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Living on Mars

Population concerns on Earth are leading scientists to inquire whether colonizing Mars is possible. As of now, over 78,000 people have applied to leave Earth forever and live on Mars. Mars One, a nonprofit organization, is sponsoring the colonization with a take-off date sometime in 2023. Out of the applicant pool, four will be chosen to send first to Mars. The first four will lay the groundwork for a permanent colony. Two years after the first four land, Mars One would send up more people to th

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Standard Deviation

While we use percent error to dictate how far we off in class, there are far more efficient ways of defining the error of the set. Standard deviation, for example, given a value, will give rise to numbers that fall within one S.D., two S.D. and so on. "One can find the standard deviation of an entire population in cases (such as standardized testing) where every member of a population is sampled. In cases where that cannot be done, the standard deviation σ is estimated by examining a random

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Explanation of Fire

Alright, this blog is for all you pyros out there. I couldn't help but want to delve a little deeper into the nature of fire, and what I found is pretty interesting. In actuality, fire is simply a gas thats hot enough to incandesce, which means give off blackbody radiation whos color is determined by the temperature. Very hot fires can on occasion even reach the plasma phase, where they become partially ionized. However, the average fire burns at about 1000F, which produces the characteristic re

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The Physics of Spin on a Tennis Ball

There are two types of spin that a player can apply to a tennis ball, those being topspin and backspin. What prompted my thoughts on this idea would be my attendance of the University of Rochester tennis match today against Nazareth. As these advanced players made the ball skip and flip and kick every which way, my mind went crazy! :labmate) A topspin shot is hit by sliding the racquet up and over the ball as it is struck. By dragging the racquet over the ball, the friction between the racque

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Diamagnetic Levitation

Many common materials like wood, water, plants, animals, diamonds, fingers etc. are considered not to be magnetic but are in fact very slightly diamagnetic. Diamagnets repel, and are repelled by a strong magnetic field, and two of the strongest known diamagnetic materials are bismuth and graphite. Compared to the forces created by traditional magnets, diamagnetic forces are exponentially weak, however when arranged and prepared properly, can produce startling effects, levitation in this case. UC

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The Theory of Relativity

The theory of relativity encompasses two theories of famous scientist Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. Concepts introduced by the theories of relativity include: -Measurements of various quantities are relative to the velocities of observers. In particular, space and time can dilate. -Spacetime: space and time should be considered together and in relation to each other. -The speed of light is nonetheless invariant, the same for all observers. Some, and to many mos

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Neutron Stars

Neutron stars are the collapsed cores of some massive stars. They pack roughly the mass of our Sun into a region the size of a city such as Chicago or another large american city. Neutron stars are some of the densest types of massive objects in the universe, at times reaching densities of over 10e14 g/cc. At these incredibly high densities, you could cram all of humanity into a volume the size of a sugar cube, giving one just a sense, even though it is simply impossible to wrap your mind around

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Physics and Star Wars

We all love the classic movies of Star Wars, if you don't love these movies than your probably too cool to be reading this blog, but if your like us in physics c you can see the glaring flaw that represent themselves throughout the movies. Star Wars is in a different galaxy but the same laws of physics should be universal so while watching the movies you can pick up on certain aspects that are in fact impossible. 1.) One of the most basic flaws we can see in the movies is that during the epic

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Physics of Running

Energy Transfer during Running When a person runs, their body must convert potential energy into kinetic energy. Potential energy is the energy stored within a system. Potential energy is used when the system uses kinetic energy to move in a horizontal direction. In the human body, potential energy is stored in the form of chemical energy. The chemical energy comes from the food that a person consumes throughout the day. The body needs a certain amount of calories (the energy from food) in

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Switzerlands super Collider: The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is the worlds largest and highest energy particle accelerator, and located in Switzerland as told to us from the Valentines day special of the Big Bang Theory. In the episode Leonard wins a trip to Switzerland over Valentines day to visit the Collider, and than must deal with the drama that unfolds as Sheldon tries to take Penny's spot on the trip. After watching the episode my own interests over the Collider were peaked and so I went online to research it. The LHC l

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Superhydrophic Metals

A team of researchers in Rochester have discovered a way to create metals that are highly water resistant. These metals can be used in applications such as rust-prevention and anti-icing. Before this, the same team created hydrophilic metals, meaning that they attracted water. These could be used for any applications where you need to take water from one place to another because the metal would just do it for you. Here is the article about Chunlei Guo and his production of super-hydrophobi

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Super Duper Conductivity

Superconductivity was first discovered by Dutchman and physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, when Liquid Mercury was cooled to just 4.2 Kelvins!! (Using some very expensive Liquid Helium) While measuring the resistance of the substance, Onnes found that at this specific temperature, the resistivity of the substance quite literally dropped down to nothing. Zero Ohms. But whats the significance? Firstly, Onnes had discovered a material that would produce no heat when an electrical current flowe

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Faster Or Slower?

