Tag: science
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Is it possible to 'blow' a whistle or other wind/brass instrument underwater? How?
Wind and brass instruments (which I've just learned are collectively 'aerophones') work because since characteristic of their shape causes the air that is pushed or drawn through them to vibrate at particular frequencies. They work in air whether you're down a mine or at the top of a mountain, so there's clearly some tolerance β¦ -
Quick experiment I did using a polarised camera lens filter: looking at a CRT screen and an LCD screen and proving that the light from a LCD screen is polarised (which is a side-effect of the way that they work).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwzUMEuGZHs
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Why are ice cubes white towards the centre but transparent towards the edges?
I've just finished a long work week, got home, and made a gin and tonic, and I'm looking at the ice cubes bobbing in it and noticed something I'd not paid attention to before: the cubes seem to be opaque in their core but more-transparent towards their crust. You can see what I mean β¦ -
Why are different kinds of stars found 'between' the spiral arms of our galaxy than in them?
I was elsewhere in Reddit when somebody made the claim that the space between the spiral arms of our galaxy aren't empty, but are simply filled with different kinds of stars (different luminoscities, etc.). I was skeptical, but other sources claim that this is true, too. However, I can't find any explanation as to β¦ -
I can see (MegaLounge)Earth from here!
[this was originally posted to a private subreddit]
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TIL the ancient Greeks used shocks from electric rays to numb the pain of childbirth and operations
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ISEE-3
Back in early March, I posted comic #1337, Hack, about a wayward spacecraft. ISEE-3/ICE was returning to fly past Earth after many decades of wandering through space. It was still operational, and could potentially be sent on a new mission, but NASA no longer had the equipment to talk to itΒand announced that reconstructing the equipmentβ¦
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Pen testing
When testing a pen, some people write their name, some people scribble, and some write something. Dan looks at the history of testing pens, and shares his thoughts on what we can learn from the way that people go about testing a pen.
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Proxima Centauri is 4.3 light years way: too far to travel. Why don't we just use Mercury (which has an 88 day year) as a staging ground, and launch from there?
Mercury's year is only 88 days, so if we launch a rocket from there, we only have to travel for just over 1 light year, saving time and fuel.
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Edinburgh 2012 - Day Three
Dan watches lots more comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, eats two enormous meals, and learns about science.
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If I put a pair of telescopes in parallel, will the effect be multiplicative or additive?
Suppose I have a pair of 15x zoom telescopes (for example, I separated a pair of 15x zoom binoculars) and laid them end-to-end. Naturally there'd be some loss of field-of-vision when looking through them both. But would the resulting zoom level be 152 (i.e. 225x)? Or 15*2 (i.e. 30x)? Or something else entirely? Or β¦ -
The Back Button
After reading about Torsion Pendulum Clocks on Wikipedia, Dan asks the immortal question of any Wikipedia-surfer: "how did I get here?" It's time... for the Back Button!
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Disaster Analysis
In the aftermath of this week's shocking lunchquake, Dan is joined by Dr. Pepper, who surveys the damage.
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Playing about with dry ice
Some frozen food was delivered to me by courier, packed in a box stuffed with dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide). Not to be deprived of an opportunity, I used the ice to make fog, foggy bubbles, screeching sounds... and to keep my drink cool. Here's a video of some of the highlights. (I also tried β¦ -
Murder... In Space!
Friday night was Murder... In Space!, our most recent murder mystery party. This is the second of our murder mystery nights that I've been the author of (the first one was Murder In The Reign Of Terror), and I took a lot of what I learned from the experience of writing and co-hosting of that β¦