Tag: Physics

I imagine physicists all over the world must have been titillated by the news that broke out yesterday: scientists at the CERN laboratory have discovered what they think is the Higgs Boson particle. If you want to join in their merrymaking, Jorge Cham, the creator of PhD Comics has created a – wait for it – comic that explains in pretty simple terms what the fuss is all about.

Albert Einstein was a scientific bad-ass. I think we can all agree on that. Einstein gave us theories that explain some of the most unexplainable things about our universe. Scientists still live by many of his theories, such as the theory of general relativity despite the fact that Einstein has been dead for nearly 60 years.

Jarno Smeets is either one bad-ass geek or a bold-faced liar. This dude appears to have created one of my lifelong dreams using kite fabric and engineering prowess. Smeets has built for himself and one pair of flapping wings that apparently allow him to actually fly like a bird.

If you liked shows like Mr. Wizard as a kid, you’ll want to check out this neat video, which shows students from the University of Pennsylvania separating two colored fluids that have been mixed together and suspended in a highly viscous liquid.

I always thought the Gundam already knew how to walk, but apparently the giant mech never really knew how to do it properly. So leave it to some enterprising Japanese geek to come up with a way to get Gundam to learn how to walk using a CGI physics engine.

The latest slingshot from Joerg Sprave has turned up and while it’s lacking the zombie (and coconut) crushing power of the last one we talked about with a hammer on the end, the new one is pretty hot.

I’m sure many of you have are familiar with the Rubens’ Tube, which is a device which works sort of like a VU meter, but with flames. But I have to say that this thing is even cooler.

If you’ve seen the movie Inception, then you probably already know about his spinning top. If you haven’t, then I’m not about to go spoil the movie for you. However, I am going to talk about that top he keeps on spinning.

The Meissner effect is defined as “the expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor during its transition to the superconducting state.” When put to the test in scientific experiments, it usually manifests itself as magnet hovering above a liquid nitrogen-cooled superconductor.

This machine is claimed to be yet another one of those fabled “perpetual motion machines” that makes its way onto the Interweb every once in a while.

Fellow humans, mark this month of November, 2010. For it is on this month that our great science peoples have solved one of our centuries old mysteries, a question that have kept many a stoned person up at night.

This amazing creation by robot enthusiast Hinamitetu appears to be getting ready for the Robot Olympics. As it builds up speed in the video below, the little robot eventually builds up enough speed to spin all the way around the horizontal bar, and even attempts to release its grippy hands mid-spin (with questionable success).

Oregon Trail is an undeniable classic, but all that long, laborious travel, all that pesky resource management… after a while, don’t you really just want to start jumping the mountains in your covered wagon? Let’s Go Find El Dorado is a game tailor-made for anyone who ever wanted to see a cow ramp over the mountains while slogging away on the Oregon Trail.

Scientists working for NASA have built a “variable gravity simulator” powerful enough to levitate drops of water up to 2 inches wide, and even young mice. The device is made of a “superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals.”

Here’s a fun concept for a video game… you’re stuck in a maze and the only way out is to puke all over the place. That’s the basic concept behind Spewer. In this indie physics-based game from Eli Piilonen and Edmund McMillan, you play a test subject caught in a variety of devious puzzles, and your only method of escape is to barf your guts out so you can float your way out of the maze.

If the Space Invaders can get physical, why can’t Pac-Man too? But unlike the strong gravitational pull in the Invaders’ physics simulation, Pac-Man and his ghostly pals have gotten the zero gravity treatment in this odd little update on the classic arcade maze game.