Peter Kupfer's Blog » Physics http://blog.peterkupfer.net Thoughts and musings of Peter Kupfer Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:17:36 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Gravity, Not Just a Good Idea, but the Law! (of Physics!!) http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/08/31/gravity-not-just-a-good-idea-but-the-law-of-physics/ http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/08/31/gravity-not-just-a-good-idea-but-the-law-of-physics/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:35:53 +0000 Peter Kupfer http://blog.peterkupfer.net/?p=1558 So, here we have two different groups who think the laws of the physics don’t apply to them.

First, the Bose Wave Radio people have a radio spot that claims that the sound from the Bose is so good, it defies the laws of physics. If think the absurdity of that statement is self-evident, so I will just leave it at that. I can not find the radio clip, but here is a copy of the review.

http://www.epinions.com/review/Bose_Wave_Radio_II/content_167128567428

NEW: Slot Loading CD/MP3 BOSE Wave Radio – Bose Wave Radio II – Epinions.com via kwout

Second, we have a woman in Joliet who seems to have forgotten that gas particles expand as the evaporate. Here is a summary I wrote for my submission to the Darwin Awards:

It appears that a 27-year old Joliet woman is quite evolutionary challenged, but she continues on. At some point on the night of August 27th, the woman in question decided to travel to the gas station to fill her can. While at the gas station, our herione didn't want to put the gas can on the ground, so as to ground all of the pesky electrons. Rather she left it on the plush seats in her car in the hopes that the friction between the plastic and the upholstery would kick up some extra electrons that might help her get some light to see whether or not her can was full. Well, that plan backfired, and she was not getting the light she needed. Fortunately she found her pocket ligther and checked the inside of the can. Well, this ignited the whole thing on fire. Now, realizing that this may be an concern, the young woman pushed her can 5 feet in order to keep the pump from blowing up while her car was destroyed thus ensuring her potential to breed. If asked afterwards, one could only assume she would say that she saw gas in the can. Submitted on 08/29/2009 Submitted by: Peter Kupfer

Slush Pile: For Want of a CFL via kwout

Again, I am really not sure if I can add any more to this story, but the phrase, “You can’t make this stuff up,” comes to mind.  Seriously, why would someone do this? It just boggles the mind.

The bottom line here folks is, don’t mess with physics. With a knowledge of physics you can control the world. Now a fun video from my two favorite physicists.

This post is copyright © 2009 by Peter Kupfer on August 31, 2009 at 9:35 pm from.
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pkup10 (38.107.191.113) )]]> http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/08/31/gravity-not-just-a-good-idea-but-the-law-of-physics/feed/ 0 Illinois Keeps Making it Easy to be Mocked… http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/03/12/illinois-keeps-making-it-easy-to-be-mocked/ http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/03/12/illinois-keeps-making-it-easy-to-be-mocked/#comments Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:56:13 +0000 Peter Kupfer http://blog.peterkupfer.net/?p=1073 The headline of this article caught my eye first. Pluto a Planet Again — On Friday the 13th, in Illinois, but the title is a little over zealous. Apparently we are just honoring the founder of Pluto, but still I wouldn’t put it past the State of Illinois to embarass itself in this way.

http://news.nationalgeographic.co.uk/news/2009/03/090311-pluto-planet-illinois.html

This post is copyright © 2009 by Peter Kupfer on March 12, 2009 at 7:56 pm from.
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pkup10 (38.107.191.113) )]]> http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/03/12/illinois-keeps-making-it-easy-to-be-mocked/feed/ 0 At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/01/19/at-mit-large-lectures-are/ http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/01/19/at-mit-large-lectures-are/#comments Tue, 20 Jan 2009 03:07:51 +0000 Peter Kupfer http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/01/19/at-mit-large-lectures-are/ http://mobile.nytimes.com/2009/01/13/us/13physics.xml PK

This post is copyright © 2009 by Peter Kupfer on January 19, 2009 at 9:07 pm from.
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pkup10 (38.107.191.113) )]]> http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2009/01/19/at-mit-large-lectures-are/feed/ 0 Pluto is Dead http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2006/08/24/pluto-is-dead/ http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2006/08/24/pluto-is-dead/#comments Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:14:24 +0000 Peter Kupfer http://peterkupfer.net/blog/2006/08/24/pluto-is-dead/ The international community (at least some of them) have declared that Pluto is no longer a planet, rather it is a dwarf planet. I think this is an extremely cool event. I always wanted to know who makes those kinds of decisions and who has that authority, now we know. Ultimately I guess the new definition will only stick as long as people accept it. This has got to be a big boom for the text book industry too, because now they have to re-write (and re-sell of course) text books to account for this change.

Personally, I think it is a good decision. Where does Pluto get off thinking it is a planet. It is a little chunk of rock, smaller than our moon (I beleive) that doesn’t even bother staying in the same plane as the rest of the planets. Unbelievable!

I am happy with 8 planets. I think it is a good move. I am anxious to see how the rest of the world accepts this.

This post is copyright © 2009 by Peter Kupfer on August 24, 2006 at 12:14 pm from.
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pkup10 (38.107.191.113) )]]> http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2006/08/24/pluto-is-dead/feed/ 1 Interesting Science Project… http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2006/03/12/interesting-science-project/ http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2006/03/12/interesting-science-project/#comments Sun, 12 Mar 2006 07:22:00 +0000 Peter Kupfer http://peterkupfer.net/blog/2006/03/12/interesting-science-project/ After listening about the top 100 toys I had a fun idea for a science project. The Slinky came in at #9. I think a fun experiment would be to find an equation to relate the speed a slinky has to be pushed in order to make it down a stair case given the ratio of the stairs width to the height of each stair.

Fun.

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My question is (and I am going to assume that some sort of God made the universe), with all of these other things working out perfectly, why doesn’t the # of moon orbits in a year work out evenly. Let me explain.

The moon orbits the earth in like 29.5 days (the number varies depending on your source) . Yet a year is 365.25 days. 365.25/29.5 (/28) will never be a whole #. This doesn’t make sense. It would seem that God would make this more exact and perfect. The Egyptians used to have a calender with months that corresponded to the moon (at least for religion). They new this wasn’t right (they used a different calendar for economic things). One of the jobs of the pharaoh was to add an extra month in every 3-4 years to keep the calendars aligned.

You would think that with all the other majesty of the universe, the moon with orbit with the a consistency that would work to give use perfect months. Oh well.

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pkup10 (38.107.191.113) )]]> http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2005/03/31/astronomy/feed/ 0 Newton was a drunk… http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2004/05/02/newton-was-a-drunk/ http://blog.peterkupfer.net/2004/05/02/newton-was-a-drunk/#comments Mon, 03 May 2004 01:00:00 +0000 Peter Kupfer http://peterkupfer.net/blog/2004/05/02/newton-was-a-drunk/ Okay so maybe that isn’t a fair statement. Perhaps I am a little jealous and I am making false accusation. But he is dead so he can’t really defend himself or sue me.

What is depressing to me is that people who have made a significant contribution to the field of science have done it by the time they are 24. This makes me sad. Why did Newton invent calculus when he was 24 and I haven’t invented a new mathematical system?

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