Physics Buzz

Imagine you’re a spider marooned on a post in the middle of a large lake. A human might fret over escaping such a trap, but as a spider, you know just what to do. You raise your rear end to the breeze, shoot out a spray of gossamer threads, and wait until a rising air current carries you up, up and away.

Credit: Punkin Chunkin Website  punkinchunkin.com Last weekend, thousands watched as competitors from around the country competed for the 28th annual World Championship Punkin Chunkin trophy. Trebuchets, resembling something out of a Lord of the Rings film, flung their pumpkins while air cannons, rivaling some cranes in size, fired the helpless gourds toward their inevitable, squashy doom. American Chunker Inc. launched this year’s farthest-flying pumpkin at a distance of 4,694.68 feet , about 585 feet shy of a mile. The team sent their winning pumpkin flying on the first day of the event when conditions were more favorable for chunkin than the final two days of the competition. The trick to winning Punkin Chunkin relies more on just the machine. The machine controls the pumpkin’s launching speed and angle and therefore is a major determinant of how far the pumpkin travels. However, there are other components, which affect distance, that chunking competitors cannot control. Win

Welcome to The Physics of Cars week here on PhysicsBuzz and what better way to kick off the week than with an interview with Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, author of the Physics of NASCAR ! What are some of the biggest ways that Physics and NASCAR intersect? How don’t they? I think probably one of the most interesting things is that I asked someone one time if they had people in physics working there because most of the people at NASCAR are engineers. And the person thought for a moment and said ‘No I don’t think we do because you guys think everything interesting is obvious.’ And If you think about it what racing is mostly about is friction and air resistance which is the two things that we tend to like to just ignore. Everything about making a car go fast on the track has to do with the friction between the tires and the track, and so you have to get into some fascinating things like the friction of rubber, which is different than anything we teach our students about because it’s a di

I don't know if all you PhysicsBuzz readers at home know this, but today's the 35th anniversary of the first flight of the Concorde. No, not the world famous folk duo from New Zealand ; the fleet of supersonic commercial airplanes that crisscrossed the globe for 27 years. On January 21, 1976, the first paying passengers took a trip on a jet that could travel faster than the speed of sound from London England to Bahrain. These planes were fast, traveling twice the speed of sound . A flight from New York to Paris would only take a Concorde about three and a half hours, a far cry from the typical eight hours it takes most jets. However there was a downside; the sonic booms that come with faster than sound travel. Because of these booms, the Concorde originally had trouble coming to the United States. At first Congress banned them because of worries over sonic booms, and then once the national ban was lifted, individual airports like JFK in New York barred the sleek planes from

Here's the scene: the bride's wearing a futuristic wedding dress, a celebrity minister is performing the rites, and a small group of queasy-looking family members and friends are in attendance. Where are we, a Las Vegas rent-a-chapel? No, we're aboard G-FORCE ONE , the only commercial microgravity aircraft, and it's the world's first "weightless" wedding. Tomorrow about 24,000 feet in the air above Cape Canaveral, Florida, Erin Finnegan and Noah Fulmor will tie the knot in the presence of seven guests and space tourist Richard Garriott while experiencing free-fall on the "Vomit Comet." Cake will not be served. There have been some great posts on this blog in the past on the many misconceptions people have about experiencing weightlessness. No, astronauts at the International Space Station don't float because they're far from the surface of the earth ; gravity's influence on them is only reduced by about five percent . So simply

Under normal circumstances, broomsticks and rockets have nothing (that I can think of) in common. But at the December 2008 Space Elevator Conference in Luxembourg, these trusty sweeping untensils get the job--of going to space--done. European Space Agency engineer Age-Raymond Riise used a broomstick and an electric sander to demonstrate how a hypothetical "space lift" or "space elevator" might pull its cargo mechanically. The project could see a 100,000km long cable anchored to the Earth as a means of cheaper transportation to space. I wrote about the concept of a space lift a few months ago . The simplicity of the idea, combined with the numerous and complex hurdles in technology needed to morph a project like this into life is what fascinates me. I suppose it's a prime example of the notion that "old" ideas aren't necessarily bad ones to be quickly tossed out in favor of the completely innovative; they can be modified and applied to new sit

