Freaky Fzx Friday - When Our Sun Dies

It makes me smile to know that my little star won't ever become a black hole.
I'm content that scientists understand that stars are the universe's Solar Element Generators.
And I giggle in wonder because our yellow sun is wonderfully stable.

But it'll die eventually.

Goodbye Sun

Tek Tip 2sD #5 - Eyes and Ears

I often work with a bench grinder and an angle grinder so sparky metal flies everywhere.  The wire wheel on that angle grinder drops little pieces of wire that fly off at a tangent and draw blood on a regular basis.

Sometimes that little piece of steel ends up on my eye.  It's happened twice since I didn't learn the first time that I'm supposed to wear eye protection.

In the sun or on a bicycle I sometimes wear these.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Solar Element Generators

Our Freaky Universe so far:

• Birth of the Universe during birth week.
• Brief break to give thanks to God for the universe.
• The ensuing Expansion of the Universe last week.

After a few hundred thousand years, the universe had expanded and cooled enough that the gravitational force between all objects with mass started pulling the protons together to begin the formation of nebulae and galaxies and stars.  Try reading that in one breath.

A big ball of protons (with electrons) pulled each other together and compressed under their mutual gravitational force to form the first star.  As they were compressed, the temperature increased to millions of degrees Celsius and the protons moved faster and faster.  

So is the sun just a big ball of fire?

Tek Tip 2sD #4 - HAMMER drill TIME

It's Hammer Time

Now this is a drill!  Bit.

Butterfly Belt

I got a Carhartt belt with good leather that was way too long at a thrift shop.  Then I picked up a butterfly belt and decided to combine them.

The Carhartt leather is excellent and the butterfly buckle isn't bad.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Christmas is Coming the Universe is Getting Fat

As we get older, we tend to expand horizontally.  The universe has been doing the same.  Looking in all directions, we see everything moving away from us.

Tek Tip 2sD #3 - Impact Wrenches

Here are some 1/4" bits.

   

And here is a driver.

Hamburguesa Completa

During our last visit to Paraguay I bought a motorcycle and had lots of adventures.  One of the recurring characters in my advrider story was Hamburguesa Completa - the "complete hamburger."  I cook on Tuesday and have spent the past months working on the recipe.  It starts with ground beef with diced onions and bell peppers.  I add salt and garlic powder and pepper and cumin.  The cumin is essential for the Paraguayan taste.  It's also an ingredient in many Mexican style spices.

It all gets hand squished in a big bowl and I use a form to compress the mix into patties.

Tek Tip 2sD #2 - Screw Head Design

First was the slotted screw - nobody really uses it now for good reason.

     

The next improvement in design was probably the Phillips head.  It's a lot better than the slotted screw above but if you've spent any time with that little x you know it tends to strip easily and damage the bit.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Acceleration units

The units that we use for acceleration are stupid if we want our students to understand.

They constantly confound acceleration and velocity and forever forget the squared on that m/s.  A few years ago I switched over to "meters per second every second" and it has worked wonders.

Freaky Fzx Friday - The Birth of the Universe

Last week we took a look at some pictures of planets and stars to get some idea of how tiny we are. but we didn't even talk about our galaxy.

The Milky Way.  La Via Lactea.

The same light that takes 8 minutes to get here from our sun takes 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way.  It's 100,000 light years across and we are 8 light minutes from our sun.  The galaxy's big and we're in a peaceful part of it.

Tek Tip 2sD #1 - Screwdrivers

Which screwdriver would you choose to turn a stubborn screw?

Nope. If you're like my students, you chose the long one.  Sorry, Charlie.

Freaky Fzx Friday - You're Tiny

You're a bit smaller than Earth.  10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of you would give the same mass of the earth.  That's 10 raised to the twenty second power.

Here are some scale diagrams to help you understand:

Freaky Fzx Friday - Fictional Space Travel

Our solar system is a bit boring on the big screen.  It would take more than a month to reach even 10% the speed of light in a rocket.  That's engines blasting for 35 days.  And then engines blasting for another 35 days to stop you as you reach your destination.  Then you're stuck since you simply cannot carry that much fuel.

Seriously, we can't even get to Mars.

But movies and TV shows rely on science that doesn't exist.  Either stasis or cryosleep would be necessary to get us anywhere with conventional propulsion.

