Thursday, December 31, 2009


The Jan 2010 stories at the FCP site: (1) On the old televsion show Knight Rider, Michael Knight would drive his futuristic car KITT up a ramp and into the interior of a moving semi-trailor truck. Is that really possible? The hosts of the television show Mythbusters recreates the situation. (2) When the cork is loosened on a champagne bottle, it can be ejected so quickly by the high internal pressure that it can hurt someone, especially if it hits the person in the eye. I have a number of links that are either fun or sad, depending on your perspective. Another in the series of physics of getting hurt. (3) I also have a number of links to videos where people play songs on a variety of musical instruments made from vegetables, fruits, and eggs. Ok, this is neat, but I worry about the person who first decided, "Hey, I don't have anything to do right now. So, I tell you what, I'll make a musical instrument out of brocolli!" (4) Why do pictures hung on a wall commonly become crooked with time? Here is the physics of crooked pictures. (5) The old article of the month is the one I wrote in 1979 about the fracture patterns of pencil points and toppling tall smokestacks. Ok, this too is neat, but now I worry about myself and why I sat around for a full day breaking pencil points one after another and examining the broken pieces. I must not have had anything to do that day.
To see all this and more, come to www.flyingcircusofphysics.com and check out the "Spotlight Story" and the "News/Updates."

2 Comments:

Blogger dl meckes said...

I saw this Doonesbury cartoon and it reminded me of the day I introduced you to some interesting properties of corn starch.

http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20100124

That was somewhere around 1975!

Loved your class,

dl meckes

5:10 PM  
Blogger Jearl Walker said...

You are the second person to show that cartoon. Do you realize that I went to MIT and thus that whole cartoon there is quite appropriate. I was (and am) the stereotype MIT nerd. Thanks for introducing me to corn starch physics. (1975? Are we that old?)

4:14 PM  

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