When I was around 12 or 13, I first got a hold of my stepfather’s physics text book. It was magic. The rules that governed the physical world were right there in the form of equations on a page. I was totally captivated. Newton’s laws of motion, gravity, angular momentum, and the theory of relativity. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘physics’
Celestia
Posted: 1 December 2007 in UncategorizedTags: astronomy, astrophysics, celestia, dreams, open source, physics, software, space, space visualization
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Has a surfer unified physics?
Posted: 16 November 2007 in UncategorizedTags: e8, einstein, garrett lisi, grand unified theory, large hadron collider, mathematics, physics, theoretical physics, theory of everything
The Grand Unified Theory (GUT) has been sought after for years. Einstein died pursuing it. Many great minds have tried to tackle it and complicated theories and first steps abound. There are four forces in our universe: the electromagnetic force, the strong nuclear force, the weak nuclear force, and gravity. The Standard Model unifies the [...]
Crayon Physics
Posted: 14 November 2007 in UncategorizedTags: cool stuff, crayon physics, crayons, experimental games, games, kloonigames, physics
I stumbled on this the other day. The game is called Crayon Physics and it’s pretty much what it sounds like. You can make a crayon drawing of simple shapes like squares and circles and curves. The objects you create begin obeying the laws of physics (gravity and Newton’s laws of motion mainly). So a [...]
Venutian Rover Bomb
Posted: 12 November 2007 in UncategorizedTags: nasa, physics, planetology, refrigeration, rovers, stirling cooler, venus
There is a cool article today in New Scientist that describes an old cooling method with a bleeding edge application: a rover to Venus. Venus is a picture of the greenhouse effect gone wild. Average temperatures are about +260 degrees Celsius (500 degrees Fahrenheit). This is hot enough to melt lead and destroys most modern [...]
Invisibility Cloak a reality… sorta
Posted: 3 October 2007 in UncategorizedTags: boffins, invisibility, invisibility cloak, physics, research, science
There has been work done over the past year or so by the Department of Mysteries at St. Andrews College. They also are working on levitation, which I talked about before. They created an invisibility cloak that worked in the microwave region. A group in the US has just produced an invisibility cloak that works [...]
Beam me up!
Posted: 24 August 2007 in UncategorizedTags: discoveries, physics, quantum computing, quantum mechanics, real sci-fi, teleportation
I love reading an innocuously titled science piece and then coming across an absolute gem like this: “Australian and French scientists have made another breakthrough in the technology that will drive next generation computers and teleportation.” Teleportation? Quantum teleportation as it turns out. Which is much different from the conventional teleportation featured in The Fly [...]
Body heat -> electricity
Posted: 17 August 2007 in UncategorizedTags: batteries, discoveries, physics, portable devices, technology
Now this will be a nifty little device if they can get it to work. It’d be great to not have to charge your cell phone as frequently. Though the logistics of having a patch on your body with a cord running to your phone might be a little dicey. You could at least power [...]
Beautiful Bolide
Posted: 13 August 2007 in UncategorizedTags: astronomy, bolides, clouds, family, meteor showers, moon, ohio, open source, physics, software, space
As I mentioned in a previous post, I visited my family in Ohio this past weekend. The Perseid meteor shower peaked Sunday night/Monday morning, but the shower was going fairly strong Saturday night/Sunday morning. For the first time since the early 90′s I got a chance to sit out beneath the stars in perfect weather [...]
