Monthly Archives: October 2009

Mad Science on ‘Fringe’

Walter Bishop from the TV show Fringe really is a mad sci­entist. Why Walter is a Mad Sci­entist: He’s heating a test tube with his Bunsen burner set on a yellow safety flame. He’s holding the test tube with a pair of … Continue reading

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U2 and particle tracks

U2’s new tour makes use of a very impressive shape-changing video screen designed by Chuck Hoberman. What piqued my interest was the images in this video of the screen in action: I’m pretty sure that they’re using pho­to­graphs of particle … Continue reading

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1 million frames per second

Most high-speed videos on the internet are in the region of ten thousand frames per second. Werner Mehl has done better, by a factor of a hundred: bullets at one million frames per second. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfDoQwIAaXg[/youtube]

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Nobel Prize for Physics 2009

The Nobel Prize for Physics 2009 has been awarded to Charles Kao for his “ground­breaking achieve­ments con­cerning the trans­mis­sion of light in fibres for optical com­mu­nic­a­tion” and Willard Boyle & George Smith for their “inven­tion of an imaging semi­con­ductor circuit  –  the … Continue reading

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How does he fly?

A Unified Theory of Superman’s Powers

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Decimalising time

This is part of a work in progress… To make teaching sig­ni­ficant figures easier I’d like to decim­alise time. Basics One 24-hour day would become 1 unit of time, six in the morning would be 0.25, midday would be 0.5 and six … Continue reading

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2009 Ignobel Prizes

The Ig Nobel Prizes are awarded for research that “can not, or should not, be repro­duced” or research that “first makes you laugh, then makes you think”. The 2009 prizes have just been awarded: Prize for Math­em­atics Awarded to Gideon Gono, … Continue reading

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Phonetic numberbet

A lot of people know the phonetic alphabet (A  —  alpha, B  —  bravo, C  —  charlie etc.) but not many people know that there is a number equi­valent too: 0. Nadazero 1. Unaone 2. Bissotwo 3. Ter­rathree 4. Karte­four 5. Pantafive 6. Soxisix 7. Sette­seven … Continue reading

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