Take a look at the painting on your left. "The artist climbed 23,000 feet in a specially modified plane to work on the piece while weightless," this article purports . Pause. Now wait a minute. Now cringe. The terms " weightlessness " and " zero gravity " are constantly thrown around haphazardly, in part because there is a vague misconception surrounding what it means to be "weightless". The notion that one can experience weightlessness by being high enough above the earth's surface is disingenuous. Weightlessness is not caused by distance from the Earth but by being in orbit ! The International Space Station is 250 miles above the Earth, where gravitational attraction is just 10% less than on the Earth's surface- so how could one experience zero gravity at a mere 23,000 feet (around 4.5 miles) ? Astronauts at the International Space Station experience weightlessness because they are orbiting the planet, not because they are above

It's a bit of a strange sight- three men running swiftly, each holding up an arm supporting a thin, toy-like aircraft. With one huge shove, the solar-powered, propeller-driven Zephyr-6 soared 60,000 ft into the sky, where it remained for the next 82 hours and 37 minutes. The UK-built plane has set an unofficial world endurance record for a flight by an unmanned aircraft . Conducted at the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona , the Zephyr-6 flight was a demonstration designed to woo the US military. It flew for more than 3 days on pure sunlight, and by night on solar-powered batteries it had recharged during the day. The flight beats the current official world record set by Northrop Grumman's Global Hawk in 2001. However, the achievement is technically "unofficial" because the Federation Aeronautique Internationale ( the world air sports federation that sanctions all record attempts) wasn't involved. A melange of new technology, the Zephyr soaks up sola

The jetpack is probably the most recognizable brainchild of science fiction to creep its way into reality. A longtime symbol of the future (remember the Jetsons ?) the jetpack continues to capture the imaginations of many, and society's fascination with personal flight never seems to cease. While its not exactly the handy-dandy device that shoots fire and sends you skyrocketing, New Zealander Glenn Martin's jetpack will certainly get you in the air, as seen yesterday at EAA AirVenture OshKosh 2008 , the annual aviation convention of the Experimental Aircraft Association in Wisconsin. Fastening himself into the 250 pound apparatus, the inventor's 16 year old son Harrison suited up and flew about 3 feet off the ground, hovering for about 45 seconds, to much applause. You can check out the youtube video here . Made of carbon fiber composite , the jetpack's inventor claims it can fly an average-sized pilot about 30 miles in 30 miles on a 5-gallon tank of gas although these

The skies could soon get a new addition: a plasma -fueled flying saucer . The mechanical and aerospace engineering professor who created the novel design calls its a "wingless electromagnetic air vehicle" (WEAV). The flat, circular spinning aircraft strongly resembles a flying saucer ( illustration of prototype on left). WEAV has no moving parts, but power lies in its unique dynamics, the force generated by a current or magnetic field passing through a conducting fluid (known as magnetohydrodynamics ). Plasma (the conducting fluid) is generated by electrodes all over the surface of the aircraft that ionize the surrounding air. The generated plasma will coat the exterior of wave, producing stable lift and momentum . WEAV's design enables it to ascend into the air vertically. It isn't all sunny days and clear coasting. Plasma driven aircrafts have always failed to fly on earth. The average plasma saucer has a much better chance in space, where there is less gravity

There are many stereotypes of the French, but a relentless ambition to fall towards earth at dangerously high altitudes isn't one of them. Michel Fourier, a retired French army officer intended to do just that, by sky-diving from a small compartment suspended beneath a helium -filled hot air balloon. Aside from breaking numerous records, he would have been the first human to break the sound barrier by falling at supersonic speed . Unfortunately, his balloon detached itself while being inflated and cancelled his mission . There is an interesting error found in the print version of the New York Times articles on Michel Fourier, that was removed in the online version : "An article on Saturday about Michel Fournier, the retired French army officer with plans to sky dive from a balloon gondola 25 miles above the earth's surface, misstated the point during his journey at which he expects to experience weightlessness, and misstated the altitude at which his parachute was desig

It's been an interesting week in aeronautics. Between "Jet-Man" Yves Rossy's minimalist airplane flight . . . . . . and an equally impressive 45 second glide by a flying fish somewhere off the coast of Japan. Both feats look a lot more fun than my last flight to St. Louis. Coincidentally, today is the 81st anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris in his plane The Spirit of St. Louis . Lucky for him he didn't have to wait in the St. Louis airport for two hours before take-off, and I'm pretty sure his luggage arrived on time. On the other hand, he didn't have an in-flight movie to keep him entertained during the 33 hour trip.