Can I find a consistent, predictable clock inside Minecraft? How were the time units we know create, anyways? Why are there 24 hours a day and 60 minutes an hour? Can I use this information to figure a way out of my predicament?

Watch, and join in the adventure.

Please LIKE the video and SUBSCRIBE to the channel! Got any ideas for me? Drop me a line!

The post Sciencing Minecraft: Measuring time appeared first on SmarterThanThat.

There’s only one way to find out!

Join me in this new YouTube video series; I’ve been pulled into Minecraft, and now I’m stuck here, my only hope of coming back to our universe is to understand the rules that govern this new one.

Stay tuned for more videos in this series. Have any ideas of experiments and concepts to go over? Drop me a line!

And, if you like this project and can’t wait for more, please like the videos and subscribe to the YouTube channel! More numbers mean more chances YouTube algorithms will spread the video around, and more people can watch and enjoy the joy that is science!

The post Sciencing Minecraft: A new project appeared first on SmarterThanThat.

The energy required to accelerate things

The phenomenon and problem

Time, movement and speed

We’re not using relativistic speeds

Why we’re not using relativistic speeds

Reason #1: Because those speeds are stupidly unhelpfully large

Reason #2: Because the portal-entrances behave like they’re local to their environment

So how much energy would it take!?

• We’ll take into account a thin teenager mass; 50 kg (110 lb)
• The time differential is 1 day on earth for 100 years in demon universe
• Passing through the portal is not instantaneous (that’s a mess, physics’ly) so we will assume it takes about a second to pass through.
• The teenager falls (or is pushed) into the portal at 1 meters per second

Everything explodes

Yeah, boom. Big boom.

Conclusion: The portal absorbs a lot of energy

Have something to say? Think I made a mistake, or found an error in the calculations? Speak up in the comments! You can also send me a direct message or say hi on Twitter!

References and resources

• Wikipedia “TNT equivalent” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TNT_equivalent
• Wikipedia, “Comparison of ICBMs”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_ICBMs
• Khan Academy, “Kinetic Energy”: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-physics-1/ap-work-and-energy/kinetic-energy-ap/a/what-is-kinetic-energy

The post Buffyverse Physics: It’s about Time (Pt 2: Energy) appeared first on SmarterThanThat.

Note: If you haven’t watched Season 3 Episode 1 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, be aware that this post will contain spoilers. Even though it was released in 1998 (twenty years, y’all!) it’s a super fun watch, so go watch it first, and come back for some science.

The phenomenon

Buffy encounters a demon that unceremoniously throws teenagers into a portal to another dimension where they are forced into hard labor. When they’re too old, they’re tossed out into our universe again.

Except in demon-dimension, time passes super fast compared to ours; 100 years in demon-verse is only 1 day in our universe, so what was 70 or so years for the poor teenager doing hard labor, is less than a day for Buffy.

We learn that fighting demons is time consuming, which leads to an extremely important existential question: If Buffy created a belt out of wrist watches, would it be a complete waist of time?

… Okay okay, I’ll stop while I’m ahead. Let’s jump into the science of Time.

The problem(s)

Here’s the thing. Time is important — nay, fundamental — to our understanding of the universe. The way our universe behaves is closely connected to how time moves and how we perceive it.

If we are throwing random mostly-unsuspecting teenagers into a portal where they rapidly move from regular-time to fast-time, we have some ‘splainin to do.

There are three main issues we are going to talk about in this series of posts, all of which touch on the effect of changing time references and how time (and speed) work:

1. Relativity: We have two places where time runs differently. There is a Physical theory that touches on the effects of that, and that is “Special Relativity”
   
2. Energy: Time affects movement and speed, so if an object moves from slow-time to fast-time, it becomes faster… How much energy is required? What happens to this energy, where does it go?
3. Biology: What happens to the human body as it climbs in or out of that portal? What happens when it’s halfway through?

As always, we’re using the (fictional) events in this episode to examine real science, while acknowledging the universal laws of physics inside Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which are, pretty clearly, different in some aspects than the real world.

That means we can examine what our known science tells us, and then examine how the universe of the show solves any inconsistencies. That’s right, there are ways to solve all the problems I’m raising, so bear with me through this exploration, and we’ll see how Buffy not only wins over demons, but wins over physics, too.

Strap in, scoobies, we’re going in fast!

Time and space, and how they’re related

When we look at our universe and how it behaves, we describe it through a four-dimensional model: Three spacial dimensions (x, y and z) and a time dimension (t). That is, we look not only at where things are, but at where they are at any given time. This allows us to predict phenomena.

While in our current known universe we haven’t yet found any portals that lead to demon dimensions (I’m looking at you, CERN,) we do have examples where time does change and shift on us.

It is well established, proven, and demonstrated time and time again: Our perception of reality, and the mechanics of time, depend on who’s looking, where they are, and how fast they go.

Yup. Welcome to my favorite theory in all of Physics: Special Relativity.

Introduction to Special Relativity

Special relativity is one of my most favorite physical theories. It’s well established, well accepted, and was demonstrated time and time again through… well… time.

The theory itself establishes two main (and revolutionary) claims:

1. The laws of Physics are the same no matter how fast you’re going
2. The speed of light is constant everywhere

These two statements sound pretty straight forward, but what they actually mean revolutionized the entire field of Physics and the way we examine our universe.

Here’s a breakdown of each of those statements:

1. I experience physics the same no matter how fast I am.
   If I am on a moving train and I throw a ball up in the air, it will fall down to my hand as if I was standing still. That means the ball gains my (and my train’s) speed along with me. If I throw that ball forward, it will have the speed I tossed it at plus the speed of the train.
2. Light travels at light-speed no matter what frame it is in.
   Light, no matter what, never goes faster than \(2.99*10^8\) meters per second, ‘c’.
   If I shine a flashlight forward on a moving train, the light will go at speed ‘c’ and not c+train-speed, because light speed never changes.
   Unlike the ball I tossed in #1, light beam does not care it starts out already moving.
   

Makes sense? It took a bit to convince the scientific community — but these are absolutely and undeniably proven. They’re true!

The best way to explain Special Relativity is through visual examples. I was going to delve deep, but to be honest, there’s a really cool video, by PBS, that does a bang-up job, and seeing these effects on the screen is a lot more effective than reading theoretical claims.

