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About this blog

A blog about science, physics in particular, and how it makes our world work.

Entries in this blog

Coats, and how they keep you warm

This past week it has gotten pretty cold up here in the (somewhat) North. With windchill, temperatures have dropped below zero, and with weather like that it can always be a struggle to stay warm. But with the proper clothing, one can still brave the harsh climate and still have a good time. We might often take it for granted, but how exactly does this insulating process work? Heat travels in three ways: conduction, convection, and radiation. Conduction is simply the transfer of heat by c
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Bright Lights and Physics, as one

Over the summer, I learned a lot about light, and I welcome the opportunity to share that with you. One thing I learned about was how different light sources stacked up against one another. Most people know that incandescent bulbs (tungsten-halogen, the "normal" kind) are less efficient that LED or fluorescent bulbs, but don't know why. I'm here to alleviate that knowledge gap. The reason incandescent bulbs are inefficient is because they produce a lot of heat - not just their own heat, bu
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Boomerang Madness

Boomerangs to some can be quite mysterious. One may ask, "why do they fly the way they do?" But fear not, for I'm here to explain them to you. At first glance, a boomerang might appear flat to the unsuspecting eye. But alas, for a boomerang to return to your hand, it must actually act a bit like a helicopter rotor, with one side angled up one way and the other the other way, so that when it spins it creates lift. But when you think of a helicopter, you think of something going up and dow
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A Whole Lot of Meth (ane)

The second-largest moon in our solar system, Titan, orbits around Saturn, about 8.5 AU (the distance from Earth to the Sun) away from us, making it a very chilly place. A fairly massive moon (80% more massive than our moon, according to Wikipedia), it has the unique characteristic of having an atmosphere that obscured views of the surface until the launch of the Cassini-Huygens mission in 2004, designed to chart out primarily the Saturn system. A moon with an atmosphere is strange, and inter
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A Brief Introduction to Ski Wax

'Twas only yesterday that I took my inaugural ski run, traversing the trails of Bristol, and as I cruised down the mountain I began to reflect on the nature of skiing, particularly waxing. My skis weren't particularly well waxed for the day, so I wasn't going quite to fast, but I did have experience waxing skis beforehand (mostly with nordic skiing - for that it was a weekly affair). When one considers the purpose of wax, it's natural to assume that all it does is make the ski smoother, fillin
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