Cryosleep Imagination

Sometimes cryosleep gone wrong can lead to time travel if the pods keep running for centuries.  In this movie, Kirk and krew happen upon a centuries-old ship of supercriminals in stasis and they barely survive the confrontation.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Stupid Conservation Laws

Your chemistry teacher told you that Matter is Conserved.  She told you that the total mass present before a reaction is the same as the total mass present after the reaction.  Antoine Lavoisier discovered this "law" in 1785 but we've modified that "law" just like most ideas of that vintage.

Your physics teacher will tell you that Energy is Conserved in a closed system.  Discovered in the early 1840s, credit is most commonly attributed to James Prescott Joule and a few others doing similar experiments around the same time.  Yup, that's also a lie.

            

Antoine Lavoisier                       James Prescott Joule

Freaky Fzx Friday - Radically Relative

Einstein based his Special Theory of Relativity on the fact that Light Ain't No Baseball.  He concluded that the speed of Light is the Only Truth in simultaneous events from different perspectives.  Albert also knew that the speed of light (c) is the speed limit of the universe.

Special Relativity is mostly about what are called "inertial reference frames" - dynamic equilibrium near the speed of light (c).  Remember, however, it's all relative  You might observe an electron traveling past you at 90% the speed of light but that electron sees you doing the same speed in the opposite direction and both perspectives are correct.

Anyway, since light is the speed limit of the universe and you don't just hit a speed wall, acceleration according to Newton's Second Law isn't linear.  At least as measured from an external perspective, mass increases with the speed of light acting like an asymptote in this graph:

Relativistic effects noticeable above 10% the speed of light

But remember, you don't notice the mass gain in yourself, you only notice it in somebody else.  Kinda like the pot calling the kettle black or pointing out the speck in your neighbor's eye through the log in your own.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Light is Truth

We know that Light Ain't No Baseball.  No matter how fast you are moving, no matter how fast the object is moving, everybody always measures the speed of light to be exactly the same.

That means that different observers will measure distance and time differently.  

Einstein used trains in 1905 since they were the fastest transportation he had.  Cars were slow, planes could barely fly, and rockets weren't even contemplated for payload transport.  His imaginary trains, however, moved close to the speed of light to conceptually demonstrate special relativity effects - a thought experiment.

Imagine two flashing lights at the front and rear of your train and remember that you are traveling near the speed of light past the stationary train station.  You synchronize those lights while you sit in the middle of the train.  Those synchronized lights are NOT synchronous to the people waiting for the train.

Which perspective is correct?

Freaky Fzx Friday - Light Ain't No Baseball

Imagine that my aging arm is capable of 100 mph just before another dislocation.



You're sitting on your stoop watching me as I travel past you at 50 mph and I throw my amazing fastball toward the front of the bus.  What speed do you measure for the ball?  I see it travel at 100 mph.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Discovering Torque Failure

I tried something new this year.  Instead of giving the definition of torque and the second condition, they discovered the basic relationship by balancing weights on a meter stick.  It worked.  Kind of.  But the new way sucked in comparison to the way I've done things in years past.  I wanted them to experiment and play with numbers and find the balancing torques relationship but it took way too long and they didn't really understand the relationship when it was done.

I prefer the activity where they used the same balancing meter stick and summed the torques about several points just to prove that the net torque about any point is zero - the second condition for equilibrium.  That's a good one.

Better to try something new and fail than never to try at all.  That's how I learn.  I fail often.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Electrons are WAVES

Do you think electrons shed tiny quantum tears when they realize that we don't understand them?

I mean, seriously, 120 years after their discovery and over a century after scientists observed the wave nature of electrons, the average person has no idea that the electron is nothing like a planet.  The problem is exacerbated by important organizations and popular television programs promulgating the lie.  If I were an electron, I would be sad.

                   

US Nuclear Regulatory Commission                            Big Bang Theory on TV

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Dynamic Equilibrium

Following a test on static equilibrium we move on to what I like to call "dynamic equilibrium."  There is no real difference between them but my students think there is.

As an introduction, they sketch the side view of their favorite vehicle on a straight, flat road moving to the right at a constant velocity of 78 mph (or whatever speed they give me).

Then I ask them to sketch a Free Body Diagram of the vehicle.  We talk about what to name the forces but I am careful to emphasize only that the vehicle is moving at a constant speed on a level, straight road.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Practical Quiz Failure

A few years ago I started quizzing students on their ability to use an ammeter and a voltmeter by setting up a circuit and requesting that they measure and record the voltage and current between given points in a circuit.  I knew that some of them had been depending on their lab partners to measure everything so I warned them early and often before I gave them the quiz.

Video instructions on using meters

Freaky Fzx Friday - Multiple Personalities of Light

Gollum vs. Smeagol in "Lord of the Rings."