Take a few minutes and watch it. I’ll give a couple of examples below if you don’t have time to watch, but won’t get into the “how” or “why” of these too much. Watch the video, it’s worth the time, really:

The two main phenomena that Special Relativity describes are time dilation and length contraction. They both stem from the two fundamental claims above, and their effects are mind boggling and incredible to think about.

Time dilation

The faster you go, the slower time passes for you, relative to an observe in a slower reference frame.

The “Twin Paradox” (that isn’t a paradox at all) explains this best. Think of a pair of twins. One goes on a spaceship for a trip around the solar system, and one stays on Earth.

The traveling twin experiences a trip that takes, say, a month to complete. She gets back to Earth, excited to share her experiences — only to meet her sibling, who’s waited for years. Maybe even decades.

Yeah — it’s that meaningful. Time slows down for the traveling twin, significantly. Are they even twins anymore? This isn’t the type of paradox that implodes the universe — it’s the type that makes you stare at your clocks in confusion. You may not have even believed it, had it not be so incredibly repeatedly proven to be true.

This is the first part of why Relativity is awesome.

Length contraction

And here’s the second part: The faster you go, the more space is contracting for you, relative to me, the slower observer.

I look at Bob in his train, but what I see isn’t a regular Bob — I see a squished Bob in a squished train. The faster Bob goes relative to me, the more squished I’ll see him and his train.

The Physics Classroom has a really good article with some animations demonstrating these effect.

These effects happen in any speed. Even when you’re in a regular car, your time is dilated and your length is contracted compared to a bystander looking at you from the sidewalk, but the difference in these speeds is so minuscule, we never notice it.

When you travel really really fast, though, we do notice. And it has significant effect. So significant, that we have to account for time dilation and length contraction in instruments we send to space.

Physics is awesome, y’all. Seriously. I could go on forever, in any frame of reference.

So what does this have to do with Buffy?

Right, right, we’re not just here to gush about the incredibly awesome effects of Special Relativity (good thing you stopped me, guys) we’re here to examine the specific science of demons throwing teenagers into demon dimensions.

So here it is: We have normal-time dimension (our world) and super-fast-time dimension (demon) so we have two frames of reference, and we have relativistic effects. Huzzah!

…. except the portal is opaque, which means we don’t see into it, which means we wouldn’t really see any length contraction or time dilation. Good on the writers for preventing themselves a visual effects nightmare.

But that doesn’t mean relativity isn’t in effect in this episode. In fact, it’s a major driver for the plot.

What makes time move faster in the demon dimension?

See, this is a great question.

As we’ve seen from looking into Special Relativity, the perception of time (the actual passing of time) changes based on reference frames. We, in the regular universe, experience time a lot slower than the demons in the demon-universe.

This would happen if we are travelling really really fast relative to the demon-dimension; so fast, that the time dilation we experience is 36525 times slower than demon-dimension.

But, you ask (I know you do) — How fast are we going relative to the demon-dimension?

Another great question, and we can find this out through some calculations..

We are told in the episode that our universe experiences 1 day for every 100 years in demon universe — that’s how much we are “time dilated”. If we know this, we can figure out how fast our universe is going relative to the demon universe. You can expand the calculation below, or look directly at the result.

We’re going at 0.99999999962 times the speed of light, compared to demon dimension.

Whoosh! Hold on to your beany, Willow! No wonder time’s so slow here compared to there. We’re flyyyyying!

Another reason for the time difference: Gravity

Before we close this specific segment of the explanation (and move to the next) we should acknowledge another way for the time differential to exist.

General relativity.

Yeah.

You thought you were done, didn’t you? Ha, I say. Ha. It’s time to go over an alternative theory, and check if it’s valid.

General relativity describes the relation of spacetime as it touches gravity. The higher the gravitational pull, the slower time goes.

If you’ve seen the movie “Interstellar”, you might remember the planet near the black hole, where the water tides were pretty insane. Not only did the black hole wreck havoc on the tides, it also dilated time pretty significantly. That’s because it’s a massive piece of mass, right nearby, and it warps spacetime itself.

For this to be the reason of the time differential, though, we — in our real universe — would have to be the ones affected by the massive gravitational pull. Without going into too much of a magical stretch here, that seems completely implausible, even when we take into account Buffyverse magic stuff.

We don’t have, anywhere in the series or the real world, any acknowledgement or observation or any other sort of data suggesting that we’re near a big enough mass to produce the time difference. And since we have an alternative theory (that we’re moving really fast compared to demon-world) we can accept that, instead.

Hurrah for scientific inquiry! 

Back to the actual point of this post.

Conclusions

We’ve spent all this time examining special relativity, some aspects of general relativity, and figuring out how fast we are moving compared to demon-universe. What does that mean for Buffyverse physics?

Conclusion #1: We’re super fast

Our universe is travelling at almost the speed of light, compared to demon-universe, which is why time moves so slow for us. We are inside a time-dilated universe compared to demon-world. HOW COOL IS THAT!

Conclusion #2: The endpoints of the portal are moving

The portal serves as a doorway to the other frame of reference. We’re moving, the entry point of the portal moves with us, but its other side is moving at demon-dimension’s speed.

One side moves at one speed, the other at another, which means that anything that passes through will go through a (quick) change of velocities before they completely pass.

Where’s the energy to change speeds coming from? What changes the velocity? What happens to people who are climbing through when they’re halfway in and halfway out? Does it affect them? Their bodies? WHAT WILL HAPPEN!

… All of these are excellent questions, and I’m so glad you’re asking them because I thought about them too while watching the episode.

In the next posts, we’re going to continue exploring the science behind those multiple dimensions, and figure out how our not-so-merry band of teenage laborers deal with their predicament, the science way!

Check back for part two of this series, that will deal with the interesting concept of the energies required to change speeds quickly (and answer where that energy goes)

After all — we have Time!

Have something to say? Think I made a mistake, or found an error in the calculations? Speak up in the comments! You can also send me a direct message or say hi on Twitter!

Dynamic relativity calculator!

If you’re wondering what would be the difference if the demon universe had a different time effect (or, maybe, if we find an alternative demon universe with a different time differential) you can check it out for yourselves, with my dynamic relativity calculator.

