Secret Identity in Jeopardy

My secret identity was nearly discovered today! I had friends over and they discovered the remains of my hot air balloon - I need to dispose of evidence in the future! And maybe wear glasses when I write a post, hey it worked for superman!

Mateaser Meteors

This was a really nice experiment because I was free to play without too much fear of it going wrong! Here is a video of what happened (my video skills are improving slowly - yes, I laugh way too much but you can't hear what my Dad is doing in the background!)

The Earths suface is demonstrated by the cocoa powder and the flour underneath are the inner layers of the Earth.

Each of the 'meteors' did create pretty impressive craters but it is interesting to see the patterns of displacement from the meteors that came in from different angles

When the 'meteor' hit the ground straight down it displaced the top layer quite uniformly. The others clearly have exposed more of the lower layers layers in a particular direction.

Speed of Light experiment - Take 2

I went to my grandparents house yesterday and had a second attempt at the speed of light experiment!

This time I used marshmallows, which despite it's yumminess factor it wasn't the easiest of experimental materials as demonstrated by these pictures of the clear up - I'm not going to lie, the messier it is, the more fun it is!

However I have to admit to turning my back on this philosophy when the marshmallows were in the microwave. They don't just melt as I expected, they actually expanded! In places growing to at least three times their size! I had visions of myself spending hours cleaning the sticky remnants of an exploded marshmallow from the inside of my grandparents microwave so fought the curiosity of answering the question 'woa, do marshmallows explode in a microwave?'! I googled, apparently there is a limit to how large they can get and don't explode..

I took out the turning plate and put it in upside down over the rotating parts. In a microwave oven, microwaves are produced and are then reflected by the sides of the microwave oven creating a standing wave. The amplitudes of the two waves will add, creating spaces where the microwaves are twice as strong and places where there are none (As shown in the picture. The centre of the wave is where there is zero amplitude) Therefore when I measured the distance between two of the most melted spaces to be 0.066m, I am finding the distance between two peaks (including the bottom peaks) so to find the wavelegnth I must multiply the distance by two.

I found on wikipedia that the average frequency of a microwave to be 2.4 GHz which is the same as 2.4 x 1,000,000,000 Hz.

Speed of light = Frequency x Wavelegnth

Speed of light = (2.4 x 1,000,000,000) x (0.066 x 2)

Speed of light = 316,800,000 m/s

Which is actually pretty close all things considered! Only 17, 007, 542 m/s away...

The final lesson learnt from this experiment? You can eat too much marshmallow...

Happy Easter!

Today is Easter Sunday! And since Chocolate has a lot to do with Easter, you should watch this video!

The pressure of air outside a vacuum chamber pushes down on the 'goo' (insides of a creme egg) and keeps it inside the chocolate. Without this pressure inside the vacuum the goo expands and bursts out of the chocolate shell!

There really is only one way to eat a creme egg from now on! I really feel like I need a vacuum pump!

For Easter my Mum and Dad bought me Brians Book for the second series!! Yay :)

Electric Custard

So this morning I failed at making a hovercraft from a 'It's Chico Time' CD and some card... Turns out that CD really is totally useless!

So to make myself feel better I made a tasty snack of - ELECTRIC SLIME! Actually I'm not totally kidding about the 'tasty snack' part - I lasted about half an hour before my curiosity got the better of me and I tasted a tinsy bit of it... It wasn't tasty.. At all!

Electric slime is made out of cornflour and vegetable oil which is mixed together until it is the same consistency as cream. Apparently you are also supposed to spill cornflour all over the work top, or maybe that's just me?

Rub a balloon until it is charged. It becomes positively charged because you have knocked some of the negative electrons out. Then bring a spoonful of delicious dripping slime close to the balloon. It's consistency will thicken and it will be pulled towards the balloon. This is because the slime is made of cornflour which has lots of particles. The particles are coated with an insulating liquid so the charge can't leave the particle so instead the charges are just pulled more to one end. The positive end of one particle will attract the negative end of another particle. This makes the slime more attracted to itself and therefore thickens. The slime is also attracted to the positive balloon.

In the picture above there is some slime in the cup which was also attracted to the balloon - it looks like it has climbed out of the cup!! Unfortunately it wasn't quite as awesome as that!

My lovely mum volunteered as my glamorous assistant and helped me to video the experiment. Its no work of art and I still have no idea why I was whispering but it kind of shows what happened! 

Actually, now I think about it this is actually quite a good practical for demonstrating induced dipoles for Chemistry!

Friction Failed Me

I wasn't sure whether to admit this experiment even happened or not because it pushes my ratio of failed experiments to successful ones over half... But I would know even if I wrote this or not so here it goes - I tried to get a knife stuck in a jar of rice and it didn't work..

I was trying for at least half an hour so I feel quite defeated over this... This is the worst failure not only because it is my second of the day but also because I have absolutely no idea why it didn't work! It was supposed to be so simple.

