background preloader

Tom Shannon's anti-gravity sculpture

Tom Shannon's anti-gravity sculpture

GCSE Physics Forces, Moments and Pressure Revision - Forces and Pressure Think about these two situations: Pushing a drawing pin into a wall pointy end towards the wall. Pushing a drawing pin into a wall pointy end towards your thumb. Two similar activities with two very different results. The reason for this is the difference in pressure. If a force is applied over a smaller surface area you get a larger pressure. Pressure can be calculated using the following equation: Force will be in newtons, N. Area will be in either m2 or cm2. If the area is in m2 then the pressure will be measured in Pascals or N/m2. Example: A lump of cheese of weight 20N stands on a table. What pressure does it exert on the table? Answer: Note: Don't forget the units! When it comes to pressure in liquids, there are 3 rules that you need to remember: 1. Have you ever noticed that when you dive down to the bottom of a swimming pool, your ears start to hurt? This is because the pressure in a liquid increases as you go further below the surface of the liquid. Here are some other common examples. or

Thinking like Sherlock Holmes The sound of silence Shattering Science and Glass Physics From windshields to coffee tables to high-rise office buildings, we are surrounded by glass. But as any action movie stunt double will tell you, glass will break when you slam into it with enough force. Sometimes it breaks with devastating consequences, creating jagged shards that spray out in all directions. This can make a bad situation, like an automobile collision, much worse. Glass is strong but shows potential to be stronger, according to theoretical work by researchers at Rice University. How strong can glass get? In a recent theoretical study at Rice University, Peter Wolynes and his graduate student Apiwat Wisitsorasak explored the physical limit of the strength of glass. The study was based on a mathematical model of how glass forms that Wolynes developed more than twenty years ago. Glass has some unusual properties. The strength of a particular type of glass depends on the bonds between the molecules in the glass. Shattering Safely References and Links —Kendra Redmond

"Living" Crystal Colonies A bacterium will group together with its neighbors to form a living colony, but what about non-living things? Researchers recently discovered crystals that form similar colonies when illuminated with a specific spotlight. But when this light goes off, the colony breaks apart!1 IT'S ALIVE! Well, not quite. Self-Assembled Crystals New York University scientists and a student from Brandeis University doing a summer research project2 recently uncovered this odd crystal behavior that mimics living creatures. A colloidal particle is a particle that does not make a chemical bond with other particles. The colloidal particles used were made of two types of material: a polymer sphere made of 3-methacryloxyporpyl trimethoxysilane (TPM), that encapsulates most of an antiferromagnetic hematite cube.1 Under regular lighting or in the dark, these particles undergo the typically random motion caused by bombarding atoms and molecules in a fluid (gas or liquid). Two Kinds of Attraction 2. 3. —Heide Doss

Quark A quark (/ˈkwɔrk/ or /ˈkwɑrk/) is an elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei.[1] Due to a phenomenon known as color confinement, quarks are never directly observed or found in isolation; they can be found only within hadrons, such as baryons (of which protons and neutrons are examples), and mesons.[2][3] For this reason, much of what is known about quarks has been drawn from observations of the hadrons themselves. The quark model was independently proposed by physicists Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig in 1964.[5] Quarks were introduced as parts of an ordering scheme for hadrons, and there was little evidence for their physical existence until deep inelastic scattering experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in 1968.[6][7] Accelerator experiments have provided evidence for all six flavors. Classification[edit]

Electromagnetic spectrum The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.[4] The "electromagnetic spectrum" of an object has a different meaning, and is instead the characteristic distribution of electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by that particular object. Most parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are used in science for spectroscopic and other probing interactions, as ways to study and characterize matter.[6] In addition, radiation from various parts of the spectrum has found many other uses for communications and manufacturing (see electromagnetic radiation for more applications). History of electromagnetic spectrum discovery The first discovery of electromagnetic radiation other than visible light came in 1800, when William Herschel discovered infrared radiation.[7] He was studying the temperature of different colors by moving a thermometer through light split by a prism. He noticed that the highest temperature was beyond red. where: Boundaries

How an Aurora Borealis works Dimension A diagram showing the first four spatial dimensions. 1-D: Two points A and B can be connected to a line, giving a new line segment AB. 2-D: Two parallel line segments AB and CD can be connected to become a square, with the corners marked as ABCD. 3-D: Two parallel squares ABCD and EFGH can be connected to become a cube, with the corners marked as ABCDEFGH. 4-D: Two parallel cubes ABCDEFGH and IJKLMNOP can be connected to become a hypercube, with the corners marked as ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP. In physical terms, dimension refers to the constituent structure of all space (cf. volume) and its position in time (perceived as a scalar dimension along the t-axis), as well as the spatial constitution of objects within—structures that correlate with both particle and field conceptions, interact according to relative properties of mass—and are fundamentally mathematical in description. The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. A tesseract is an example of a four-dimensional object.

