Entertainment Weekly | Media Corner: Science Experiments

Showing posts with label Science Experiments. Show all posts

Hypnotic Little Video Uses Bowling Balls To Demonstrate Basic Physics

Everyone knows bowling balls are for knocking things down. But it turns out they're also pretty good at shoring up our knowledge of basic physics. Just have a look at this strangely hypnotic YouTube video showing a line of bowling balls on strings swinging back and forth like pendulums.

At the start of the "Pendulum Wave Demonstration" video, which was posted on Sept. 7 by YouTube user Maria Ikenberry, the balls swing side by side. But slowly they drift out of phase to form a wavelike pattern--because the strings that hold them are of different lengths and thus cause the balls to swing at different speeds. Then, amazingly, the balls fall back into phase at about 2:40.

What's going on here?

"It's something like if you had a whole bunch of clocks but each one was a little slower than the next," Dr. Jordan Ellenberg, a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin and the author of How Not To Be Wrong told The Huffington Post in an email. "They would start in phase, then slowly drift out of phase--but if you chose the differences in speeds carefully, there would be a moment at some point later in the cycle where they all came into phase again."

You have to see it to believe it.

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Science Channel

Firing a gun under water works the same as it does above water, but WAY cooler in slow motion. [Video] -http://bit.ly/1mpfBXO #OutrageousActs

Blast off homework boredom! See DIY dad's NASA-themed desk for his son

YouTube

Jeff Highsmith’s Mission Control desk incorporates actual audio clips from the Apollo 11 mission.

Jeff Highsmith of Raleigh, N.C., is a self-proclaimed “tinkerer extraordinaire.” His monthly video series atMakezine.com, “Making Fun with Jeff Highsmith,” showcases his love of toys, gadgets and imaginative ways to play with them. Past episodes have featured a rear-view hair trimmer and a pneumatic transport system for the tooth fairy, but he may have outdone himself with his latest project.

When Jeff decided to build a homework desk for his older son, he knew it had to be inspiring — a spot where both of his boys would want to spend a good amount of time. Dozens of buttons, knobs, switches and more than 500 LED lights later, he created a NASA-themed Mission Control Desk.

YouTube

The desk isn’t the ideal project for a DIY novice, as it took Highsmith—a scientist and inventor, of sorts—two months to create.

“It was a stressful two months of designing and building in moments found between my other roles,” Jeff told TODAY. But the beauty is in the details. The entire desk is interactive—from the world map that tracks the spaceship’s route, to the soundboard panel that makes six different rocket noises, to the iPad which serves as an extra display panel. Jeff even incorporated actual audio clips from the Apollo 11 mission, and events from the Apollo 12 mission, which had to use an auxiliary signaling system after being damaged by lightning during takeoff.

“My son loves it,” Jeff reported. “He and his brother take turns working the desk and flying toy spaceships at arm's length around the room.”

If you’re wondering what it’s like to live with a tinkerer extraordinaire, Jeff said of his family, “They appreciate my creativity and tolerate my occasional eccentricities. Our home is not besieged with crazy contraptions, but there are definite signs of a resident maker in every room.”

In fact, we should stay tuned for more! Jeff tells us that he’s working on a companion spacecraft in his other son’s room. “I'm planning some gameplay between the two, such as an audio communication link and a video feedback from ‘space.’ I'll probably tie some of the switches and displays together, but I want to leave enough flexibility for the boys to play how they like.”

Out. Of. This. World. Watch the video below—which has garnered some 225,000 views in less than a week—for all the impressive DIY details.

London's Burning: How a Skyscraper Melts Cars

London isn't famous for hot weather, but that may change soon, and not because of global warming: The design of a new skyscraper in the city is melting cars and setting buildings on fire.

"It's absolutely ruined," Martin Lindsay told the BBC, referring to his Jaguar XJ. Lindsay had the misfortune of parking his luxury car across the street from the office building for an hour; the Jaguar now has melted panels, mirrors and other parts. "You can't believe something like this would happen. They've got to do something about it."

Local shopkeepers have complained about carpets catching fire and smoldering front doors. A restaurant owner told London news site City A.M. that slate tiles on his doorstep had shattered in the heat. [Spooky! Top 10 Unexplained Phenomena]

The curved exterior facade of 20 Fenchurch, aka "the Walkie-Talkie," during construction. Credit: YouTube Screengrab from CH2M Hill

The building - designed by internationally renowned architect Rafael Viñoly - is a dramatic edifice with curved exterior walls. Built at 20 Fenchurch Street in London's financial center, the 38-story skyscraper is known locally as "the Walkie-Talkie" for its unusual shape.

But that curvilinear shape is exactly what's causing the problem: The south-facing exterior wall is covered in reflective glass, and because it's concave, it focuses the sun's rays onto a small area, not unlike the way a magnifying glass directs sun beams onto a super hot pinpoint of light.

James Keaveney of the University of Durham's Atomic and Molecular Physics department told City A.M. that the inward curve of the wall is an inherent flaw in the building's design. "It's a concave shape, so it's going to have a focusing effect on the light that is reflected from it."

That same concave shape has been used in the design of solar power plants. A solar dish in New Mexico contains 82 mirrors that focus sunlight onto an engine that contains hydrogen. As the gas expands and contracts from heating and cooling, that motion drives pistons that power a generator that creates electricity.

"There's [also] a power station in Spain that works on this principle," Keaveney said. "They have an array of mirrors that focuses light into a central pillar - if it's 60 degrees Celsius [140 degrees Fahrenheit], you could get solar panels and get some energy out of it."

This isn't the first time Viñoly's architecture has raised eyebrows as well as temperatures: He Vdara Hotel in Las Vegas has been criticized for directing sun beams onto the swimming pool deck that are hot enough to melt plastic and singe people's hair. The hotspot became known as the "Vdara death ray."

The Vdara mitigated the "death ray" with larger sun umbrellas, but fixing the problem in London might take a lot more work. "There are examples in the past where an architect has had to rebuild the façade," Philip Oldfield, an expert in tall buildings at the University of Nottingham's Department of Architecture, told City A.M. "If this is serious, then I dread to think how expensive it will be."