References and resources

• Wikipedia, “Spacetime” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime
• The Physics Classroom, “Mechanics: Work, Energy and Power”: 
  https://www.physicsclassroom.com/calcpad/energy
• Wikipedia, “Annus Mirabilis papers”: 
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annus_Mirabilis_papers#Special_relativity
• Wikipedia, “Maxwell’s Laws of Electromagnetism”: 
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations
• Wikipedia, “Hafele-Keating experiment”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafele%E2%80%93Keating_experiment
• HyperPhysics, “Time dilation” http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Relativ/tdil.html
  

The post Buffyverse Physics: It’s about Time (Pt 1: Relativity) appeared first on SmarterThanThat.

And this time, we’re going to talk about the heating and cooling of vampire bodies. Yeah, it’s Vampire Thermodynamics, baby!

The phenomenon

In season 4 episode 7, “The Initiative”, a soldier looks through a thermal camera, in search for a vampire. He sweeps the university dorms, watching the camera as it spots hot bodies and marks them as human… until he hits a blue shape. “[wikipopup]Room temperature[/wikipopup]!” he exclaims, using that to recognize the vampire.

… wait… Really? [wikipopup]Room temperature[/wikipopup]? If the vampire’s room temperature, how would the thermal camera distinguish between the vampire and the rest of the room? If the vampire was room temperature, you wouldn’t see them through that camera, just like you wouldn’t see the shape of the bed, or a vase in there… would you??

But bear with me, because this gets a little worse before it gets better: The camera displays the vampire as bluer than the room, which means it recognizes it as colder than its environment. Colder than room temperature… so… would he be? Would a vampire be warmer, colder, or room temperature? Is the soldier wrong, is the camera wrong, and is there even a way to tell!?

Well… Yes. There is a way to tell, and it’s pretty spot-on science, too, so strap in, scoobies — it’s time for some Buffy physics!

Brief introduction to Thermodynamics

If you read Wikipedia, it would tell you that [wikipopup]Thermodynamics[/wikipopup] is “the branch of physics concerned with heat and temperature and their relation to energy and work”, which is (as often is with Wikipedia articles about science) absolutely true. Thermodynamics deals with temperature changes, and how objects regulate their heat transfer.

You probably heard a lot about the (in?)famous “[wikipopup]Laws of thermodynamics[/wikipopup]”. They all basically touch on conservation of energy, except from different angles. Here they are, with my attempt to simplify them. And yes… we… we start counting from Zero…

• [wikipopup]Zeroth law of thermodynamics[/wikipopup]: If two systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are also in thermal equilibrium themselves.
  [wikipopup title=”Thermodynamic equilibrium”]Equilibrium[/wikipopup] is the state where a system is at balance. If you have a hot object in a cold environment, the system will attempt to reach a balance — the hot object will “shed” heat into the environment, which will result in the object cooling, and the environment heating up, until both are balanced with the same temperature.
  This law, then, is a fairly obvious equality rule (if A=C and B=C then obviously A=B), but its existence helps define what temperature means. Also, if you state it out loud in discussions, it makes you sound like you know your stuff
• [wikipopup]First law of thermodynamics[/wikipopup]: When energy passes into and out of a system, the system’s internal energy changes in accord with the law of conservation of energy.
  Basically, this means that energy is conserved, and that perpetual motion machines of the first type (where energy is miraculously created out of nowhere) are impossible.
  
• [wikipopup]Second law of thermodynamics[/wikipopup]: In a natural thermodynamic process, the sum of entropies of the interacting thermodynamics systems increases.
  This law very generally means that when energy changes forms in a system, its entropy (disorder) increases. Meaning if there’s a transfer of energy in the system, the system also loses order and becomes more random. You pay for energy exchange. Energy isn’t free.
  An example would be a campfire; you burn solid strong logs to emit heat, but in the process, the log breaks apart into ash and smoke and all sort of gasses, which, in turn, burn faster, and will never combine again into being a wooden log.
  It also means that perpetual motion machines of the second type (where heat/energy is transferred into useful work but without any other effect, like loss of useful energy to create more energy) are impossible.
• [wikipopup]Third law of thermodynamics[/wikipopup]: The entropy of a closed system approaches a constant value as the temperature approaches absolute zero.
  This is a fancy way of saying that a system at absolute zero also stops changing.
  [wikipopup]Absolute zero[/wikipopup] is the lowest temperature that’s theoretically possible, where the motion of particles that constitute heat would be minimal. It’s zero degrees Kelvin, which is -273.15 degrees Celsius, or -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit.
  Simplified: Super-cold systems are frozen.

(Source: Wikipedia)

(Note: Please don’t send me emails about your brilliant invention of a [wikipopup]perpetual motion machine[/wikipopup], which scientists all ignore because of [conspiracy placeholder] unless it was published in a reputable peer-reviewed publication and was deemed reproducible, or unless you’ve won a Nobel Prize for it, in which case I’d like to be your best friend forever)

But what does that actually mean?

So what does that all mean? The most important concept that we’re going to delve into is the way temperatures balance out in objects that share the same system.

Much like humans, objects are affected by their environment. Very generally and simply, if an object is in warm environment, it will absorb heat and warm up. If it’s in a cold environment, it will “shed” its heat and cool. This is another example of the principle of equilibrium: Hotter temperature is higher energy, and in a (closed) environment, energy is preserved, meaning warmer objects will balance out with colder objects, spreading the energy around so it’s in “thermal equilibrium,” meaning (usually and for the most part) that they all have the same temperature. That’s how conservation of energy happens.

The easiest way to think about how this happens in our lives is the pavement. During the day in the hot sun, the pavement heats up. During the night, it cools. But it doesn’t do that instantaneously; it takes a bit of time to heat up or cool down, which we can notice if we walk on it, or if we drop our keys into a puddle in Manhattan and get on our knees to fish it out… not… that it ever happened to me… or anything.

You’d notice that earlier in the morning, even though the sun is shining bright and the day is hot, the pavement is still cold to the touch. And at night, even if it’s chilly outside, the pavement can still be warm to the touch while it cools down.

The speed at which an object warms up or cools down has to do with several variables — the initial temperature of the object itself, the temperature of its environment, and the material the object is made of, which affects how quickly the object transfers energy — or, in other words, how quickly it would cool down or heat up. This is the [wikipopup]heat transfer coefficient[/wikipopup].

