness, gratitude, resilience, love, compassion, and so forth. Ultimately, what this can mean is that with proper practice, we can increasingly trick our neural machinery to cultivate positive states of mind. But in order to understand how, you need to understand three important facts about the brain. Fact one: As the brain changes, the mind changes, for better or worse. Fact two: As the mind changes, the brain changes. 1. 2. 3.
This Will Mindfuck You: Simultaneity Is Relative When Einstein first published his special theory on relativity people were flabbergasted. It couldn’t be right, they thought. How can the sequence of an event differ if you observe it from a different frame of reference? How is it possible that I see event A happening before event B, but someone else can see it the other way around? (First watch the video above) Recap: Observer A stands on a train platform. Going back in time Einstein proposed a 4th dimension in our reality. According to Einstein, time moves slower for somebody in motion. His solution, then, is that both frame of references are true. 1. 2. 3. What other implications did you get out of these experiments?
The story of the Gömböc September 2009 Play this movie to see the Gömböc wriggle. This article is also available as a podcast. A Gömböc is a strange thing. Balancing act The defining feature of a Gömböc is the fact that it's got just two points of equilibrium: one is stable and the other is unstable. A Gömböc made from plexiglass. "It's a bit like putting a ball on a hilly landscape," says Domokos, "if you put the ball down at a generic point, it will always roll off in the same direction, down into the valley. To give it its full mathematical description, a Gömböc is a three-dimensional, convex and homogeneous object with exactly one stable point of equilibrium and one unstable point of equilibrium. Doubtful existence An ellipse has two stable and two unstable points of equilibrium. The reason why many people thought that Gömböcs didn't exist is that in two dimensions there is no convex shape with only two points of equilibrium. A geometric stem cell "This is intuitively clear," says Domokos. Mathematical field work