Tesla Coils, Cans, Bottles and Other Ideas for College Christmas Tree

College Christmas decorations

Christmas is around the corner and everyone is thinking about presents and decorations (unless you still have finals to pass..). Traditional glass ornaments and laces are adorable; however, if you’re bored with this stuff (or simply don’t have any at the dorm), you can create decorations for college in modern way, using almost everything, the only limitation is your imagination. Some science lovers cannot go without science even on holidays and thus yield sometimes strange, or even crazy ideas and hand-made implementations. We don’t recommend you to construct the foregoing stuff at home, as without understanding of physics and proper safety arrangements this could turn into troubles. If you are not a physics lover, proceed to other ideas for Christmas trees in this article. So look! Continue reading

Filed under College Life, Engineering, Physics.

What is the most precise clock in the world?

Most precise clock in the world

We cannot imagine a life of a common individual without such a wise device as clock. Yes, you can object, that  not everyone wears watches these days. Yet everyone owns mobile or smartphone, and one surely has a clock! In fact, the need in time measurement appeared ages ago. Naturally, the question arises: what’s the most precise clock? To answer this, at first we need to understand what it means to measure. In fact, we simply compare one quantity to another, which is called the unit of measurement. The standard measures of time are likely to be based on constant periodical processes of high accuracy. Continue reading

Filed under Physics.

Run or Walk in the rain? How do you stay drier?

Run or walk through rain?

Imagine you walk down the street without an umbrella and suddenly the rain starts. You are empty-handed and don’t have a raincoat while the rain intensifies. What are you supposed to do? What’s the best strategy – to run, to walk, or standing in the rain gives the same result and there’s no need to hurry?

Majority of people immediately answer: RUN! Find the closest shed as quick as possible. The simple truth it seems to be. However, some will venture to disagree saying that there’s no need to run as they would catch more raindrops than during a simple walk. Continue reading

Filed under Math, Physics.

Why the water is blue?

Why the water is blue?

Have you ever asked yourself a question – why the water is blue? Obviously,we mean something large like sea or the ocean. If you take a glass of water, the liquid seems transparent and colorless, yet vast amounts of water possess certain colors. Let’s try to understand why it happens.

The color of the ocean is defined by the mechanism of absorption and dissipation of light by water molecules. Geoscientist Vasily V. Shuleikin described this complicated mechanism only in 1923. It turned out that water molecules move oscillatory, thus, they absorb waves of different length. Red wavelengths are predominantly absorbed, blue are less. Water molecules scatter blue wavelengths by absorbing the light waves and reemit those waves in different directions into the air, while red wavelengths are “swallowed” by the ocean. This makes ocean seem blue, and this is exactly why underwater photos are so full of blueness. Continue reading

Filed under Physics.

Lotus effect or self-cleaning leaves

why lotus leaves are always clean

Have you ever seen a lotus? If yes, you’ve probably noticed that its flowers are not only incredibly beautiful, but somehow stay clean even when the water around is muddy and dirty. Leaves and flowers are not wetted by water, so the droplets roll off them like balls of mercury, washing away all the dirt. Do you know why the leaves of this amazing plant possess self-cleaning property? This is called lotus effect and we’re going to discuss how it works.

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Filed under Biology, Physics.

How to comb a hairy ball

hairy ballHave you ever tried to comb a hairy ball? Really, it is a very important and responsible work. It roots back to old 1912. A Holland mathematician Luitzen Brouwer, who worked in a field of topology and set theory, had shown that hairy ball cannot be brushed in such a way to be smooth and without intersections of hairsprings. At least one hairspring should stick up. This result is now called a hairy ball theorem. Continue reading

Filed under Math, Physics.

Why gold foil is on space objects?

Gold Foil

You could notice that many NASA photographs of spacecraft often feature items wrapped in golden foil. Obviously, it is used for insulation. But why NASA uses gold? And how does it work? As it is known, in space there is solar radiation, which affects the Earth’s atmosphere and is the main source of energy for all the processes in nature. Continue reading

Filed under Physics.