How thermal cameras work

In the episode, the soldier is holding a thermal imaging device that shows him different bodies with their “heat signatures” until he spots the anomalous vampiric one. Before we delve into what that means and whether the anomalous reading would have even happened, and whether the soldier is reading his own device properly (muttermutter) let’s very briefly check into how thermal cameras even work.

Thermal cameras have infra-red lenses that focus infrared light from whatever they’re looking at, and translate the infrared radiation visible light that we can see on their screen.

Infrared energy is a piece of the electromagnetic spectrum, that itself includes all types of radiation, from gamma rays, x-rays, ultra violet, and the visible light spectrum that we can all see with our own eyes. The higher the object’s temperature is, the more infrared radiation is being emitted (through [wikipopup]Black-body radiation[/wikipopup]).

So, if the camera analyzes the radiation it receives, it would attach blue-to-red colors according to the intensity of the area the radiation is coming from. Hotter objects will be painted redder, and colder objects will be painted bluer. This is true for these type of thermal devices; other devices (and you can see that in some movies and TV shows) may paint the picture green to red, or any other color. Red usually symbolizes “hot”, though. Somewhat obviously.

(Minor) problem #1:

Anyone who’s dealt with TV remote controls knows that [wikipopup lang=”simple”]infrared[/wikipopup] isn’t very good at passing through walls; worse, most buildings that carry humans in them use walls that have some insulation — which inherently means that heat is trapped inside. So… the ability of a remote camera looking into a building and spotting people, objects, and vampire heat signatures, through the walls, would be incredibly improbable.

That said, the beams would travel through windows, so we can assume that the camera angle we’re watching this scene through is just off, and the soldier is actually looking through a series of windows into the dorms, which would allow them to spot the infrared radiation that tells us of the heat signatures of objects and vampires inside.

Go with that.

Vampire thermodynamics

Now that we know how thermal cameras work, and the basics of thermodynamics, the actual question of this episode is evident: What would a vampire’s heat signature look like? Or, rather, would the vampire be hot, cold, or room temperature?

Generally speaking, we go by the universal rules of physics that the show gives us. In this case, we have a thermal camera, and it seems to show the vampire as colder. The soldier is telling us that the vampire is colder than the humans (whether they’re right that they’re “room temperature” or whether the camera is right that they’re colder than that is to be determined). Since that’s the case, we’re safe in assuming vampire bodies are, in fact, affected by thermodynamic calculations, so we can delve into those.

Our first mathematical stop is [wikipopup]Newton’s law of cooling[/wikipopup] (which, btw, is often used to derive the calculation done to estimate time of death on corpses, so… hi, vampire!)

\(T(t) = T_{\mbox{environment}} + \left( T_{\mbox{initial}} – T_{\mbox{environment}} \right) * e^{-k * t}\)

And the variables are:

• \(T(t)\) is the temperature at a given time \(t\) in hours
• \(k\) is a cooling constant for the body
• \(T_{\mbox{environment}}\) is the ambient temperature,
• and \(T_{\mbox{initial}}\) is the object’s initial temperature

Initial temperature of the vampire

The vampire in question in this scene has spent their day in a cool crypt, then a cool room, and then the night’s air. All three environments are cold to cool — and are definitely colder than the room he walked into. We already talked about how objects (and bodies) are (slowly but surely) adjusting their temperatures to their environment. While living bodies also have a mechanism to emit heat because of the blood circulation that’s going on (though even that is fairly limited; sit in the snow without insulation for a while and your body is dangerously and rapidly going to cool down) — vampires are dead. Which means that their body heat is more similar to dead bodies than living ones, and that their body temperature is more easily adjusted (and is varied) depending on where they are.

If the vampire spent a bunch of time (like, a whole day) in some cold environment, it’s likely their body will have that cold temperature (or close to it.)

We can assume, then, that the vampire’s initial temperature when he enters the room is much cooler than the room. What temperature? Well… here’s Buffy, sitting in the outside air:

She has a light jacket, so the night seem cool but not too chilly. Let’s say 15 degrees celsius (60 degrees Fahrenheit). If the vampire spent his day in a crypt, he’d be much colder, but since the episode has him outside and inside a cool room, we can probably average to the outside temperature rather than go lower.

Ambient temperature of the room

What about the dorm room? What temperature would that be? Let’s have a look:

Well, Willow looks comfortable on her bed, and while she has thick pants and shoes on, she doesn’t seem to have any covers or a jacket. We can assume the room is cozy, but not too hot, but for consistency, we can just call it “room temperature”. There are a couple of accepted definitions for this term, but the general agreement seems to be around 20 to 22 degrees celsius (68 to 72 Fahrenheit) so we’ll call it a solid 20C.

Our equation looks like this:

\(T(t) = 20^{\circ}C + \left( 15^{\circ}C – 20^{\circ}C \right) * e^{-0.223*t}\)

\(= 20^{\circ}C – 5^{\circ}C * e^{-k*t}\)

Vampire’s cooling constant

We have initial temperature, and we have ambient (room) temperature. The equation also uses a \(k\), which is the “cooling constant.” What would that be for a vampire body?

Vampires used to be human (or at least that’s true for the vampire we’re talking about in this episode) so we can use the cooling constant for a human body. Where would we find such a constant (and who the hell tested for that?) you ask? Coroners.

Yep, you heard it right, and it’s no surprise, really. Coroners (and CSI, for that matter) are testing for “time of death” by measuring the body temperature, comparing it to the ambient temperature, and deducing from that how long ago the body stopped producing its own heat, and started cooling. There’s actually a pretty fascinating mathematical explanation on how that constant was found, if you care to read a bit of differential equations.

The bottom line, though, is that the constant was found to be \(0.223\). We use that, then.

The final formula for our calculations:

\(T(t) = 20^{\circ}C – 5^{\circ}C * e^{-0.223*t}\)

(Note: That formula is in hours, because 0.223 is the cooling coefficient in hours for the human body. When I calculate per minute, I adjust for that. You can check out the online calculator to see that in detail)

So, what would the thermal camera see??

Now that we have all the variables, we can start calculating the expected temperature of the vampire in the room, as his body slowly warms up to ambient temperature. From the episode, it seems like the camera would look into the room after a few minutes, so instead of assuming a time, let’s check the temperature in intervals.

