Impressive Artwork.

10 Secret Trig Functions Your Math Teachers Never Taught You

On Monday, the Onion reported that the “Nation’s math teachers introduce 27 new trig functions”. It’s a funny read. The gamsin, negtan, and cosvnx from the Onion article are fictional, but the piece has a kernel of truth: there are 10 secret trig functions you’ve never heard of, and they have delightful names like ‘haversine’ and ‘exsecant’.

A sponge can’t soak up mercury. (Video) Facebook | Instagram | Scary Story Website

Centrifugal force and seat belts

The basic concept of a seatbelt is to protect you in an automobile collision by holding you in your seat. This prevents you from flying forward and colliding with the dashboard or windshield.

How do you do that ?

Many common seat belts design have something known as a centrifugal clutch. This arrangement has a weight attached to the end of a spool

When the spool rotates at a low speed, the weight is held through spring action and is allowed to spin freely.

But you must have noticed that if you try to pull the seat belt faster then it kinda gets stuck.

This is because as you rotate the spool faster, centrifugal force causes the weight to be pushed out and that stops the spool from rotating further.

This adds tension to your seat belt and holds you to your seat at the time of a crash. 

Have a great day!

* Other seatbelt mechanisms

** Seatbelt physics

What have eclipses ever done for science? Quite a lot, actually!

The first measurement of the width of the Atlantic ocean in the 16th Century

When British settlers arrived in Virginia in the US, they weren’t sure how far across the globe they’d gone. They recorded the local time of a total eclipse of the moon - which is seen all across the night-time side of the planet. Their colleagues in London did the same, and when the travellers returned they could figure out the five hour time difference.

Edmond Halley discovered that the moon is moving away from the Earth

Halley realised you could back-calculate when previous eclipses would have occurred. But he noticed a mismatch between his predictions and the history books. The reason, he discovered, what that he was assuming the moon stayed the same distance from the Earth. It is actually getting further at about the rate your fingernails grow. And that means that one day (in a few million years, that is), the moon will be too far away to create any more total solar eclipses.

In 1919 a solar eclipse proved Einstein’s theory of relativity

Einstein’s theory predicted that the sun’s gravity should bend the light of nearby stars, meaning that in theory we should be able to see stars that are hidden just behind the sun. However, sunlight always blocks our view of these stars, and it was only during a solar eclipse that there was a short window to see if hidden stars were visible, as predicted. Astronomer Arthur Eddington travelled to West Africa and took photos that proved Einstein right.

Scientists still use solar eclipses today

It’s very hard to study the sun’s corona - a tenuous hot gas, which just one millionth of the light intensity of the sun. The shapes and lines of the corona show the nature of the sun’s magnetic field, and are only visible to study during an eclipse. NASA are also using this opportunity to help create the first thermal map of Mercury!

Want to know more? Watch our full video.

I have always been fascinated by Pokemon.

Tiding through the waves of time, now that I think about it : Pokemon did teach me a lot about physics, especially electricity. 

What is Electricity ?

Electricity stems from a potential difference between two areas, which allows for electromotive force to ensue in mobile electrons.

Bio-electricity

In biological cells, a voltage imbalance or a cell potential difference exists between the inside and outside of a a cell.

The cell achieves this by removing 3 sodium ions for every 2 potassium ions allows into the system. The removing process consumes energy ( ATP ).

                               The sodium ions leaving the cell 

                            The Potassium ions entering the cell

Source Video

Pikachu and Bioelectrogenesis

Where does pikachu gets it’s electrical powers ? 

Its by a process known as bioelectrogenesis.

Bioelectrogenesis is the generation of electricity by living organisms

How it works is rather blunt. Remember I told you that the cells are maintained in a potential difference.

There are passageways /electrolytes that are present that allows a flow of ions through them.

                                            Ion Passageways

When required, the brain of the pikachu sends a signal through the nervous system to these electrolytes, opening ions channels and reversing charge polarity, causing an abrupt difference in electric potential.

The final effect is the generation of electric current, capable of going up to 100,000 Volts during its thunderbolt move.

Result : Opponent stupefied.

Water is better conductor than air

Most of animals that bioelectrogenic in nature are aquatic creatures ( electric eels, rays, cattlefish, etc ) . This is because water is a much better electrical conductor than air, therefore electrical signals signals can be transmitted through water.

This betters the chance for the organism to protect itself against predators. Pikachu is not aquatic because probably the writes didn’t want it be so - Poetic License ;P

More:

Some other pokemons that were also bioelectrogenic  were: Eelektrik and the Eelektross

The voice of Pikachu - must watch

Electrogenic Humans

The one that ash has is a male pikachu. There is a female to the species as well. ( Look at the tail )

That’s pokemon physics for you folks.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post as much i did drafting it. Oh boy! There is physics just in about everything !

Inside - Vadim Sadovski

Møbius donut.

Due to the Mandela Effect, we remember things that didn’t happen or exist. Get the answer and why in our NEW VID: https://youtu.be/hvu4D1jngCY

Optical Properties: Negative Refraction and Metamaterials

Negative refraction isn’t something that occurs naturally in nature, it’s something scientists have created using specifically designed materials. So how do they do it?

The index of refraction, n, can be equated to the square root of the material’s relative permittivity times its relative permeability. For most materials, both these values are positive, resulting in the sort of refraction that we’re all familiar with. But, as show in the diagram below, if both the values were negative then the resulting material would have negative refraction

Metamaterials are defined as artificial materials engineered to have properties that have not yet been found in nature, and since negative refraction does not occur naturally, only metamaterials can have negative refraction. 

So far, however, metamaterials have only been created that refract microwave and radio frequencies - scientists believe it is unlikely that a material will be created with negative refraction in the visible part of the spectrum.

Sources: 1 2 3 4

Image sources: 1 2 3

(Note: Images 1 and 2 are not actual photographs of negative refraction, but rather depictions of what the effect would look like, given that negative refraction has never been achieved in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum.)

These 17 Women Changed The Face Of Physics

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