Light and everything else on the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum have dual personalities just like Gollum.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Gamma or X?

Lead aprons - That's how we know that X-Rays can hurt us.

And we can only have a certain number of X-Rays each year.  The doctor who injected dye into my shoulder last year looked like this during the procedure in preparation for my contrast MRI.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - EZr Equilibrium - Simultaneous Equations

We were always taught to solve all static equilibrium problems using one particular method.  They were to look like this:

But that's complicated and annoying and off-putting so my solution will look different while depending on the same principles.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - EZr Equilibrium - Sample Problem

Static Equilibrium.  Structures.  Balanced Forces.

IF those topics are taught, students are generally presented with equations like this 

and they are expected to do lots of algebra.

Let's ignore the second condition for now and just deal with net forces in the x- and y- directions.  Remember that the net force is zero in each direction.

Freaky Fzx Friday - NUCLEOactivity

Scientists knew so little in 1896.

Photography had been invented decades before and was quickly adopted by scientists.  Exposure time was long and high-speed photography far into the future, but good images could be captured on film plates and used for scientific research.

Earliest Surviving Photograph - 1826 or 1827

Cathode ray tubes were commonly used for experiments since they emitted particles and rays that no one understood.  They were working on it, but nobody got it.  No one had even discovered a single subatomic particle - the electron was first in 1897.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - 'g'

'g' is NOT the "acceleration of gravity."

I mean, it is, but it's also known as the "gravitational field strength."  Teaching FORCES FIRST and starting with static equilibrium has convinced me not to use "acceleration of gravity" yet for several reasons.

Freaky Fzx Fridays

"Sorry, we won't be covering that.  Not in the curriculum."

That's the answer I used to give to students who asked about Quantum, Relativity, Nuclear, Astronomy, and most of the other cool stuff in Fzx.  The most interesting topics are just not a part of a standard curriculum or a regular book.  It's seriously shortsighted of us not to deal with those fascinating topics.  That's where all the research is and that's where the great ideas are.

But now that Freaky Fzx Friday is in it's second year, we've remedied some of that.  Honestly, it's great.  Perhaps even wonderful - as in "full of wonder."

We'll spend some time every Friday on some Freaky Fzx.  Enjoy.

The Reason for Freaky Fzx Fridays

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Corrected Accuracy

Grading papers is low on may list of favorites in my chosen career.  My mind wanders and I miss things on a regular basis.  I'm especially inconsistent in grading when I do it over several sessions.

Years ago I witnessed a colleague do this so I asked why.

My friend explained that he only corrected one or two items at a time as he stood and walked back and forth among his students' papers.  The advantage, he claimed, was grade consistency and speed.  I have found both to be true.

I miss things every time I try to correct an entire page at a time.  My mind wanders when looking for subtlety of answer so I have to go back often and pick up mistakes in my correcting.  It's a lot better with this new method.  I can also correct a few items and take a break every few minutes without worrying about grade inconsistency.

Now I use the same concept even when I don't have the state of Kansas on which to lay my papers.  Shuffling papers I run through one or two items at a time.  It's a ridiculous amount of shuffling but it gets the job done well.

My wandering mind requires this technique.  Your steel trap may not but pass along the idea for those who need it.

BIG PROBLEM - we've just gone to a 1:1 iPad thing here.  They expect us to go paperless so this won't work any more.  That sucks.

My Newest Bicycle Creation

It's an obsession.  An addiction.  I've bought a lot and found more.  Gifts given and received.  A basement full.

Here's my latest bicycle creation.  Enjoy.  I do.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Making Mini Engineers

Most of my high school Honors Physics students will never even consider being engineers.  They're not interested.

But it sometimes seems like we're trying to make little engineers by  being all technical and using the 'proper' math and 'proper' symbols.  So let's simplify.  Maybe they'll understand.  Maybe they'll be inspired to become engineers or at least we won't turn them off by making Fzx another math class.

Equilibrium is the easiest example.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Simple Machine Switcheroo

Vladimir Putin's Winter Olympics were the source of my latest insight into simple machines.

After struggling to teach pulleys and inclined planes and levers for decades, I am finally beginning to understand them.  Working with levers and wheels-and-axles and gears I became convinced that every machine designed to multiply the input force could become a machine that multiplies speed just by switching the input and the output.

Tch Fzx - Forces First

I grew up in NY and took state-wide Regents exams in High School for all my major subjects.  That meant three Math, one Literature, one Social Studies, one Spanish, and four Science exams.  They were all end-of-year cumulative finals and the teachers had to get us ready.  I thought I was quite well prepared academically for my university experience compared to my PA classmates at Grove City College.

I used to credit that preparation to my New York State of Mind Regents education.  Looking back from farther in the future I now understand that the Corning-Painted Post School District, home of Corning Inc. and Ingersoll Rand, provided a high quality education for those students who were willing to work.

I found myself surrounded by supportive parents, good teachers, and like-minded students who all believed strongly in the importance of education.  We supplemented our textbook with paperbacks like these - published specifically for New York.

Mulberry Waffles

Whenever you see this on the sidewalk

you can make these

Freaky Fzx Friday - Relativity Revolution

Einstein wasn't so great when he proposed the Special Theory of Relativity.  He just revolutionized the world with a simple twist of thought.  I only like him because we both love two wheels.

Go Al go!

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Video Substitute 2

A tale of two Substitutes.

Conversing with a substitute recently, I heard the story of a teacher who ended up taking two months off for a medical problem.  He took a week off at a time; perhaps hoping to get back to work soon.  There were rarely lesson plans and there was never any direct communication with the sub who took over for the last few weeks.

During that two month absence there were two large packets of worksheets sent in.  Nothing else.  The final exam consisted of a stock textbook final exam that had to be modified significantly by the sub to fit what the students had completed....

Freaky Fzx Friday - Coordinated Toilet Water

Everybody always told me that toilet water spins in the opposite direction direction in the southern hemisphere.  I lived in Paraguay for a year so I KNOW IT'S NOT TRUE but Smarter Every Day and Veritasium just did synchronized videos on the subject.  Intriguing Results

Open both videos on different screens.  Or different windows.  Or two Shaler Area iPads.  Or right here.  Sync them and watch.

Northern Hemisphere - Smarter Every Day

Southern Hemisphere - Veritasium

WATCH THE IN-SYNC VIDEOS BEFORE YOU CONTINUE

Teach Fzx Tuesday - When They Don't Care

"My students don't want to review for the final so I'm not going to force them."

It's final exam week and I hear it every time.  From teachers.  The high school year's almost over and nobody wants to be here so let's fiesta!!

Silly me - Yo pensaba que se festeja los fines de semana y los feriados y el verano - why we party the day before the most important exam in the class is beyond me, but it's common.

Freaky Fzx Friday - ICE 2

Freaky Fzx Friday was a new thing this year and it's been quite popular so I'll be continuing it for years to come.  For our last installment of the year we'll reprise my favorite topic.

Toddlers love ice.  They play with the ice cubes in their drinks and love to suck on those plastic tubes filled with flavored sugar ice.  Silicone trays for shaped ice cubes make it even more fun.

apparently NOT recommended - choking hazard

Freaky Fzx Friday - Schrodinger's Pet

Schrodinger's cat is so popular she's on T-shirts.

dead AND alive

Since teeny tiny things don't obey Newton's Laws, different equations govern the quantum world of the amazingly small.  In the 1920s, quantum equations and experiments were leading physicists to conclude that a particle could exist in multiple quantum states simultaneously.  It was a difficult paradox that brought forth important questions.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Video Substitute

Out for two weeks for shoulder surgery with no physics certified sub, I had to figure out a way to keep the class moving and give them good labs to do.  The topic was circuits.

I used the district provided iPad and iMovie to provide practical instruction on ammeter and voltmeter use.

How to Use an Ammeter

I put out a compare and contrast video on series vs. parallel circuits:

Freaky Fzx Friday - Cell Phones and Cancer

Grandma probably told you not to stand in front of the microwave and I've been told not to use my cell phone too much.  And to keep it in my pack, not my pants.

Articles have been written about cops with cancer from their radar guns.  Products are marketed to ameliorate the cancerous effects of electromagnetic waves.  Why all the fear?

When I check cancer.gov and mayoclinic.org I find carefully worded science speak that no average person could get through.  Their conclusion?

"no consensus"
"no one knows"

Scientists agree on climate change but medicine can't figure out whether cell phones cause cancer after decades of fear and studies?  Ironic.  I disagree with their conclusions.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Uncertainty

Heisenberg gets pulled over by the police for speeding.

Werner Heisenberg, not this guy.

The officer approaches the vehicle and asks him if he knows how fast he was going.  Unlike the blue meth cook, Heisenberg answers just like any good electron would

Freaky Fzx Friday - Gluons

Nuclei contain protons all smashed into a tiny space.  Since positive protons strongly repel each other, what kind of krazy glue holds them together?  It's a particle we call the GLUON.