• After 1 minute: 15.02 °C (59.03 °F)
• After 5 minutes: 15.09 °C (59.16 °F)
• After 15 minutes: 15.27 °C (59.49 °F)
• After 30 minutes: 15.53 °C (59.95 °F)

You’re starting to see where we’re getting at here…

• After an hour: 16 °C (60.8 °F)
• After two hours: 16.79 °C (62.23 °F)
• After six hours: 18.69 °C (65.64 °F)
• After 12 hours: 19.66 °C (67.38 °F)
• After 24 hours: 19.97°C (67.95 °F)

… it will take the vampire almost 12 hours to get anywhere near room temperature. The soldier was looking through the camera after only a few minutes. There is no way the vampire was anywhere near room temperature, and the thermal camera would see that.

Here are some graphs of the vampire’s temperature (you can play around with these yourself):

Conclusion

Let’s sum it up, then. We have a vampire that is initially colder than the room he walks into. We have a camera that looks at the building and shows heat signatures. The camera shows a blue form for the vampire — that is, a colder-than-environment form. The soldier says “room temperature.”

The soldier is wrong, and the camera is correct; the vampire in question is, indeed, colder than room temperature, and will continue to be for several hours until his body warms up.

Listen to your instruments, soldier!

As for us… well, maybe finding a vampire with heat signatures isn’t the best idea ever, considering your vampire in question may have just spent their entire day in front of a fireplace, flexing and doing tai chi.

You can play around with different temperatures yourself through the online dynamic Buffy Calculator: Vampire Thermodynamics

Check out my dynamic Buffy Calculators here

Want more Buffy?

Want more Buffy? You should listen to the incredible podcast “Buffering the Vampire Slayer” and enjoy the original songs written for every episode!

Interested in more Buffy physics? Read Jennifer Ouellette’s excellent book “The Physics of the Buffyverse“!

Have something to say? Think I made a mistake, or found an error in the calculations? Speak up in the comments! You can also send me a direct message or say hi on Twitter!

References and further reading

• Wikipedia, “Thermodynamics” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics
• Wikipedia, “Laws of Thermodynamics” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_of_thermodynamics
• Wikipedia, “Perpetual motion” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion
• Simple English Wikipedia (this site’s awesome for complex physical concepts) “Second law of thermodynamics” https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
• Wikipedia, “Heat transfer coefficient” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_transfer_coefficient
• Wikipedia, “Black body radiation” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-body_radiation
• Wikipedia, “Room temperature” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_temperature

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In the past 50 years, humanity has made huge steps towards life in space, from landing on the moon to having astronauts spending months in the International Space Station. If (when) we send human beings to Mars, the trip itself will take about 7 months. Combined with some quality time on the surface (or in orbit) and a trip back, these types of missions can take a very long time.

Do we really expect our astronauts to spend years in space without any sort of intimate contact?

[blockquote class=”alignright”]It was Newton who stated that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Usually that rule is very helpful. In this case – not so much.[/blockquote]

There are space hotels planned for the (near?) future, and China has declared its intentions to conduct space weddings (for an inflated price). Do we really expect newlyweds – spacelyweds or earthlyweds – to give up their culturally given right to consumate their marriage?

So how would such an act (or acts) be conducted in a zero-gravity environment, inside a cramped compartment, with limited movement and the laws of Newton out of control?

Until this is tested we can only guess. And in this article, guess we shall.

Physics of Movement

It was Newton who stated that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Usually that rule is very helpful. In this case – not so much.

The first physical principle we must examine when thinking of any sort of intimate interaction in space is collision. Wikipedia defines collision in a manner that seems quite fitting to our context (as well as the general ‘regular’ context, of course):

A collision is an isolated event in which two or more bodies (colliding bodies) exert relatively strong forces on each other for a relatively short time.

So a collision is an interaction between two moving bodies. There are generally two types of collisions – plastic and elastic.

Plastic vs. Elastic Collisions

A plastic collision is rigid – the two bodies will stick together and continue the movement together, as if they are one (combined) object. This, however, is not as romantic as it sounds – the collision itself causes the involved bodies to lose energy to the environment (in the form of heat, for example). Or, if the two bodies are human beings, it might result in bruising.

An elastic collision is bouncier, and results in less energy lost to the environment. It results in both colliding bodies moving in completely separate directions. The directions and angles can be calculated quite simply, if you know the velocity (speed and direction) and the mass of the objects. In fact you probably do that quite a lot – without thinking about it – if you play billiards.

Billiards, or pool, is a great example of seeing these types of collisions for yourself. Hitting a colored ball with the white ball at an angle will usually result in both objects moving in different directions. Sending the white ball softly towards the color ball, “head on”, would result in both balls moving together.

Capn Refsmmat (ScienceForums.net Administrator and “Quirk Side of the Moon” member) has a simple, easy and concise summary of the definition: “An elastic collision goes ‘Boing’. Plastic goes ‘Splat’“. Thank you, Cap’n.

Collisions in Space

In space the situation gets even more complex. Your bodies are not supported by anything at all, and you are at the mercy of whatever bulkheads (or ropes, if you’re into that sorta thing) you can grab ahold of. That can make intimacy a bit tricky. It’s enough to miscalculate a nudge, and you could send your partner flying to the other side of the room, while you do your best avoid the splat on the opposite wall. Talk about killing the mood.

Thrust in Space

Another concept in physical interaction and movement is thrust.

When talking about such intimate scenarios, the word “thrust” often comes up, and usually refers to strong forward movement. In physics, however, thrust is slightly different. It will indeed affect sex in space, but in a completely different way.

In physics, thrust is the reaction force that results when an object expels mass – for example, when a rocket shoots burning fuel out (and loses mass in the process). This follows Newton’s law that an action leads to an opposite reaction. The general principle behind rocket movement is that the energy of burning the fuel is pointed in the opposite direction to the movement. So if pointed backwards, it pushes the rocket forward.

Thrust in such intimate situation will, usually, take place at the conclusion of the act. Think of a rocket, spewing out a stream of heat and fuel, pushing the rocket forward. Now think of the pair of amorous astronauts as they conclude their act. The male, assuming he enjoyed himself fully, might be thrust backwards like a rocket, hopefully not colliding with anything in his way.

Perhaps it would be smart to cover the opposite wall with some cushions.

Possible Solutions?

