It seems that James Dyson is at it again with the new airblade tap, or “TapBlade” if you will. Too bad the renovations are done!
Tag Archives: physics
Creating steam with water, sunlight, and nano particles
I heard this on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks today. Scientists at Rice University have been able to create steam by putting gold or carbon covered silicon dioxide nano particles in water and shining sunlight on it. They say that 80% of the sunlight’s energy goes into the production of steam, while 20% heats the water independently.
Congratulations, Masha!
M.Sc. student Masha Goiko’s poster on “Cellular Mechanisms of Force Generation in Antibody Mediated Phagocytosis” won first prize at the 2012 Infection and Immunity Research Forum which was held at Western last week. Masha’s research is co-supervised by John de Bruyn from Physics and Astronomy and Bryan Heit from Western’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology.
Scales of the Universe – New & Improved! MUST SEE! #westernu
Remember the ‘Powers of Ten’ from wayyy back? Well this is updated and interactive with eerie music.
Scroll bar goes from Planck Length to Universe Scale-along with captions.
Einstein vs. Bohr Thought Experiment Round 2
Back in the day, when Quantum Mechanics was just getting started, Einstein suggested a thought experiment that would disprove the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, and with that show Quantum Mechanics was inconsistent. Which it could have done if Bohr hadn’t responded in turn with his own thought experiment to win thought experiment round 1 and to keep quantum mechanics alive. Today’s physicists have taken a second look at Einstein’s argument, and say he could have been correct after all. Check this all out here.
Jokes from the desk of a grad student: Vol 4 #westernu
One day, all of the world’s famous physicists decided to get together for a tea luncheon. Fortunately, the doorman was a grad student, and able to observe some of the guests…
* Everyone gravitated toward Newton, but he just kept moving around at a constant velocity and showed no reaction.
* Einstein thought it was a relatively good time.
* Coulomb got a real charge out of the whole thing.
* Cavendish wasn’t invited, but he had the balls to show up anyway.
* Cauchy, being the only mathematician there, still managed to integrate well with everyone.
* Thompson enjoyed the plum pudding.
* Pauli came late, but was mostly excluded from things, so he split.
* Pascal was under too much pressure to enjoy himself.
* Ohm spent most of the time resisting Ampere’s opinions on current events.
* Hamilton went to the buffet tables exactly once.
* Volt thought the social had a lot of potential.
* Hilbert was pretty spaced out for most of it.
* Heisenberg may or may not have been there.
* The Curies were there and just glowed the whole time.
* van der Waals forced himeself to mingle.
* Wien radiated a colourful personality.
* Millikan dropped his Italian oil dressing.
* de Broglie mostly just stood in the corner and waved.
* Hollerith liked the hole idea.
* Stefan and Boltzman got into some hot debates.
* Everyone was attracted to Tesla’s magnetic personality.
* Compton was a little scatter-brained at times.
* Bohr ate too much and got atomic ache.
* Watt turned out to be a powerful speaker.
* Hertz went back to the buffet table several times a minute.
* Faraday had quite a capacity for food.
* Oppenheimer got bombed.
Perpetual Futility
A short history of the search for perpetual motion.
by Donald E. Simanek
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| Bhaskara Wheel with curved spokes. |
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Dark Matter INSIDE a Star! #westernu
A recent article summarized on astrobites states that a star can capture WIMPS [hypothetical dark matter (DM) particles]. These DM particles can transport energy out of the star via collisions BUT do not contribute to radiation pressure since they do not interact/emit photons.
For high DM density environments [dwarf spheroidal galaxies] where a star captures many DM particles, the energy carried away from the inner stellar core can exceed the energy produced there! [see article]
This forces properties of the star to change and alters its position on the HR diagram.
Article:
http://astrobites.com/2012/02/08/dark-matter-inside-a-star/
Paper:
Fractures – Stock Market Crash Warning? #westernu
Physicists at the University of Miami have released a study that focuses on “fractures” in the stock market. A fracture occurs when the price of a stock moves up or down in less than a second, causing instabilities.
A link between fractures and stock market crashes was found – before the September 2008 and May 2010 crashes.
For those of you who don’t enjoy physics and just want to make money this is a good career choice [developing algorithms for traders etc.]
Article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21455-stock-trading-fractures-may-warn-…
Paper:
Jokes from the desk of a grad student: Vol 3 #westernu
Smearing ink on the eyepiece, so as to give the observer an appearance of a “black eye”.
What do you call a lawyer in space? A.) A good start
One blonde asks the other, “Which is closer, Florida or the Moon?
the second answers: “Duh! The Moon! You can’t see Florida from here!
A Higgs-Boson walks into a bar. The bartender says “You know, there were some guys looking for you.”