You fill a jar with rice, jab a knife into it and wobble it, pull it out and repeat this for anything from 3 times to 12 times to the many hundreds of times I did. Eventually the rice grains become more compacted. even though the knife is smooth it still causes friction and as the rice becomes more tightly packed, more grains of rice rub against the knife causing friction to increase. When the friction equals the force of the weight, the forces are balanced and the knife cannot be removed. Simple right?

Maybe today just isn't my day for experiments... In the plus side, repeatedly stabbing something was pretty good stress relief!!

Speed of Butter Melting in a Microwave....

Okay so this morning really failed on the experiment front... I was actually trying to find the speed of light but all I really found was the time it took to melt butter...

This was going to be really exciting as it is the name sake of this blog, it involved a bit of maths and we already had all the things I would need in the house! Well, kind of...

The experiment could be done with marshmallows or buttered bread (I figured marshmallows would be too messy and as it's still lent I still couldn't eat them after..). You cook them in the microwave (after disabling the rotory plate) for a few seconds and some sections should melt before others. Since the speed of light = the frequency x the wavelength, you measure the distance between the patches, half it to get the wavelength and multiply it by the frequency (should be given in a microwave manual or be on the side) and you get the speed of light! Except our microwave is a fancy modern one which doesn't rotate but manages to heat (I'm not entirely sure how...) food from the centre so I tried it anyway and ended up with a centralised soggy sandwich...

I forgot how disappointing a failed experiment is! Especially as I had to convince my parents that this wasn't a waste of bread - I'm sure Brians parents sacrificed their bread more willingly in the name of Science! I might try this again after Easter in my Grandparents microwave, with marshmallows!

Hot Air Balloon

I pretty much knew how hot air balloons work before this experiment but it's something I've always wanted to try (a miniature version and a ride in a real one!) so I decided to do it any way!

You need a thin plastic bag, some cardboard and a toaster. My parents insisted on supervising on the grounds that 'toasters are dangerous' or rather 'me and toasters together are dangerous' but secretly I think they just wanted to see it! You roll the cardboard into a tube that is longer than the bag. I think my tube could have done with being a bit wider so more air was funneled into the bag but I was limited by cardboard supplies and it still worked okay. Put the bag on the tube and that on the toaster. Then turn the toaster on!

It worked! After a painful wait (I had a crowd watching, well 3 members of my family, and I was so worried it wouldn't work!) the bag started to fill up with air and then rise up off the tube. But once the whole bag was off the tube the bag fell which was slightly disappointing but I'm still counting it as a success and to improve I would suggest a wider tube.

And then I tried again which on reflection was pushing my luck a little but in my defense I thought a warmer bag might go higher. What actually happens is the bag starts to melt!! So my Physics experiment became a Chemistry lesson because of course I was using a thermosoftening plastic which means it doesn't retain its shape on heating...

Anyway, back to the Physics - the bag lifts up because the toaster heats the air inside the bag (as my tube wasn't wide enough it also heated the air outside the tube a little so this supports my theory that this had an affect on the experiment) causing the air to expand slightly. This means that less air can fit inside the bag and some will come out making the bag lighter and less dense so the bag floats above the heavier air.

University Trip

Today I went to Cambridge University for a Maths Course organised by Pure Potential. I've been pretty sure for a while now that I would like to do Physics and/or Maths at university but I was unsure of my preferred ratio of subjects (for example equally split or Maths with a bit of Physics). After today I can pretty much say that I would like to do Physics (my favourite courses are the ones with quite a lot of Maths in them though) at university. Not that today was bad - in fact it was enjoyable and useful. It was really interesting to see how they teach at university and it was really reassuring to hear from the student representatives. It's more just that it didn't quite capture my interests as much as the Physics lectures and courses I have been on. I also feel like by taking Maths I will close the doors to some Physics careers but by taking Physics, the Maths doors are still open.

Cambridge is really beautiful!

Jet Powered Hot Guys

Today I built a jet powered rotor and it worked!! Yay me :) Or rather Yay Physics but I like to think it was my expertise that was the major factor in this success! I'm just kidding it was beautifully simple!

You will need two straws (I had pink and green) and some scissors. You cut one straw (the pink straw) so it is the same length each side of the bendy bit. Then you fold the end of the short side other straw (the green straw) in half lengthways so that you can squish it inside one end  of the short pink straw. Now you bend the long green straw downwards and the short pink straw sidewards, put the long green straw in you mouth (don't hold it too tight) and blow! It will probably spin out of your mouth at this point but with a bit of practise you'll get better control! If you suck, nothing happens...

This is because when you blow you push air out with a momentum which pushes the straw round. When you suck you pull air in from all different directions and because momentum has a direction the different directions will cancel out and there will be zero momentum to push the straw.

X-ray machine in my wardrobe

Physics revision somehow wound up with me on the 'bang goes the theory' website on the BBC.. It's kind of on topic so it doesn't totally count as procrastination right?
Anyway I found this: http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/biology/order-your-free-set-genome-fridge-magnets which is super cool - I can't wait for mine to arrive!

