Cool Science

I'll get back to magnets next post, but nothing like the Oscars to make me feel depressed about the sad state of sci fi on the big screen. The Star Trek TV franchises (Voyager,Enterprise) imploded with overwrought scripts and overacting that would make William Shatner blush, leaving little window of opportunity for movies although there is a plan to get something going by 2008. I still say that I liked 'Enterprise' until they went off the deep end with too heavy a dose of time travel. And DS9 really started to come around. I'd like to see them hit the big screen.

Then there were the Star Wars prequels which, despite my every attempt to like them, reached the point that it was embarrassing to watch them. The third one, while much improved, was no where near the level of storytelling of any of the original trilogy. The bright spots include the Riddick series which was unexpectedly fresh and creative and well done, and ditto for Firefly. The annual Lord of the Rings debuts were great, but they're long gone now. Unfortunately, american audiences still resist anime in the mainstream theaters and I don't see that changing either.

So let's let get rid of the recent horde of movies titled "The (insert random noun) and the Whale" like this one or this one or this one (check english translation) or this one or what the heck even this one. And horror has become overdone, silly and boring.

Peter Jackson showed that Sci Fi/Fantasy can win big Oscars, so let's get back to Sci Fi!

Posted by Dave at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So in the dark ages, magnets were gauges of marital fidelity and were sources of a lot of other silliness. How has perception changed today? Of course, mostly for the better. Take Magnetix (c) which I wish they had invented back when I was a kid. I play with this one all the time at the office. Then there is the explosion of rare earth magnets, frequently based on some combination of neodymium and one of my favorite elements boron. Standard fare for these little guys can reach about 1 Tesla according to a fun rave at DansData and that's about 20,000 times the strength of earth's magnetic field as we experience it at the surface of the earth. Dan's toolbelt idea is surely a winner.

I'm crushed to discover that the correct spelling is Neodymium. I had always learned it as Neodynium, and in fact several authoritative sources think so. I'm holding out.

But don't worry, there is still room for excitement and I'd have to say that quackery has a new champion in alex chui. I'm going to say that he is the mental equivalent of Derek Zoolander who eloquently wondered, "'I'm pretty sure there's a lot more to life than being really, really good looking. And I plan on finding out what that is." Well Alex found out - magnets - yes, magnets and ridiculous good lucks are the key to immortality. And magnetotherapy is too painful a subject to even link to.

But if you're feeling REALLY brave, you might try the super magnets (scroll about half-way down). Consider the manufacturers warnings, such as "These are absolutely not toys." and "you must think ahead when moving these" and they can break fingers, hands, arms etc....

Overall, the perception of magnets is doing well. In fact the U.S. government believes that magnet technology is vital to the national interests of the country and maintains a national laboratory in magnet technology and research. Founded originally at the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory at MIT, the National High Field Magnet Lab now resides in Florida.

Posted by Dave at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

William Gilbert doesn't get enough credit. Pick up a copy of 'De Magnete' (pub. 1600) for pennies on the dollar and you'll see why. In the late 1500's, he ran around his house with wires and with small magnets called lodestones and he figured out incredible things about magnets. He coined the term "poles". He was one of the first (maybe the first?) to recognize that there was a connection between electricity and magnetism. He was doing rational, experimental science way before anybody else.

While some in his time believed that you should secretly sneak a magnet under your spouse's pillow and see if they sleep well or not as a test of their marital fidelity, Gilbert knew that this was total garbage and instead figured out real things about magnetism. He would float them in water and see that they aligned with the Earth's magnetic field. He actually figured out that the Earth was a gigantic magnet by playing with miniature scale models. He understood and established that the south end of a magnet pointed north and vice versa. He figured out a ton of fundamentals that we take for granted and he did it at a time that was ruled by superstition, legend, and myth.

I reflect on this a lot and try to figure out what lessons to learn from his work - he was way ahead of his time and his work had an impact for 100-200 years after him. Imagine the clarity and objectivity and, most important, creativity. He had some weakly magnetic rocks and a bathtub and yet he designed elegant experiments that put magnetism on firm ground for the first time in recorded history. BTW, here's a nice review.

And in his spare time he was the Queen's physician. De Magnete. Da Man!

Posted by Dave at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Some of you from just the right generation, after reading this title, might have a wickedly awesdome 80's tune running through your head. The rest of you - well, tough.

I just read in American Scientist a proposal to standardize Avogadro's number by defining it explicitly as a whole number. Right now, N_A is the number of atoms in 12 grams of carbon-12. And the mass of the gram is defined as 1/1000 of the mass of Le Gran K (see a picture on the American Scientist link) a fancy block of metal in France whose mass changes due to cleaning and maintenance, but which in theory is the standard kilogram. The kilogram is the last standard based on a physical artifact - I didn't know that.

Philosophically I think it's a major testament to how far we've come that if a few micrograms of material falls of Le Gran K from a cleaning, that we can actually notice it. I think that's the sign - now that science and technology have advanced to the point that measurement precision has exceeded the stability of the standard, it's time for an improved standard, preferably artifact-free.

It's a nice problem to have - to have come so far that we can consider an artifact-free mass standard. So I think it's a great idea and hope others do too.

Posted by Dave at 07:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I can vaguely define a "Non-Newtonian Fluid" as a substance that behaves neither as a conventional fluid or as a solid but which has morphology (how about them big words) characteristic of both. But I don't understand what it is. Feynman tells a story something along the lines of watching out for people who can spew out impressive definitions but who haven't achieved any kind of understanding. Candidly, this is where I stand with non-newtonian fluids. For example I could even refer you to a wiki page on the stuff which explains that viscosity depends on the strain tensor in non-newtonian fluids. But frankly I definitely have to side with Middlebury College whose history department recently banned citing wikipedia, which was even supported by a very sensible wikipedia spokesperson.

Now a lot of people know this, but just mix cornstarch with water and you have your very own non-newtonian fluid. My high school physics teacher first showed this to me and I was hooked. Squeeze it, press it, roll it and it feels and behaves like a solid. But stop pressing and it will drip all over you. See it on youtube.

I was feeling nostalgic since I haven't played with any of it in a while, so I started surfing youtube and found these crazy guys who mixed up a vat of it and started running around on the stuff. How jealous am I?!!?!?!? Definitely try this at home...

Posted by Dave at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night there was a great documentary on the recent conservation/preservation project for the Declaration of Independence. I was stuck on the couch in a feverish, frozen stupor, so I watched. First of all, NIST has the most amazing milling machines. Talk about your dream machine shop. The new encasements that they machined for the Declaration were breath-taking marvels in titanium.

Second, the show followed some of the work of the conservators. They extracted the Declaration from it's old casing and began examining it - with their hands. And no masks either. They were in a top-secret, state of the art, dust-free, ultra-controlled environment room and they were pawing all over the Declaration. I was waiting for a sneeze as they hovered inches above it without masks - would have been great comic timing - never saw it but it could have happened... This carelessness didn't just show up once or twice, but in numerous scenes that appeared to span the entire restoration/conservation work.

The BEST part is when the conservators are standing around discussing the presence of a well known hand print on the Declaration. One of them is touching it and remarks something like (this is a paraphrase) "Nobody knows how it got there." It doesn't take a scientist to answer this one : BECAUSE SOMEBODY PUT THEIR HAND ON IT!

Here's my prediction. The oils and acids in the skin of today's conservators will take time to have their impact on the parchment (animal skin). But in time they'll lead to discolorations or changes in the structure of the parchment. And 50 years from now a fresh batch of conservators will be wondering where all the little smudges came from on the Declaration.

Posted by Dave at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)