For objects that can rotate, it turns out that applying a force to it doesn't necessarily mean the object will rotate. It also depends on where the force is applied, and at what angle it is applied. This combination of force, distance and angle is called torque.
This video introduces how to find the magnitude of torque, Frsin(beta), and provides numerous examples of how to find the torque due to various forces. Check it out, and see if it makes any sense.
An interesting effect that does happen from time to time on earth, and frequently in satellite electronics, is cosmic radiation coming through and causing damage to electronics. This Veritasium video gives a number of real examples, as well as the science behind it. Some of you may be interested in this!
Check out a good intro to what General Relativity, Einstein's masterpiece, is all about. Thanks to MinutePhysics for this description.
Here's a link to check out, and see what you think. This link is for parents of younger children.
New studies of simulations of what the Earth's most inner core is made of suggest a strange form of matter - superionic matter - could exist. Superionic matter is a type of matter that has behaviors of both solid and liquid states. The inner core is at such ridiculous pressures and temperatures, no one has been able to confidently deduce what's there.
Studies of earthquake waves passing through the core have some strange characteristics that have not been explained, and simulations with superionic material seem to be a better match to the recorded data. It seems that iron in the material would stay fixed in a lattice, like a solid, but then other types of atoms such as oxygen and hydrogen would flow through the lattice, more like a liquid. I would imagine this all could have some relevance to better understanding the earth's magnetic field production, depending on the nature of the flow and how ionic it may be, so we'll see in coming years what research shows.
If you want to check out the schedule for some online, virtual sessions for the Fermilab Open House, check out this site and you can register for them!
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has one of the elite engineering colleges in the world, with 39 Top-10 ranked degree programs for undergraduate and graduate levels. I don't think any other school can say this. Anyhow, they put on a pretty good show each year with their Engineering Open House. This year it is on April 8-9, 2022, and will go back to in-person.
If you want to check out the engineering programs, that would be the weekend to see so much and talk to people from literally every department within the engineering college. It's about a 2.5 hour drive to UIUC, so check it out if you have a chance!! The photo below is of the Bardeen Quad on Engineering Campus (a small portion of the engineering campus). John Bardeen is the professor I've mentioned who is the only person to win 2 Nobels in Physics, for the transistor and theory of superconductivity.
We have begun out fundraising effort for our friends in Malawi! The money we have raised over the past five years have helped schools in Malawi, Africa, one of the top ten poorest countries in the world, purchase land, seed, fertilizer, pesticides, tools, and an irrigation system for dry season and future droughts. This has allowed the schools to feed over 1500 students for an entire school year with each harvest! This model is in response to the last famine the region experienced back in 2014-2015, and we refer to it as our EMPATHY Project.
We are thrilled that more schools will begin this process, so we literally need seed money for them to begin! Help out if you are able to through our GoFundMe site.
This video provides some more detail about this work. THANK YOU for your consideration!!!
The Webb space telescope, a marvel of modern science, technology, and engineering, has reached its home for years to come, orbiting the sun at a point known as L2, one of the Lagrange points of the Sun-Earth system. This is around 1 million miles from earth (4x's the distance to the moon). See this article for more information about Lagrange points in a 2-body gravitational systems, which are points of balance between the two gravitational forces on a small object at the Lagrange point and the 'centrifugal' force on the object at the Lagrange point (since objects moving in orbits want to be flung outward if they had their way due to their inertia).
This is the next-generation telescope for astronomers around the world, and soon the Webb team will begin to focus this unique telescope and begin to calibrate its various detection systems to do highly anticipated science!
Looking for data and trends in countless areas of life? The Our World in Data site, run through the University of Oxford, is amazing! It has thousands of interactive graphs on everything from world hunger to electricity accessibility to education to war to agriculture...
It is also a site used in teaching for the world's best universities and sponsored by the top scientific and media-based organizations on the planet. Use it when writing papers for school or doing your own research.
It is difficult to solve the world's big problems if one does not know the extent of the problems, and this site helps address that issue!
Get beyond the politics of big problems, and go after the actual data to help figure it out!