So then I started looking for free physics stuff and I ended up on an article describing how sellotape can cause x- rays! If you slowly undo sellotape in the dark you see a fluorescent blue glow! So guess who ended up inside a wardrobe because she couldn't wait for night? Yea, that might've been me.. but guess who ended up slightly entangled and bitterly disappointed, three times? Also me... I might've been doing it wrong but I'm pretty sure there aren't many ways of peeling off sellotape... I had to give up after three times because I was getting tired of rewinding sellotape! I had never mind, I'll try again with another roll - I'm used to Physics experiments not working!

Anyway this is what is actually happening when you unroll sellotape (in a wardrobe or out of a wardrobe...). The adhesive becomes positively charged and the rest of the rolll is negatively charged. You transfer energy to the charge when you pull it away. The negative charge will be attracted to the positively charged adhesive and will move through the air towards it. It transfers the energy to the air and the air molecules glow! An American researcher, Carlos Camara, did this experiment in a vacuum (I'm pretty sure I must have one of those somewhere in my wardrobe..) and produced x-rays powerful enough to take an x-ray image of a hand!! I watched a youtube video of this and it literally was just a normal roll of sellotape!

Needless to say - I have a new favourite website! I want to say I'll try a new experiment everyday but I'm not sure i can cope with daily disappointments!! I'll try everyday till one works?!

Ps. it wasn't the wardrobe with Brian in ;)

I Love You All

I start Physics revison tomorrow. I just wanted to make a post, so that if I don't survive you understand.

Success 2

Charlie Mc Donnell (youtube star) is now promoting this blog!

He's always been uneasy about promoting things on his youtube channel so of course he has been subtle about spreading awareness about me but the recommendation is unavoidable in his most recent video! He most definitely named my blog!

I admit to having to re-watch the video just to hear him say it again and check that 1.He got it right and 2. He remembered the units, which he did - I have now been inspired to always always remember my units now (unless I forget...)

Okay, maybe I just slipped into 'deluded teenage girl' mode... But seriously it's a pretty good physics video - check it out ;) (I do realise 2/3 of my followers already subscribe to Charlie!)

Also I realise I am copying one of my favourite friends and blogger by making a post related to her future husband and so as to remain as true to girl code as possible I have named him her future husband and linked to her post here - (which is also useless because 2/3 of my followers already follow or are her?!) she's great!!

Success!!

I made it into the academy!! It's going to be so great! Now that it is months away I can be excited but I know perfectly well that by at least a week before I go I will be taken over my nerves and not want to go, then I'll get there and hopefully love it so much I don't want to leave! That's what usually happens.. Anyway, back to excitement - I was accepted into the academy!! That sentence is too awesome!!

*Title*

We've been doing a bit of particle phyiscs in school recently and my mind is blown. I mean seriously, it's so much to comprehend! On the way to school this morning (for another day of physics!) I caught myself thinking about it and it's so hard to believe! And then the more I thought about it I realised that I actually find it quite hard to imagine there are even atoms but I've had quite a few years to get used to the idea and it seems quite normal to me now. I wonder if one day it will be obvious for fundamental particles to exist with strange (in both senses of the word!) characteristics and forces with invisible exchange particles and everything around us, everything in us to once have been squished into the tiniest space? I hope not. I want it to always be mindboggling and special.

Death by particle Physics

Even though it's the Easter holidays I had to go into school today and do physics for 6 hours! We were doing fundamental particles, big bang and then space stuff which would have been awesome except it was so much my brain hurt! So I got home and went straight to sleep which was probably a bad idea because I had the worst nightmare where I was drowning in an ocean of fundamental particles, they were scratching my throat and making me gag! It felt so real!! The worst part is that I couldn't understand what they were!! Physics is really starting to get to me?!

You will not believe this!

As further proof of the excitment of my life something awesome happened today!

So we were in class and my physics teacher asked how many pencils I had. I think he was showing me that I needed at least three and was expecting me to not have enough. I was expecting not to have enough. However I began to count. He began to wish he had asked someone else. I proceeded to count out 12 traditional and mechanical pencils. The class was stunned into silence.

Then, when forced to guess how many pencils were in my pencil case 2 put of 3 victims (who werent in my ohysics class) guessed correctly first time!?

But wait - that isn't even the coolest part! On my radio they were just told me that today is actually pencil day :0 today is pencil day! today, the day when I had a major pencil incident!! Actually maybe this is one of those things that seems cooler in my head...

Update on the exciting details of my life! Oh wait..

So things have been pretty ordinary on the physics front... Well, I mean relatively normal compared to some things that could have happened. For example I could have discovered a source of perpetual motion, a superconductor with a critical temperature of 25 degrees Celsius or a method of conducting nuclear fussion on earth without destroying the planet. Actually even compared to eating ice-cream for breakfast my life has been pretty ordinary...

However we did talk about how 'fundamental particles have colour' (except not really because it is a variable property that is more of a way of description rather than a physical description)which has just convinced me further that I might be slightly too sane to actually stand a chance of understanding and contributing to particle physics... Although my sanity has been questioned in the past...

I also have a practical exam in class tomorrow so I should probably do some kind of revision for that now...