NASA is the agency generally in charge of researching human (and other animal) behavior in space. They do a very good job in general, but whenever the question of intimacy in space is raised, their response is limited, to say the least. There is no research about sexuality in space, according to NASA. The Russians follow a similar protocol and usually choose not to respond to the question.

But the US and Russian space agencies are not the only organizations that deal with space physics questions. On September 13, 2008, the History Channel led a special experiment in zero-G for its documentary series “The Universe“. It featured novelist and inventor Vanna Bonta, and a special space suit she invented to “house” such intimate acts in space. The group manufactured the suit and then tested it during a zero-G flight.

The suit is made of two different space suits worn by the participants. When they want intimacy, the suits are “hooked” together and transform into a single – quite roomy – “pocket” where the couple can remain close to one another while engaged in passion. This might solve some of the problems with Newton’s laws going awry, at least by controlling the elastic collisions and preventing the individuals from moving away from one another.

So far NASA hasn’t picked it up for mass production, though.

Conclusion

As you can see, sex in space is quite tricky. Newton’s laws, however, are not the only problem for sex in space. Biological processes, chemical reactions, and perhaps many more accompanying phenomena can mean a universe of trouble for a couple interested in intimate interaction. In the next parts we will examine more of these aspects and try to see how they can be dealt with. All for future generations, of course, and all for science.

For now, I will leave you with a summarizing thought: If you still have doubts about the potential romance-wrecking effects of sex in space, imagine an amateur astronomer looking through his telescope at the International Space Station:

Further Resources

• “Sex in Space” by Laura Woodmansee, ISBN-13: 978-1894959445
  Thanks to Laura Woodmansee, via Phil Plait (Bad Astronomy) for the extra resource!
  [AMAZONPRODUCT=1894959442]
• “Astronauts test sex in space – but did the earth move?“, The Guardian (UK)
• “Sex in Space” from Wikipedia (lots of interesting resources there)
• “The Uncomfortable Reality of Sex in Space“, Wired’s “Sex Drive” (Commentary by  Regina Lynn)
• “Outer-space sex carries complications“, MSNBC about the new experiment with the 2suit.
• “Sex in Space“, Space.com
• “The Universe“, a History Channel documentary

Article picture courtesy of Rhys Bennett via Flickr

[notice class=”notice”]This article was originally posted on March 13th, 2009 on SmartAxe, which is now merged with “Explicitly SmarterThanThat, the Grownups Section“.[/notice]

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This is not to say we’re more clueless than in the past. The truth is that people in today’s world possess generalized knowledge about a far wider range of topics than at any other time in history. We are blanketed with data, with knowledge of what’s out there.

People who would in the past have remained completely illiterate can now whip out their cell phones and fling at least semi-coherent text messages across the world in milliseconds. The problem is that knowledge is not comprehension. In other words you might have heard that scientists are saying alcohol is good for you (or bad; it varies, so check the latest news) yet might not understand what led them to that conclusion. And that’s what makes today’s world so great: you can get online and get informed about pretty much anything you want, IF you want to.

In times past, the average Joe (let’s call him Joe Carpenter, for a neat combination of Republican and Christian symbolism) would have thought nothing strange of buying medical remedies in unmarked brown bottles from the local snake oil salesman. Our average Joe Carpenter’s only fact reference was word of mouth and communal wisdom. He’d trust the grapevine if, for example, his wife (let’s call her Mary) heard from all the other women in town that benzene made a great aftershave. Or that cod liver oil would help their children grow up healthy and stay that way.

In the latter case, she’d be entirely correct but wouldn’t have had any knowledge of why — Omega 3 hadn’t been discovered yet. In the former – and yes, benzene was used as an aftershave until its carcinogenic properties became evident – she would have been dangerously wrong. There was simply no way to find out the facts.

But that’s exactly the difference between now and then. We have the Internet, Wikipedia, WebMD, online databases covering every area of expertise known to man. Literally. We have all the information we could possibly ever want right there at our fingertips, all the real facts and plenty of fake ones. Somehow the enlightened, informed Internet world is host to a phenomenal number of falsehoods, bad facts, and scams whether criminal or just dumb (Is the $10 I’ll get for forwarding Bill Gates’ email any more real than your rich, dying uncle in Nigeria who’s going to leave me money if I simply call to claim it?).

Hearsay and superstition still rule the day, except now our misinformation comes from so many more sources than before. Fortunately we also have an expanded ability to check our facts before falling for any of it.

But you tell me: Do we?

[notice class=”notice”]This is a guest post by Daniel Greenberg. Daniel likes to ride small horses around big ponds on medium-sized estates, of which he may or may not have several.[/notice]

Image courtesy of WM Jas on Flickr.

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I’ll expand on PhysicsQuest and why it’s so awesomely cool in a separate post (which it deserves). For now, I want to discuss a rather amusing incident that happened the other day at the office.

Something’s Fishy

I had some work to finish and I decided to stay late. As I was working on my extension activities and trying to devise physics experiments to do at home (familiar?) I noticed the team leader (and my internship mentor), Rebecca Thompson, carrying a fish tank, half full of water, out of the office and towards the kitchen.

She was walking really really slowly, carrying the big tank with both hands carefully, and seemed to make an actual effort to walk steady. I turned and asked if I could help, thinking the tank must be extremely heavy, to which she replied with one of the best physics comments I heard to date:

“It’s not that heavy, but my walking pace matches the resonance frequency of the tank, so I just have to walk slowly.”

Ha! Brilliant! See, most people would simply state “If I walk too fast, water will splash all over me.” But that wouldn’t have been physically accurate, and Becky would have none of that. She stood firm to Physics – and explained it much better.

Resonance Frequency and Fish Tanks

Her explanation was, of course, absolutely right. The ‘usual’ explanation makes the connection between the splashing of the water to the speed of the walk, and that’s not entirely accurate. You could, theoretically, walk faster and still not get splashed, if you manage to walk at a steady pace, not hit anything, and avoid the resonance frequency.

Resonance-wha?

When an object oscillates back and forth steadily, we describe the movement as having a frequency. The frequency is the number of repetitions per certain amount of time. So if an object oscillates back and forth three times per second, we describe the movement as having that frequency of motion: Three oscillations per second (or 3 Hz).