5 Really Weird Things About Water Water, good ol' H2O, seems like a pretty simple substance to you and me. But in reality, water - the foundation of life and most common of liquid - is really weird and scientists actually don't completely understand how water works. Here are 5 really weird things about water: 1. Hot Water Freezes Faster Than Cold Water Take two pails of water; fill one with hot water and the other one with cold water, and put them in the freezer. In 1963, a Tanzanian high-school student named Erasto B. Thankfully, Mpemba didn't back down - he convinced a physics professor to conduct an experiment which eventually confirmed his observations: in certain conditions, hot water indeed freezes before cold water*. Actually, Mpemba was in good company. But how do scientists explain this strange phenomenon? 2. Everybody knows that when you cool water to 0 °C (32 °F) it forms ice ... except that in some cases it doesn't! Note: Similarly, superheated water remains liquid even when heated past its boiling point. 3. 4.

Atomic Structure An updated version of this lesson is available at Visionlearning: Atomic Theory & Ions & Isotopes In the last lesson we learned that atoms were particles of elements, substances that could not be broken down further. In examining atomic structure though, we have to clarify this statement. Atoms are made up of 3 types of particles , and . A neutron walked into a bar and asked how much for a drink. The bartender replied, "for you, no charge." -Jaime - Internet Chemistry Jokes The atom above, made up of one proton and one electron, is called hydrogen (the abbreviation for hydrogen is H). Keep in mind that atoms are extremely small. While you should keep in mind that electrons actually form clouds around their nucleii, we will continue to represent the electron as a spinning particle to keep things simple. In an electrically neutral atom, the positively charged protons are always balanced by an equal number of negatively charged electrons. As you can see, helium is larger than hydrogen.

The 7 Natural Laws of the Universe « Path to Enlightenment The 7 Natural Laws of the Universe The Law of Attraction is just part of one of the 7 natural laws of the Universe: the Law of Vibration. Of the 7 Laws, it may be the most important in how our everyday lives play out, but all of the laws are in effect whether we are aware of them or not. Knowing what the 7 laws are and how they work can make a significant difference in applying them to create the life you truly desire. The 7 natural laws are in no particular order, but since the Law of Attraction has been discussed so much in The Secret, we’ll start with it. The Law of Vibration states that everything vibrates and nothing rests. The Law of Relativity states that nothing is what it is until you relate it to something. The Law of Cause and Effect states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The Law of Polarity states that everything has an opposite. The Law of Rythym states that everything has a natural cycle. Source: 7 natural laws of universe

The Ultimate Field Guide to Subatomic Particles - io9 This is, for the most part, an accurate article, except for a few statements. "Exactly what makes a fermion a fermion is a bit complicated, but suffice it to say that fermions are all the particles that deal with matter. So what about the last group of elementary particles, the ones that don't deal with matter? These are the bosons, and they deal with the fundamental forces of the universe." The statements above can be misinterpreted as suggesting that fermions are defined as particles that deal with matter and bosons are defined as particles that deal with forces. And that is not true. Particles that deal with matter are fermions and particles that carry the fundamental forces are bosons. What fermions and bosons really are have to do with two apparently unrelated (but actually related) particle properties: spin and statistics. "There are four known bosons" See, this is an example of the misconception I just mentioned. According to special relativity, not general relativity.

Top 10 Stars That'll Blow Your Mind Space No one can help but look at all the stars which adorn our skies and wonder, “what’s out there?” It’s natural to dream about that which lies so very beyond our reach. Perhaps in a solar system far from ours there’s another species gazing up towards our sun, a mere point of light from their perspective, and wondering what mysteries it holds. Try as we might, we’ll never truly understand everything there is to know about cosmology, but it doesn’t stop us trying. From the known to the hypothetical, this list will outline ten fascinating types of stars. A rather boring type of star in comparison to the rest on this list, I couldn’t resist including hypergiants just for their sheer size. Unlike all of the other entries on this list, hypervelocity stars are otherwise normal stars with no interesting or distinguishing features – besides the fact that they are hurtling through space at insane speeds. When most people think of stars, they think of huge sizzling spheres floating in space.

Related: