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Ask a physicist anything. (3)

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AV1611VET

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Now now ladies, I shan't have cat fights in my pub - I mean, thread. Take it to the seedy depths of the counting threads.
I felt dirty just looking at 'em. Eurgh.
:blush: -- my humble apologies.

I might as well order while I'm here.

Medium coke, no ice please?
 
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pgp_protector

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Do you think we'll ever come out with an equivalent to the Microwave oven for cooling things quickly ?

(I wish I remember the movie) But they had a Pad that they placed their Coke Can on & it instantly Chilled it.
 
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Voldemort

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How come insects fly into lights?
pgp_protector said:
Do you think we'll ever come out with an equivalent to the Microwave oven for cooling things quickly ?

(I wish I remember the movie) But they had a Pad that they placed their Coke Can on & it instantly Chilled it.
Placing things under running cold water works pretty well, a hot saucepan will be cool in just a few seconds.
 
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AV1611VET

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Placing things under running cold water works pretty well, a hot saucepan will be cool in just a few seconds.
Don't try that with glassware though -- glass is an amorphous liquid.

(I think.)
 
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pgp_protector

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How come insects fly into lights?

Placing things under running cold water works pretty well, a hot saucepan will be cool in just a few seconds.

Yea but I want to take my Can of Coke out of my desk put it on my Desk Top Cooler & hit a button & enjoy an ice cold Coke :yum: :)
(That and running water won't chill a warm coke to a nice cold temp quickly)
 
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Frumious Bandersnatch

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What would you say is Einstein's single biggest contribution to science?
That's a tough one. He is best known for relativity both special and general but he won the Nobel prize for explaining the photoelectric effect. I think you could have a contest on this one. I actually teach my students one Einstein equation used for predicting the vicosity of dilute suspensions of spheres which works fairly well for very dilute emulsions but I doubt many people would consider that his biggest contribution to science.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Do you think we'll ever come out with an equivalent to the Microwave oven for cooling things quickly ?

(I wish I remember the movie) But they had a Pad that they placed their Coke Can on & it instantly Chilled it.
The pad would work if it was reaaaally cold, and only on the part that had something on it (otherwise it would be covered in frost). In theory, any refrigerating heat pump would do the trick. It'd just have to be an ultra-refined fridge, of sorts. Hmm...
 
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Wiccan_Child

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How come insects fly into lights?
They've evolved to use the Moon as a kind of beacon. They fly towards it, but they can obviously never reach it. This means the individuals converge as they all fly towards the same location (namely, the place underneath the Moon). Or so the theory goes.
For whatever reason, they fly towards the biggest light, the Moon. But if there's a man-made light, they'll fly towards that as well, spiralling inwards until crash into it. Silly, really.
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Why do insects fly into your windshield?

And what are they doing on the highway in the first place?
They're existential nihilists, and thus fling themselves into oncoming traffic.

The real reason, though, is that you have a large plane (the windscreen) moving very fast along long stretches of road. This means it carves out a large volume, and any insects therein become squished on the windscreen. So it's not that there are lots of flies that just happen to be there, it's that you're pushing your windscreen through long stretches of air, and it just so happens that there's the odd fly now and then.

20100506.gif
 
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AV1611VET

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Okay, here's a simple one:

Let's say you're 6 feet tall and there's a pole in the yard of unknown height.

(We'll say 30', just for the sake of it; and yes, you're metric, but this is from the other side of the pond. ;))

Anyway, you're 6 feet tall, and there's a pole in the yard of unknown height.

How can you measure the pole's height with just a yardstick?
 
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Wiccan_Child

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Okay, here's a simple one:

Let's say you're 6 feet tall and there's a pole in the yard of unknown height.

(We'll say 30', just for the sake of it; and yes, you're metric, but this is from the other side of the pond. ;))

Anyway, you're 6 feet tall, and there's a pole in the yard of unknown height.

How can you measure the pole's height with just a yardstick?
With just a yardstick, I'd measure the pole's height directly ;). Put it next to the end of the pole, along its length. Then, putting my finger at the point where the yardstick runs out, I'd move the yardstick up until the other end is touching my finger.
That's deceptively easy... did I misunderstand the question?

If I wanted to show off, I'd put one end of the pole at the top of my head, and rest the other end on the ground, so it made a diagonal. I'd them use the yardstick to measure the distance from my feet to where the pole touches the ground. If that distance is d, then the height h of the pole is given by h = √(36 + d[sup]2[/sup]).

EDIT: where d is in feet; the conversion ratio is 1 yard = 3 feet.
 
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AV1611VET

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With just a yardstick, I'd measure the pole's height directly ;). Put it next to the end of the pole, along its length. Then, putting my finger at the point where the yardstick runs out, I'd move the yardstick up until the other end is touching my finger.
That's deceptively easy... did I misunderstand the question?

If I wanted to show off, I'd put one end of the pole at the top of my head, and rest the other end on the ground, so it made a diagonal. I'd them use the yardstick to measure the distance from my feet to where the pole touches the ground. If that distance is d, then the height h of the pole is given by h = √(36 + d[sup]2[/sup]).

EDIT: where d is in feet; the conversion ratio is 1 yard = 3 feet.
The pole is in the ground and goes 30 feet into the air.

There's no way you can measure it directly by placing your finger on it.
 
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