What's better.....being faster or being slower? Obviously faster. Have you ever wondered why some people are faster than others though? Are there trends? To understand the basics physics of running, you can think of your arms as pendulums. A pendulums velocity depends on the length of the pendulum, not the mass of the bottom. If the pendulum is shorter, the speed of the mass at the bottom is faster. Your mass at the end of the pendulum you can think of as your feet. Then proceed to assume tha

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James Webb Space Telescope

NASA is currently developing a telescope to further probe the final frontier, and this new telescope, called the Webb telescope (after NASA's second administrator James Webb) or JWST, is being launched in many ways to replace the Hubble. It is designed to capture and analyze infrared light and has a primary mirror at least two and a half times larger than the original Hubble, and it is hoped that the Webb will be able to see deep into dust clouds and observe the formation of stars, planets and r

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Warp Drive

While I'm on a kick here (hard to guess what I find interesting right?), here's something I found on a totally different blog site about the possibilities of traveling faster than the speed of light. There is a very convincing theory, too bad no one knows where to get the energy.... And yes FizziksGuy, it uses "string guess". I'm very sorry. Here's the link: http://news.discover...hip-engine.html

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We Have Lift-Off...

I recently travled down to Iroquois middle school to take advantage of a non-windy day to launch my favorite model rocket, and explore some physics in the process. The winds were coming from the South at about 7 mph, so the East end of the field had to be utilized for the launch, and everything went flawlessly because of planning ahead in this fashion. Some specs of the solid fuel engine I used are as follows: The average impulse is 5N/sec Maximum thrust was 12.1N Time to rise was about 3 se

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Hockey Fighting

Because this year the Buffalo Sabres picked up two new players who are built for wrecking people and getting in fights, I have learned a lot about fights and how they work. When hockey players get into a fight on the ice as they often do, there is a lot of physics involved. What usually happens when 2 players get in a fight, they grab each others jerseys with one arm and punch at each other with the other hand, and because when one person punches the other and the fist applies the same amount of

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My ladder idea

Everyday at school we have to climb all of those stairs to get to the upper levels of the school and I get exhausted from it, and so I came up with a brilliant solution that no one really thinks is a good idea. You just get rid of the stairs and we have ladders, and some of them can just sit still and other ones can be like moving up or down so you just grab on and you are changing floors. The physics here is that right when you grab on, you accelerate either up or down, like when you are on an

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Nail in Wood

My StepDad has been doing a lot of work in our house and doing construction in our downstairs bathroom, and from observing him while he works instead of helping, and I have learned physics from the work that he does. As we all know, objects never really come in contact with each other, the magnetic forces of one objects electrons just push against the magnetic force of the other objects electrons, and since they are both negative, they push each other apart. When you hammer a nail into wood then

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WHAT A LOVELY SOUND YOUR SWORD MAKES

Everyone knows what a sword is, whether it be a katana, claymore, or even the famed Excalibur of Arthurian tales. Sure when you swing a sword it cuts, but what about the sound it makes? This came to mind as I thought of one of my favorite movies, The Last Samurai. At first I related it to the sounds produced by whips or arrows, but I wanted to look into the matter to find out what is really behind the cause of a sword's sound. To go with the theme from The Last Samurai, I researched a

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Blog 10

Without attempting to sound pretentious, films often get things wrong. They’re supposed to. They’re fictional. I think we can all agree Star Wars would have been a whole lot more boring if, instead of big whooping laser-buzzes filling the air as Luke Skywalker’s ship attacks Vader’s, there’d be nothing. Now, ignoring the fact that Star Wars is really very fictional (science fiction, pun on the science), let’s say there was nothing. No buzzing noises of bright-green lasers shooting

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Blog 9

Everyone enjoys the thrill of roller coasters, but not everyone takes the time to realize how they relate to physics. Roller coasters relate to physics because of the potential engery and the kinetic energy they use. As well as gravity, and using forces. A roller coaster uses both potential energy and kinetic energy. It stores the energy as the roller coaster is inclining up the hill because of the gravity that is pulling it down creating a greater distance. As the potential energy is released

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Blog 8

There are many methods of operation clocks utilize. These are the spring loaded, pendulum/weight powered and even more modern clock variations which i will explain later. Most of the modern clocks now utilize these next few methods for keeping time. All but the quartz watchs use a device known as an escape mechanism. This escape mechanism serves a very inportant purpose because it regulates the forces applied to turn the clock gears in such a way that they move only a certain amount per second.

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Blog 7

Surfing in CS:GO is something I enjoy doing in my freetime. It is not an official gamemode but it is something the community has created as a side game. I like surfing because it helps me to relax and it is fun to compete with your friends to see who can complete each map in the quickest time. It is connects to physics because the original creators of the game did not make their physics engine in hopes that people would be able to surf. It also shows that if you didn't have friction and your leg

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Blog 6

I used to own a half-pipe. Well, a mini-pipe rather. It was a about 1.5 meters tall. Skate baording on it is interesting because at the top of the pipe all you're energy is due to gravity. That means Etop=mgh As one rides down the half-pipe, potential energy is converted to kinetic. At the bottom Ebot=(1/2)mv^2 HOWEVER... In many sports that include a standing on board, a common method to gain speed is to PUMP. Pumping, in its simplest form, is pushing down on the board when you're going u

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