Many apologies for the total lack of good, hard, bad science on this site lately. I have a few items to bring to your attention but sadly no time to properly write about them, being as I am working no less than three jobs (one full time, two fun-time), moving house, being ill and a host of other annoyances.
Console yourselves, then, with this video demonstrating a homebrew air cannon capable of blowing giant smoke rings!
Add comment April 26th, 2007
In October, NASA launched two twin satellites, each built to capture images of the sun. Following one behind the other in orbit, the aim of the Stereo mission is to provide 3D pictures and video of our nearest star. The first batch of footage is back, and I have to say, it’s breathtaking.
Unfortunately NASA have released the pictures as classic red/blue 3D, which means you’ll need to get your hands on a pair of 3D glasses to view them properly. Other choices would have been wobble stereo or stereoscopic pairs of images, but perhaps NASA are planning to give away 3D specs in boxes of Ricicles or something.
Add comment April 24th, 2007
Seeing as the laser coffee video was getting so many hits, I thought I’d bump this classic Awesome Science Video of exploding coffee…
I’ve oft heard rumours on the internet that a cup of coffee made in the microwave could explode in your face, but I’d never seen any evidence for it until today. Witness, if you will, the fearful phenomenon that is superheating. Just like supercooling, pure water heated in a smooth container lacks the nucleation sites for steam bubbles to develop. The result is water above 100 degrees C that isn’t boiling. And just like its cool cousin, superheated water is highly unstable - the slightest distubance or introduction of impurities will result in an explosive “instant boil”. Scary stuff.
Add comment April 18th, 2007
Continuing in our theme of bullet-time photography, I have a slew of slow-motion shows for your visual entertainment. OK, so calling these “science” is a stretch, but I’m including them because natural curiosity is a fundamental part of learning.
Firstly, another water balloon bursting in slow motion.
If lighters were like this all the time, I’d probably smoke.
Finally, a great little clip of some popcorn transforming from boring kernel to tasty snack.
Add comment April 16th, 2007
“The Reactable” is a cross between a theremin, a synthesiser, and a projector, and it’s quite possibly the coolest instrument ever made. To hell with hippy-lite trustafarians sat round a campfire tawnging Jack Johnson covers on a £20 guitar, whip one of these bad boys out and you’ll be the toast of the party.
Their website states, somewhat incomprehensibly:
The reactable is a multi-user electro-acoustic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical artefacts on the table surface and constructing different audio topologies in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.
Ha, right, whatever guys. Essentially, by placing objects on a table, sound is created. Rotate the objects, move them about, add more, rearrange them, and the sounds change. Actions speak louder than words anyway, so take a look at this awesome footage of the Reactable in action.
4 comments April 11th, 2007
Every year, students at MIT compete in the university’s Student Origami Competition. The results are pretty astounding - for a technology-based institution these guys seem to be taking a lot of inspiration from biology. The results can be seen here.
Add comment April 10th, 2007
Proving once again that science and fun go hand-in-hand, the following videos show water balloons bursting, shot at around 1000 frames per second. Played back at regular rates, the videos are slow enough to show the surface of the water tearing from the snapping rubber, leaving a pleasing ball of water hovering mid-air.
For those that doubt the scientific merit of water balloons, I direct you here, where you can see NASA scientists getting wet and wild, bursting water balloons in low gravity and trying to catch the water blobs before their DC-9 bottoms out of its freefall.
Add comment April 4th, 2007
The curious Phrenopolis has created a scale model of a hydrogen atom, eleven miles wide!
And you thought there was a lot of empty space in the solar system. Well, there’s even more nothing inside an atom. A hydrogen atom is only about a ten millionth of a millimeter in diameter, but the proton in the middle is a hundred thousand times smaller, and the electron whizzing around the outside is a thousand times smaller than THAT. The rest of the atom is empty. I tried to picture it, and I couldn’t. So I put together this page - and I still can’t picture it.
Spotted by Tom P over at the Bad Science forums
Add comment April 2nd, 2007
We all know that far from being dour men of learning, most scientists are overgrown schoolboys who like nothing better than to abuse their million dollar lab equipment for their own amusement. What other explanation could there be for using a 2 kilowatt laser to make the morning coffee round?
Add comment April 2nd, 2007
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