When the fish tank is moved or shaken, the water inside it oscillates back and forth, creating a recurring wave that bounces from one wall of the tank to the other. This wave has a certain frequency, and assuming the walking pace of whoever carries it remains constant, the frequency remains more or less constant as well.

But frequencies also have this unique little phenomenon called “Resonance”. The wave inside the tank overlays itself. Most of the time, the overlaying waves would cancel a small bit of one another, keeping the water well inside the tank. But if the frequency is just right, the recurring waves build-up, and the amplitude (or, in this case, the height of the splashes) increases more and more and more and— you get soaked with fishwater.

For Becky, her normal walking pace creates vibrations that match the resonance frequency of that size of tank, causing the waves inside to increase and increase…. dangerously close to splashing her completely.

Changing the Walking Pace

There are two ways to avoid this resonance frequency – either vibrate the tank slower (as she did by walking slowly) or vibrate it faster. Of course, vibrating the tank faster than the resonance frequency would, in theory, prevent the waves from adding-up dangerously, but it carries the additional risk of either bumping into something (oops) or shaking the tank uncontrollably and having water splash on you regardless of frequencies.

She made the safer choice. And she remained dry. And completely physics’y!

Other Examples of Resonance Frequencies

Resonance frequencies aren’t just about water. They are relevant in many aspects of our lives, especially when new buildings and bridges are built. Whenever something vibrates your new construction, you need to be careful about resonance frequency. Even if your bridge is tough enough to sustain a large amount of weight on it, if the objects on it create vibrations that are exactly right (or, in this case, exactly wrong), you can have a serious problem.

There are a few examples of this actually happening in real life. I didn’t have a camera when Becky carried her fish tank, and I doubt she’d have agreed to a demonstration*, but there are a few videos online that show this principle in much larger scale.

The Tacoma Bridge Disaster

One example of resonance frequency gone bad is The Tacoma Bridge disaster. The original Tacoma Bridge was a suspension bridge built in 1940 in Washington state. It dramatically collapsed less than a year after it was opened.

On the morning of November 7th, 1940, winds were high across the bridge, reaching around 64 km/h (40 mph). This in and on itself probably wouldn’t have been enough to collapse the bridge, but the problem became much worse when the structure began oscillating back and forth like a pendulum. When one side of it would go up, the other went down, and repeated to the other side; this movement back and forth became more and more pronounced, as the bridge reached its resonance frequency.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm0XXuFt30k

As you can see in the video above, the Tacoma Bridge had these ‘swaying’ oscillations much before the disaster occurred. The day of the disaster, however, the oscillation frequency reached exactly that of the resonance frequency, and instead of remaining at a small amplitude, the vibrations increased until the bridge broke.

Here’s a great video summarizing the Tacoma Bridge disaster, including the physical explanation:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mclp9QmCGs

Walk Carefully

Theoretically, then, Becky could have simply run forward with the fish tank to avoid the resonance frequency. That probably would have resulted in shaking the water tank uncontrollably and having herself splashed anyways, so her choice was the best one.

Now, when you carry big containers of water, you can plan your walking pace accordingly! Does the water start splashing higher and higher? try walking at a steady pace, either faster or slower, and avoid the splashy power of the resonance frequency.

* Although it was, in all honesty, a very hot day, I doubt she’d want fishy water all over herself, even for physics’ sake.

Sources and More Info

• Waves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waves
• Resonance Frequency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonance
• Tacoma Narrows Bridge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)

Thanks

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2nd Week, June 10th

Another Physics week just ended and we’re on our way to our third week. Wow. I know it’s a cliche to say time flies (not to mention it’s not very physical), but it sure felt like it. During the weekend we decided to do the tourist thing and visit museums. We ended up walking half of Washington DC’s waterfront on foot and then visited the Air and Space museum and watched their Hubble 3D IMAX show. In the evening, tired but happy and extremely hungry, we decided to cook dinner together and watch a movie. We all made something for the dinner; I made my famous vinaigrette sauce for the salad, but people seemed to prefer the store-bought Feta sauce. I refuse to take it as a hint.

The week was super exciting too. I managed to experiment with quite a number of extension demos and find a few REALLY cool ones I’d like to try for next week. Becky is going to be at some convention so I will be on my own, free to roam the kitchen and destroy plastic utensils and paper cups. We made sure I have a list of “todo”s, which, I have to say, look much better on paper than they do in reality. I need to work on the write ups for the demos I already tested and transform them to Middle-Schooler-safe perfectly understandable quick summary while keeping it engaging and avoiding the ever-so-boring cookbook-style. It’s a lot harder done than thought-of. I just hope I manage to finish them before the end of next week.

On Tuesday evening we all went to a Science Cafe in the NSF building in Arlington. The lecture was very interesting, and I think Anish (who is supposed to arrange some of those himself during the summer) got quite a lot of ideas and some feedback from us. Also, the burgers were awesome. Food and science always work so well together. Sometimes too well. I’m going to have to hit the gym extra this week!

On Friday we met the SPS Executive committee today for lunch, and we will again for dinner followed by a “Capitol Steps” show. They’re great, I already follow them a little through their website, so the evening is bound to be exciting; you will have to wait for next week to hear how it was, of course. Reverting to the beginning of this entry, time doesn’t really fly.

Well… maybe it does, if one second per second counts as flying.

3rd Week, June 17th

This week was so full of events, I don’t even know where to start.

I will be a good physicist and start from the convenient middle, then move back and forth in time.
Wednesday night the wall-mounted mirror in our dorm room decided to test the theory of gravity, a test that resulted in it crashing loudly into the floor and, in the process, shattering to hundreds of reflective shards. It appears gravity was unfazed.

Cabot certainly was, though. He (and I, along with Amanda and Courtney who was also in our room) had to take a moment to recover our beating hearts from somewhere in the basement. The shock was quickly transformed into a conversation about the structural integrity of drywall and the fact that Cabot became stranded in our room now, since he was, unfortunately, barefoot. No worries, though. Amanda made some food and Courtney recovered his shoes while Amanda and I ended up waiting till almost 1am for maintenance to come and save us.

We went to bed really late after a rather exhausting day — but I will get to that in a bit.

