Applied Physics

5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do

I did almost all of them when I was a kid, except superglue my fingers together. I had a few pocket knives but my favorite was the Swiss Army knife. This is what I use today to void product warranties: Leatherman Juice XE6 Without further ado, Gever Tulley ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Oct 21 2014 - 8:03am

Data Transmission Gets A New World Record

Fewer cords, smaller antennas and quicker video is the goal of a microwave circuit that has set a new world record for data transmission.  ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 21 2014 - 11:01am

How Is Thermodiffusion Different In A Weightless Environment?

Thermodiffusion is when a temperature difference establishes a concentration difference in a mixture. Two recent studies build on recent experimental results from the IVIDIL (Influence Vibration on Diffusion in Liquids) research project performed on the In ...

Article - News Staff - Oct 27 2014 - 12:53pm

Antifragility: Two Messes Can Sometimes Bring Order

It's common sense that if you have ne mess and add another mess, you have created an even bigger mess. But in arcane statistics, economics and social science, a bigger mess can lead to more order- a concept known as antifragility.  In a paper publish ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 4 2014 - 4:38pm

Coming To You Live From The Nano-Cosmos

Researchers have witnessed how football-shaped carbon molecules known as buckyballs arrange themselves into ultra-smooth layers, all in real time, and by piecing that together with theoretical simulations, the investigators believe they can advance the fi ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 5 2014 - 1:40pm

Follow Me On Twitter

"In space no one can hear you scream" was the tagline for the movie Alien. I finally created a Twitter account, but in Twitter, if you have no followers, no one can read your tweets. You are welcome to follow me on Twitter: @SteveSchuler20 Pictu ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Nov 7 2014 - 3:48pm

Introduction To Pulse Width Modulation Using Scratch On The Kano Computer

In my previous article about the Kano Computer, I demonstrated how to use MIT’s Scratch graphical programming language on the Kano to flash an LED (the “Hello World!” program of hardware hacking). In this article, I’ll again demonstrate how to flash an LED ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Nov 14 2014 - 4:01pm

Snap Circuits Science: The Electronic Relay

What’s a relay? You’ve probably seen a relay race where one runner hands off a baton to another runner. Similarly, an electronic relay hands off control from one circuit to another. A relay is a very simple device consisting of an electromagnet, an armatu ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Nov 20 2014 - 1:10pm

Chillin' With The Coldest Matter In The World

Physicists have developed a new cooling technique for mechanical quantum systems by using an ultracold atomic gas, cooling a membrane down to less than 1 degree above absolute zero. Ultracold atomic gases are among the coldest objects in existence. Laser ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 24 2014 - 1:47pm

Wall Crawling With More Accuracy: Van Der Waals Force Re-Measured

The van der Waals force, named after Dutch chemist Johannes Diderik van der Waals, is the total forces between molecules not due due to covalent bonds. The famous sticking power of the geckos is thanks to the van der Waals force.  Although it was discover ...

Article - News Staff - Nov 26 2014 - 1:30pm