PODCAST: The Physics of NASCAR

This week on the podcast I chat with Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, a physicist at West Virginia University and the author of The Physics of NASCAR. What on earth does NASCAR have to do with physics? Everything. From the banking of the turns to the design of the rear-view mirrors, physics is what makes NASCAR possible.

And NASCAR has also proved to be a laboratory for new physics insights. Take the phenomenon of drafting, in which one car driving behind another can get a boost in speed from the front car's wake. Cyclists take advantage of this, as do birds. Drivers and team members spotted the change immediately, although they couldn't explain exactly why it was happening (and the exact explanation was left up to physicists to figure out). They started testing this phenomenon in practice, and worked out how they could use it to their benefit during races. This practice of observation and testing is also the basis of the scientific method.

To hear more about the physics of NASCAR, listen in to this week's podcast. You can also hear Diandra on the radio show SiriusXM Speedway, where she appears regularly to help debunk myths about the science of NASCAR (like whether or not the cars speed up when they go from the track to the grass).
Read the rest of the post . . .

What Stresses Gorilla Glass Makes It Stronger

Theory tackles how glass remembers earlier forces.

Alterations to the usual glass production process, such as putting the material under stress, can introduce effects that linger even after the material hardens. While manufacturers have long exploited this phenomenon to strengthen glass, a new theory aims to get closer to understanding why it happens.


Read the rest of the post . . .

How to Sell a Particle Accelerator: Positron-Electron Love Explosions

While the discoveries and excitement surrounding the LHC have started to cool down, a new contender in particle physics is emerging. Over 2000 scientists are currently working on one of two competing particle accelerator proposals: the International Linear Collider (ILC) and the Compact Linear Collider (CLiC). Both projects would smash electrons and their antimatter counterparts — positrons — at speeds nearing the speed of light. The LHC, on the other hand, primarily smashes heavier particles together including protons and lead nuclei.

Several countries aim to host one of these international physics collaborations, and two regions in Japan have created marketing videos to garner support for a future ILC site. With the same goal in mind, both regions took radically different approaches to their video projects.

Below you can see the more popular video created jointly by the Saga and Fukuoka prefectures. The video combines anime, lab coat raps, and a burgeoning friendship that culminates in a positron-electron collision of love as symbolized by two Japanese girls. At least, I think that's what happened.

Be sure to turn on the English subtitles for the full story.


Read the rest of the post . . .

A Carbon Signature Revealed

Imagine diving into the placid surface of a painting by Vermeer, parsing apart Klimt's bejeweled surfaces, or untangling Jackson Pollock's knots of paint. Art historians, collectors, and restoration scholars have long sought to uncover the methods of great painters.

Over the past decade, scientists have peered with light beneath the varnished surface of paintings to discover the chemistry of pigments, to identify the authors of unsigned works, or probe the crack depths from damage or age.

Now, researchers at the University of Barcelona in Spain have used light at terahertz frequencies to uncover the hidden carbon signature of a painting previously thought to be unsigned. Though unsigned, the painting has been studied by art historians and confirmed to be painted by the Spanish artist Goya in 1771. Such secondary validation made the piece an apropos choice by the researchers, who published their findings May 14, 2013 on the arXiv. 

"Sacrifice to Vesta" at three different levels of imaging at visible and THz frequencies.
Image Credit: http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.3101

Read the rest of the post . . .

Mosh Pit Mechanics, Chattering Gazelles, and Bouncing Baby Shampoo

Physics Phun in the Phorthcoming Physical Review

What do gabby gazelles, mosh pits and jumping shampoo jets have in common? They're all covered in upcoming Physical Review papers. (This image is a mash up of pictures from Wikimedia Commons. Details and rights info are here, here and here.)

Week after week, the American Physical Society journals are chock full of some of the most important physics papers published anywhere. Importance, of course, doesn't necessarily make something interesting to anyone outside the field. Every once in a while, though, we get a handful of papers that are significant enough to get into the Physical Review journals, including the flagship Physical Review Letters, as well as appealing to people who don't necessarily spend their days hunkered down in a lab or scribbling away on an equation-covered blackboard.

Read the rest of the post . . .

PODCAST: Red Rover

Basic Books

This week on the Physics Central podcast we're talking about an awesome new book called Red Rover: Robotic Space Exploration from Genesis to the Mars Rover. The book's author Roger Wiens talks with us about his career working on robots that are sent to explore space.


Wiens worked on the Genesis space mission, which launched back in 2001, and he is the principle investigator on the ChemCam instrument aboard the Curiosity Rover. In his new book he talks about the ups and downs and successes and failures that come with trying to design and build these instruments, not to mention navigating political hurdles and the curve balls that life throws at all of us. I love that Wiens isn't a dramatic kind of guy—he really loves the science—but a story like this one can't help but be full of drama.

But in case you're more one for the science, let me tell you a little about the projects Wiens has worked on.


Read the rest of the post . . .

Physics of Bubbles: supercomputer needed.

It took one of the world's most powerful supercomputers five days to model a simple childhood past time: popping bubbles.

Image credit: Andreas Bastian

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and at the University of California Berkeley have mathematically described the evolution of a cluster of bubbles. The research was published May 10, 2013 in the journal Science.

Read the rest of the post . . .

Dancing on the Ceiling

While choreographed dances are bound by the laws of physics, certain tricks can make the seemingly impossible a reality. In the video below, you can see two dancers walking on walls, dancing on ceilings, and adapting to changes in the direction of gravity. Or so it seems.

Choreographer and dancer Derek Hough performed those feats about a week ago on the popular Dancing with the Stars TV show. Although Derek added modern flair to this trick, the method to his dance has been used in performances for over half a century. Surprisingly, this seemingly physics-denying method has even been used to simulate real physics principles in iconic movies.


Read the rest of the post . . .

Superhydrophobic Cicada Wings Are Self-Cleaning

Image credit:  Pmjacoby via Wikimedia Commons

Rights information: http://bit.ly/11sxp7s

As 17-year cicadas wriggle out of the ground all over the northeastern U.S. this spring, they'll be reemerging into a world that understands them a little better. Researchers now find the design of their wings can cause filth to jump right off of them with the aid of dew, findings that might help lead to better artificial self-cleaning materials.

Read the rest of the post . . .

The Rocketman Triathlon Video: Racing Through the Kennedy Space Center

After the finish.  Bike, t-shirt, finisher's medal and TARDIS towel

This past Sunday, the day after Star Wars Day, I competed in the world's nerdiest triathlon, The Rocketman. Smooth Running teamed up with NASA to set up a race through the Kennedy Space Center. Of the 30 triathlons I've done this was the coolest. As is probably the case for many children of the '80s, my concept of "science and technology" was defined by the shuttle program. Instead of dreaming of being an astronaut, I was always in awe of the scientists that made it possible to launch the astronauts into space. So, when I heard there was a race that not only would bring me up close and personal with shuttle history, but would let me race in a special "rocket scientist" division, I had to sign up. These seemed like my kind of people. The race didn't disappoint. Thinking ahead, I wore a camera on my helmet during the ride through KSC. What follows is the geekiest race report ever with a biker's-eye video of Launch Complex 39.




Read the rest of the post . . .

PODCAST: Listening to the Earth

On this week's podcast I talked to people who listen to the Earth. Scientists monitor seismic waves that bounce through the planet's crust, sound waves too low for the human ear to hear reverberating through the atmosphere and hydroacoustic waves moving through the oceans. These signals carry with them lots of information about the sources of the disturbances, like where they happened and whether they're from an earthquake, a volcano or a large explosion.

Read the rest of the post . . .