I will digress to the beginning now. The weekend was absolutely awesome. The Capitol Steps show on Friday evening was hilarious and we all had a lot of fun. Then on Sunday we walked around Georgetown and ended up waiting in a 45-minute line to get cupcakes. Let me tell you, though, 45-minute-line cupcakes are worth it. They were awesome, and I’m rather happy they require some level of effort to purchase, otherwise I think I’d be eating them much more often, and, quite possibly, ending up looking like one.

Must exert effort for cupcakes. I think I discovered the law of cupcakedynamics.

On Monday we went to Tuckahoe Elementary School to help Amanda and Erin with their activity about Rutherford’s discovery of the nucleus. We had two groups of 3rd graders that simply blew our minds. They were cute and terribly smart. When Amanda asked them what was the smallest thing they knew, we didn’t really expect one of them to yell back “quarks!”. A little physicist in the making! It was such a rewarding experience. The kids seemed to really enjoy the activity, and Amanda and Erin were brilliant. The activity they devised was a complete success, at least for the 3rd graders.

On Monday evening, we went to a science cafe with Joe Palca about his book “Annoying: The science of what bugs us”, which he wrote with Flora Lichtman. It was a lot of fun, and the discussion was great. I also ended up buying the book (I have a little sister, I have to learn the craft) and getting it autographed. Yay!

Tuesday was my first day of the week actually doing work. Becky was out the entire week at a convention out of town, so I had a list of “to-dos” to accomplish. I was so worried I wasn’t going to successfully finish them by the end of the week, that I spent a good portion of Tuesday and Thursday in front of my computer, typing and revising. The fourth floor had a day off of my experiments, though. Despite the incredibly busy and hectic week, I think it was quite productive. I now have seven finished activities that are waiting for Becky to go over them, and I continued to make another list for a few more exciting demonstrations on the subject.

Erin and Amanda had to adapt their lesson to teenagers, since on Wednesday we went on to deliver the same type of activity (revised, of course) to two full classes of 7th graders. Middle-schoolers are much more of a challenge to engage than elementary school kids. It was exhausting and quite different than the younger children, but I thought Amanda and Erin did a great job changing the lesson plan for the older kids. Even the teacher said they were more engaged than usual, and for teenagers, that says a lot. Well done Amanda and Erin!

The day was topped off by a picnic at ACP followed by an egg relay and an open mic, which proved once and for all that physicists are, in fact, quite talented people. At least those who went up to the stage. It was pretty impressive! In the evening we went to have Frozen Yogurt at an outdoor concert in Farragut square – an awesome finish to an exhausting day.

Thursday and Friday were full work-days in the office for us, so I managed to finish my list of to-dos and work on some ideas on more home experiments.

I will take this moment in time to apologize to the fourth floor of the ACP building, and in particular those of you who require the continued use of the kitchen refrigerator. I promise, the balloons and colorful ice cups will be taken out by next week. Or by August, the latest. Promise.

It is now Friday evening, and there is one more really cool thing that just happened: my business cards are on the PhysicsCentral Physics Buzz Blog. How amazing is that? When I made them, I wanted people to have a reason to take them out of the stack at the end of the day (or at the end of a busy convention) and remember who I am, so I made sure there is a little science experiment that goes along with the card. With only the help of a few folds and liquid soap, it transforms itself into a racing boat, demonstrating the principle of surface tension and surfactants. The guys here at the office (who, incidentally, write for PhysicsBuzz blog) thought it would be a great blog post. I’m so honored!

Of course, as I said in the first journal entry, I live and learn. Next time I make these cards, I will make them waterproof.

Here’s for another incredible week!

The post APS PhysicsQuest Internship – 2nd and 3rd Weeks Update appeared first on SmarterThanThat.

After two days of schmoozing and resupplying ourselves, all 9 of us interns traveled to the ACP building in MD for our orientation. We finally put faces to the people we communicated with, got to learn a lot about what they do, what we’re expected to do, and what we’re expecting they’re expecting us to do. We also went home with some wonderful ‘goodies’ like diffraction glasses (which I did not take off for most of the day, and still walk around in, looking at rainbows everywhere) and the GalileoScope. We have to find time and a clear night to test it out properly now.

We had our first-day lunch with Nobel Prize laureate John C. Mather, and got to hear his stories about how his research evolved from an interesting question to building actual equipment that went out to space to a Nobel Prize. That was pretty cool.

Overall it was a great first day, and at its end we each went to our respective departments to get started. Anish, Erin and Amanda are together in the second floor (in the SPS/AIP) while I’m on the fourth (in the APS), so we get to commute together and see each other every day for lunch.

APS outreach group and particularly the PhysicsQuest project is amazing. I get to design extension experiments about Thermodynamics and heat. Good thing I just finished that exam on Thursday! Heat seems to follow me around. But I am happy about that, I love the subject matter and I am very excited to turn my theoretical ideas into practical experiments that can actually work in the classroom and at home.

Of course, that turned out to be easier said than done. Reality? Not like theory at all. Forget undergrad lab where everything is laid out in steps – I need to actually design these steps now from scratch and make them middle-schooler-safe. And apparently, there are no spherical chickens walking around people’s kitchens, so experiments that totally work in theory (and calculation, and force-diagrams, and graphs and discussions) can utterly fail in reality for the silliest things sometimes. Sure, you could, in theory, compare the density of boiling water to that of ice-water by measuring the level of a floating item, but can you do it without boiling your fingers? Not as easy anymore. Also, just in case you’re wondering, some plastic cups melt with hot water. I have tested this hypothesis without even realizing I posed it. I assure you, it’s verified many times over. I was already notified that these are all expected here, and it seems they’re a sort of ‘rite of passage’ in the department, so I guess there’s a bright side to the fails.

So, yes, work is very challenging, but it’s also a lot of fun. These are exactly the things I love doing in Physics – on one hand, find the greatest and most engaging way to demonstrate a physical phenomenon, and on the other make sure it’s accurate, it works, and it’s kid-safe.

I already have two experiments I’ve tested and written up, so I think that’s a nice accomplishment for the first week. Becky needs to go over them both, so I can’t really be sure they’re good just yet, but I think I’m getting there. I have two more demonstrations that I’m about to test and I am pretty sure will work. Of course, I was also pretty sure the boiling water one would work, too, and that ended up failing. Also, the ice balloons? Not a good idea. Live and learn, though. Live and learn.

Until next week: Vini, Vidi, Physics.

Note: This entry is also published in the Society of Physics Students website, here.

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