Applied Physics

Have you ever been stranded in the deep Congo? Hung from a finger on the 27th pitch of the Nose on El Cap? Been jumped from behind by muggers in the Bronx? If so, this tool would have been almost completely useless. However, if you want to enliven any party and/or imply things about your manhood (or femininity?), then you simply can't exist another day without this 2 pound, 11 ounce, 85-tool knife. Notice the telescopic pointer and golf divot repairer tool.

1. 2.5” 60% Serrated locking blade

2. Nail file, nail cleaner

3. Corkscrew

4. Adjustable pliers with wire crimper and cutter

5. Removable screwdriver bit adapter

It's World Series time, which means it's time to talk about physics and baseball once again.    This season, among other things, we've covered the farthest homerun ever hit and how fast a pitcher really can throw (1) and today we're going to cover the curveball.   But that's more that just physics, it's also vision.

Art is many things, but not often enough is it scientific. Fear not, art/science lovers, for Sir Isaac's Loft in the Franklin Institute is here to save the day!

I began describing the Loft in my previous article, including impossible human tricks to try at work or at the bar and amaze your friends! But there's so much more...read on.

Illusions

The eyes of the "inside out dragon" followed me no matter where I walked, which would have been creepy, but he was a cute little blue dragon. Since we aren't used to seeing things inverted, our brains turn the dragon right side out, and it looks "normal."

MacGyver is cooler than you can ever hope to be. But by piggybacking this coolness——adopting the relevant hacks and -isms into your way of moving through the world——you can at least be cooler than your friends. The first step is below (the second step is Netflix). Got other, favorite moments? Comment them below.

Episode 1.04—The Gauntlet: To create a distraction, MacGyver ties firecrackers to the inside of a church bell, attaches a lit candle to the bell’s clapper, and uses rope to hold the bell raised to the side. When another candle burns through the rope, the bell is released and the candle on the clapper swings to ignite the firecrackers.

Science and art aren't mutually exclusive. You can demonstrate scientific concepts artistically, and sometimes even physics can be phun. Take, for example, Sir Isaac's Loft, a feature in the Franklin Institute that "blends art and science into a 3,600 square feet display of aesthetic innovation." And with awesome exhibit names like the "Bowling Ball of Doom," how can you go wrong?

At its most extreme the human body is essentially a fluid filled sack with some structural support.  Water is essentially not compressible.  That means that, when the human body is compressed sufficiently and the structural support (i.e., skeleton) prevents the sack (i.e., body) from continuing to deform, the body must either relocate to relieve the compression or the support must break allowing more deformation.  Fortunately for the other hooker in this video of a scrum, he is able to relocate, rather dramatically, to the approval of the partisan crowd.

This is for John, who correctly noted that there has not been much rugby on the rugbyologist and appears in this video (#8), but, despite having an excellent match against the Chicago Lions, does not really do much productive over these 30 seconds.

Did you even know there was a discipline called paleomagnetics?   Probably not.(1)   It isn't easy to find a category on this site to put it in, that's for sure.

But a discipline it is and it even has its own controversies, as all science must; namely, the nature of Earth's magnetic field 1.1 billion years ago.

The Earth's magnetic field in two sentences:   it wraps around the globe and helps shield us from cosmic rays - lest we all burst into flame or turn into orange rock and say things like, "It's clobberin' time!"  

Transitions are exciting because at temperatures close to absolute zero the transition from one quantum phase to another can provide a deeper understanding of fundamental laws of the universe.  A team of scientists at the University of Chicago has created the first direct images of the transition between phases of ultracold cesium gas, as it changes from normal to superfluid to Mott insulator, making it possible to 'see' the phenomenon as it happens.   

The most striking visual feature of this phase transition?  A many-layered wedding cake structure.