Tag: PHYSICS

Over the past few months, many politicians and national security experts have grown increasingly worried about what might happen if the U.S. power grid were ever to fall prey to a terrorist attack. Concerns first arose last March, when a scientific study published in the journal Safety Science suggested that even an attack on a small corner of the electrical network could unleash a domino effect ...

We all know that 'Angry Birds' is one of the most addictive games ever created, but does this physics puzzler actually obey the laws of physics? Wired's Rhett Allain had to find out, and used some fancy video-tracking software and lots of geeky math skills to reveal the truth. He also discovered that, in the real world, those red angry birds would be over two-feet tall. Terrifying. ...

Confronted with an ongoing app revolution and a prosperous surge of versatile handheld devices, calculators may seem condemned to being bygone gadgets of yore. A defiant and inspired Casio, however, apparently believes its calculators -- equipped with new, cutting-edge capabilities -- remain highly relevant and necessary mathematical tools. Older fogies (especially the bumbling ones who -- ...

This year's IgNobel Prize winners, as always, came up with ingenious ways to do really zany things. This year's winner in the physics category, for example, discovered that people who wear socks on the outsides of their shoes are less likely to fall while walking on ice. Another researcher earned the vaunted prize for his straight-to-DVD research on fruit bat fellatio. Perhaps the weirdest ...

The Directly Downwind Faster Than the Wind (DDWFTTW) debate provides one of the most entertaining geek arguments of all time, and that's a hardy feat, given the glut of endless discussions about preeminent sci-fi franchises, video game violence and Internet addiction. A (brilliant) kill-joy, Rick Cavallaro, may have just rendered the debate obsolete, though, as his wind-powered car recently ...

The rules of physics define the world in which we live. Every movement we make, be it clumsy or balletic, is defined by these mathematical rules. However, since the inception of video games, developers have been synthesizing and transforming these rules, creating alternate physical realms. Game developers must constantly warp established laws of nature to suit their whims, from the languorous ...

While it might be overshadowed by the 2010 FIFA World Cup, the Robocup, a soccer tournament for robots, is also happening right now. According to Physorg, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University have developed a computer algorithm for the American robo-team that allows the bots to anticipate and predict how the ball will move around the pitch. The goal of the Robocup is for researchers to ...

Blasting away with a laser doesn't seem, at first glance, to be the most logical way to restore an ancient, artistic masterpiece. However, beams have long been a weapon of choice among those who polish old stone and metal artifacts -- far longer, in fact, than they've been used to remove arguably less gorgeous things like tattoos. Now, a group of physicists in Italy have reportedly figured out a ...

Technology can definitely be a spectator sport, and one of the most entertaining aspects of being a scientific bystander is watching creative minds apply modern and futuristic concepts to classic contraptions. The bicycle has been one of the favorite targets of those ingenious (and mad) scientists, and the creations have ranged from sad and depressing to awesome and inspiring. Several students ...

Hold onto those wands, all you would-be wizards. One of Harry Potter's most valuable possessions might soon make the jump from the page to the real world. According to The Daily Mail, researchers at Imperial College in London received an $8.1-million grant to develop an invisibility suit. That's right, you could throw on a garment and sneak around, just like Harry did while stalking the halls of ...

Discovery.com has rounded up some of Hollywood's most ridiculous explanations for time travel, including Superman reversing the earth and the quantum mechanics and "exotic material" underlying [SPOILER ALERT] the time-hopping island in 'Lost.' The time-traveling trope has been a stalwart in science fiction since the 18th century, and continues to be a defining characteristic of the genre. ...

For those interested in getting their asses kicked by one or perhaps even many dumb jocks, here's a three-part tattoo you might consider getting: the Born Oppenheimer Approximation, its equivalent in the form of a 3-D Schrödinger Equation, and the solution to the equation itself in the form of a Schrödinger Equation. It's here modeled by a dude named Joe, who recently had the trifecta ...

Scientists at UCLA have constructed the world's smallest light bulb. When it's turned off, the tiny filament is invisible to the naked eye. Flip the switch, however, and it becomes a tiny pin-prick of light. The minuscule bulb was created using carbon nanotube technology, a much touted scientific breakthrough that has, until now, been used to do little else other than create portraits of our ...

Sure it's cool in big summer blockbusters when the hero drives the car and jumps 14 others, or shoots one bullet through three guys, but the truth is moves such as those are physically impossible. You may be sitting there saying to yourself "yeah... I know, it's just a movie," but apparently, some kids are are getting some bad education from these movies with completely fantastic physics. Two ...