Playing Favorites

If I told you I had a favorite scientist, I would be lying to you. Truth being that it's a tie between Nikola Tesla and Richard Feynman. And I was talking to my friend about Tesla after watching the latest Epic Rap Battle of History (see link) and he said "people don't know enough about Tesla" and I agree, so here we go.

The relationship between Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison is pretty much flawlessly explained in an Oatmeal Comic ( http://theoatmeal.com/comics/tesla ) and I find the interesting part to me is that nobody knows about this guy. Everybody, and obviously I generalize, is taught the story of Edison. My father, for example, grew up in Detroit, and nearby there was the Henry Ford Museum, which had Edison's lab in it. And as a child he and his friends idolized Edison as the great American inventor. When I started to get into physics we learned of Tesla together and my father and I came to learn that Thomas Edison was kind of a jerk (see Oatmeal comic for details).

On a more scientific note; one of Tesla's greatest inventions (of many) was alternating current, which is a flow of electric current that periodically reverses direction and powers virtually everything electrical on the planet. It allows for longer transmissions of power at higher voltage and thinner wires as opposed to direct current. Notable examples of alternating current are radios (which Tesla also invented) AC circuits also employ capacitors and introductory and allow for a wider range of devices.

On a concluding thought, I'm quite a fan of upgrading technology because it's awesome, but it might interest you to know that the United States still uses essentially the same electrical grid as designed by Thomas Edison. While I'm sure he did a good job for his time, there is much talk of energy deficiency and it might be time for an upgrade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ1Mz7kGVf0

What I Do

So one of the reasons that I've been so busy recently is that I recently got a job at my local physics department on a collaboration called Boreixno; and it occurred to me that it would make a pretty good subject for a post.

A bit of context, the principle thing studied in this experiment is a thing called a neutrino. And what these neutrinos are, are tiny virtually mass less particles (which have never been measured in accuracy). Neutrinos are only affected by the weak nuclear force (the force that governs radioactive decay) and gravity. And they are created through special types of radioactive decay, or nuclear reactions. Most neutrinos on Earth come from the Sun, and that's where I come in.

Borexino is an experiment set out to study low energy solar neutrinos. The idea is to measure neutrino flux from the sun and compare it to what is theoretically predicted by The Standard Model, and by comparison scientists will better understand the internal nuclear fusion process of stars, which as you may or may not know essentially behaves like a giant nuclear reactor.

Borexino is also a part of the Supernova Early Warning System, which is a network of neutrino detectors designed to warn astronomers when a supernova is imminent. This is because when a star collapses on itself, it forms enormous amounts of neutrinos before the explosion, allowing astronomers to locate a supernova within our galaxy several hours before the actual explosion.

Exams

The game is afoot. 1 exam every week for a month. After that month, I will resume my normal posting schedule. Until then, once more unto the breach

Time

It's amazing how much time can go by on exam week. What started first as a minor delay has turned into a 2 week delay in my posting schedule, so I apologize, I was advised to do well on my exams so I could stay in school and write these posts as informatively as I can-hence my tardiness. But I digress.
            I would like to continue with a brief history of time. And whilst some of you may have caught the Steven Hawking reference, so I would like to avoid any copyright infringement by giving my version a new title: A brief(er) history of time (which will also be paraphrased).
            What’s the longest time you can think of? An hour? 24 hours? In the scheme of things, time seems to pass very quickly; the oldest person is currently 116, and the planet is older still. Believe what you will, there is some debate on this, but the age of the Earth (scientifically speaking) is approximately 4.5 billion years old. The Sun is about 4.6 billion years old, and we could just keep going, but there is one thing that I’ve been dodging, what is the age of the oldest thing? The universe itself?
            To answer that question, we must look at the oldest thing we know of, the edge of the universe, and while we can’t quite do it yet, we have a pretty good idea that it’s about 10^26 meters in every direction. A bit of dimensional analysis (and some very complicated math which I honestly don’t know well enough to explain) can tell us that the universe is about 13.7 billion years old. So next time you put off a research paper for several days, remember just how fleeting time can be, and how rapidly academic deadlines can approach.

Cannons and the 1812 Overture.

Ok, I'm a little nervous, the first not science topic on the blog, but I think I can manage it. I always loved Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; it's so lovely and dramatic. And while not everybody is familiar with the entire overture, most people are familiar with the fun part: where cannons are adopted as musical instruments.

            Cannons have been around since the middle ages, it was first developed in china shortly after the invention of gunpowder and the technology eventually migrated to Europe. 

            The ignition process of cannons is achieved by ramming a charge of gunpowder down the barrel followed by a cannon ball, followed by igniting the fuse (after accounting for trajectory, wind and distance) and running away.

Getting back to the 1812 overture, it is a common misconception that it is meant to commemorate the war of 1812 but instead to commemorate Russia’s defense from Napoleon, which was also the turning point in the Napoleonic Wars (moral of all military campaigns in Russia: never invade in the winter). The cannons were incorporated to heighten the emotional effects of the music. AC/DC also used a cannon in their song “For Those About to Rock”

And here's a link to the song with cannons because it's awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbxgYlcNxE8

Periodic Table of Videos

This is a lovely website that my chemistry teacher showed me back in high school. The people at the University of Nottingham who do these videos talk about each element in far greater detail than I would, and they do a fun experiment with them (usually) .I would love to try experiments for the blog with chemistry but the head guys in my dorm won't let me. 
Periodic Table of Videos

Feynman

I've been very busy this week ( I let my homework get to me), so in an effort to adhere to my weekly schedule, please enjoy this video of my favorite scientist Richard Feynman.