On Episode 150 of their podcast Dear Hank and John, Hank and John Green were pondering this, haunting questions:
How many visitors to the Eiffel Tower would have to poop there when they arrive before the tower is covered in poop? How long would that take?
Well, let’s have at it!
Electricity, fuels, heating: energy is all around us. Physicists talk about it all the time to decode the mechanisms behind basically every process. Yet a good definition of energy is hard to come by: what is this “energy”?
Something like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak might actually be the best way to become invisible in real life. Unfortunately, it surely won’t be here for your next Christmas gifts, although scientists are trying (with some success) to understand how to make one.
As we approach spring, the arctic gradually comes out of its long winter night. And as polar winters get milder and milder every year, people started noticing something unusual: the Sun sometimes rises on the wrong day—and in the wrong place.
Continue reading “Climate change might anticipate the arctic sunrise”
Seeing through opaque objects is notoriously hard. Unless you have Superman’s “X-Ray vision”, or those “X-Ray specs” that for decades have promised teen voyeurs the ability to see through clothes. What would be the physics of that? And is it at all possible to have X-Ray vision?
While listening to the always brilliant Hello Internet podcast, I stumbled upon a shocking question: am I deceiving you, my beloved reader, when I try to present science as something exciting?
Thousands of previously unknown Maya structures reveal interconnected cities, defensive walls, landscape architecture, plus space and organization indicating millions of people living there. And they were found thanks to physics.
To know how old a person is, you just ask them. To date fossils you usually compare them with other stuff around them whose age is known. What about the entire universe? You can’t compare it with anything, and it’s been around since literally the beginning of time. How did scientists date time itself?
You know the drill: hand luggage in the X-ray thingy, put coins-phone-keys-bracelets-watch-necklace in the tray and ready for the metal detector. How the eff does it know I forgot to take off my stupid belt?!
Among lightsabers, spaceships, and grandiose special effects, Star Wars: The Last Jedi also offers some reflection on who heroes are, and what part they play in history. And it made me think about my science heroes: Nobel prize winners. Continue reading “Star Wars, heroes, and Nobel Prizes”
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