Atoms are tiny.  Take a look at the thickness of your fingernail and imagine that you could split that thickness into ten million - 10,000,000 - parts.  That's the size of the atom.

Take that atom width and split it into 10,000 equal parts and that's the nucleus.  One tenth that diameter is the size of a proton or neutron and split that by 1,000 again and you have the quarks from a story two weeks ago.

The atom is the solar system and the nucleus is the sun.  The rest is empty.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Plagiarism

My children lie, cheat, and steal on a regular basis.  It seems that the little angels are far from the innocent cherubs we imagine them to be.

TheBoy used to take things from LittleBoy until he got bigger.  Now LittleBoy punches, kicks, and pushes his big brother on a regular basis.  Each knows exactly how to send the other into a screaming fit of rage.  And LittleBoy annoys BabyGirl enough to make her cry at least five times a day.

So we have to train the children of our society not to lie, cheat, or steal and all of us know adults who need more honesty lessons.  The task of teaching these lessons falls on parents, teachers, and coaches and it is a difficult job.

Freaky Fzx Friday: Wave <==> Particle Duality

ELECTRONS DO NOT ORBIT THE NUCLEUS LIKE PLANETS ORBIT THE SUN.

Don't feel bad if you thought they did since even the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission thinks so.  Check out their chosen symbol:

Even though the electrons have almost nothing to do with NUCLEAR fission, that's what they put on their main page.

Fzx in Action - Dryer Belt Replacement

The dryer drum quit turning and it wasn't drying my clothes.  Since I figured that hanging them out to dry in sub-freezing temps wasn't going to work, I popped off the little inspection door and took a gander inside.  I could hear the motor whirring so I was looking for a broken belt.

Those belts are fiber-reinforced

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Waste Paper

We often tell our children conflicting stories.

          "Clean your plate for the starving people in North Korea."

          "But Dad, why don't you send some of your food to those kids?  You're too fat anyway."

Food discussions, however, only affect learning if the kid's starving so here's another:

          "Save the trees" by conserving paper.

          "Show all your work" in your algebra problem.

That one has definitely caused me grief

Freaky Fzx Friday - Protons Neutrons Quarks

We covered SPLITTING THE ATOM  and SPLITTING THE NUCLEUS in December.  A nucleus is made of protons and neutrons and this is how we normally imagine it to be.

As with everything else in physics, the reality is much more complicated.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Geometric Momentum Problems

Two dimensional conservation of momentum problems are complicated.  For the conceptual physics student, even one dimensional momentum problems are often too complicated.  So I came up with an easier method.  Here's an example.

First we sketch before and after the collision.  That's the normal part.

Teach Fzx Tuesday - Struggle

We fail.  On rare occasions we fail because we're just not smart enough.  Mostly we fail since we don't have the desire and persistence to complete the task.  And let's be honest, persistence is a learned skill.

I was at a friend's house years ago and his firstborn was three.  He was walking and talking but he wasn't building - Dad wouldn't let him use those MegaBlocks alone.  Kid said "Dad, could you build a house?"  So Dad built a house.  It was obvious that Dad did the building and Son did the requesting and the watching.  Trained to be passive.

Fzx in Action - Vacuum Fix

The sweeper part of the canister vac had a bad connection.  My wife found it, pointed it out, and asked me to fix it.

Freaky Fzx Friday - Quantum Tunneling

Here's the family atop Rocky Mountain National Park in 2012.

LittleBoy was only 9 months old.

Accelerate Safely - net force and time for collisions

We take our first form of Newton's Second Law of Motion and modify it.

It's still the 2nd Law but a different look. Newton found that momentum is an important quantity so we express it in terms of "Net Impulse" and "Change in Momentum."

Teach Fzx Tuesday - NET force and NET impulse and NET work

Newton, in the late 1600s, finally understood the basic laws governing motion but we still get it wrong three centuries later.  Newton's Second Law of Motion originally went something like

"the change in momentum of an object is produced by (and equal to) the net impulse applied."  Except Newton didn't use anything like "NET impulse" even though that's what he meant.

Sometimes textbooks get it basically right

Freaky Fzx Friday - Exoplanet Travel

An earlier post on Finding Exoplanets included the "Exoplanet Travel Bureau" on JPL's Planet Quest.  It helps us make sense of what different planets might be like if we could experience them.

But we can't get there.

It would take a hundred lifetimes even to send a probe to the closest exoplanet around the closest star system.  Sadly, we can only look on from afar using our best telescopes and hope that we find new science.  But science fiction would be boring without alien contact.

     

  vs.