LHC is on!

THe LHC produced the first collisions of protons today.

Gamma Ray Satellite may have found dark matter

Here's another great post that describes a recent discovery of what may be dark matter, which makes up 20% of our universe (regular matter is only 4%).

The excess gamma rays could possibly be coming from a hypothesized dark matter called Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), colliding with one another and annihilating themselves into pure energy.

Fermi may have spotted dark matter.

Want to conquer stress? Exercise is key

Here's a great article from the NYT about a new study on rats showing that exercise allows our brains to better handle stress.

Here's a quote:

It looks more and more like the positive stress of exercise prepares cells and structures and pathways within the brain so that they’re more equipped to handle stress in other forms,” says Michael Hopkins, a graduate student affiliated with the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Laboratory at Dartmouth, who has been studying how exercise differently affects thinking and emotion. “It’s pretty amazing, really, that you can get this translation from the realm of purely physical stresses to the realm of psychological stressors.

Posterous: another super cool tool!

Have you ever wanted to share a file, mp3, photo, or video without having to email everyone, or post an elaborate facebook status? Perhaps you have some great notes you want to share on the blog.

Well, here's the solution.

Just send an email to post@posterous.com, and attach whatever it is you want to share. Posterous will send you a link to the website you created with that attachment.

It couldn't be easier.

great career advice from the creator of dilbert

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, has a wonderful post on his blog with some great career advice.

Here's a quote:

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.

2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

Suddenly, becoming extraodinary doesn't sound so hard.

FAILCON: a conference dedicated to failing

It turns out that in the business world, just like the rest of like, of the of keys to great success is failing often and learning from one's mistakes. It can literally be worth billions. Good thing they now have a conference to teach you how...

Station 5

At station 5, there was a ring with a weight of 10N of force being pulled down from it. A 25 degree angle was being made with the spring scale (which measures 8N) and the ring. The tension force of the other string was unknown. To find this force, we drew a diagram in which all the vectors were placed together from start to finish. The displacement or resultant vector of this diagram represented the tension force of the string, and we figured out that this force equalled 10N.

Station 2

At station 2, there was a ramp that was supported by books. The number of books ranged from zero to three. About halfway down the ramp, there was a force plate that had a device hooked up to it to measure the normal force acting on the force plate. With three books supporting the ramp, our measurements included the angle of the ramp being 7°,  the force exerted on the plate (by a 2 kg mass) was 19.8N, and the height of the ramp at the tallest was 16 cm. The free body diagram had three forces, the Normal force of the ramp on the mass, the gravitational force of the earth on the mass, and the frictional force of the ramp on the mass. These three forces, when added together, equalled zero, meaning that the velocity was constant, and zero. 

Station 8

My group worked at Station 8 and we discovered that because the weight is pulling down on the ring, you do not take account for the gravitational force. There is the contact force of the weight on the ring, the tension force os the string on the rope, and the tension force of the spring on the rope. The spring pulls the ring with a force of 4.2 N and the string pulls the ring with a force of 1.5 N. The weight that is pulling the ring downwards pulls with a force of 5.3 N. When you add more weight to the ring you can see the tension forces increasing. The net force is equal to zero because when you add the forces you can make them a triangle.

Station 4

While working at station 4, our team discovered that even in a seemingly simple construction, complexity can be found. The construction conisited of a ring held beween two spring scales on ropes facing diagonally toward the ring. A 200g mass hung from the bottom of the ring. At first glance, we saw that the two cales registered 1N each, meaning that the total upward force on the ring was 2N. The mass, weighing 2N itself, showed us that the force of gravity on the ring must have been quite negligable, as otherwise, the ring would not have a constant velocity of zero. Instead, it would be moving downward. After drawing the different FBS's for the different parts of the construction, we found that the vectors created ended up creating a closed shape, meaning that we were correct in saying that the force of gravity on the ring should have been negligable. We learned that most of the time, the measurable forces will tell you what the unmeasurable or unforseeable forces will be through the process of elimination.

Sleep tips from the Mayo Clinic

Here are some great sleep tips

What is the best study break? Taking a walk in the woods

Scientists are interested in all sorts of questions, including "what is the best study break." Here's a study that tested how taking a short walk as a break from studying affected student's ability to memorize a series of numbers. It turns out that taking a walk in the woods significantly boosted student's memory compared to those who took a walk along city streets, or did not take a break at all.

What is the best way to take a study break?

Master the art of stealth studying

This is another great post from Study Hakcs on how to master the art of stealth studying.

Some tips:

1. Construct study guides on the fly.
   When taking notes — in class or while doing a reading assignment — start constructing your study guide at the same time. The easiest way to do this is to copy the questions from your question/evidence/conclusion clusters and paste them at the top of your document as you go along.
   Print study guides immediately after construction.
   This is a great way to do FARMIPS—simply write out a question during our discussion and save it for later
   
   
2. Print study guides immediately after construction.


As the professor winds down, or as you finish your reading assignment, send your notes to the nearest public printer. (Or e-mail them to yourself so you can load it up on a public computer connected to a printer). Before doing so, however, reduce the font to the smallest size you can still read. (This will prove useful later.) As you walk out of the classroom, or library, swing by the printer to grab your printout.
Review using the “10-Minute Detour” method.

As soon as you have your first study guide printed, start looking for ways to add a 10-minute detour to a walk across campus you already need to do. Make these detours pass through somewhere quiet and unpopulated. During these detours take out one of your expanded study guides and start doing a quick quiz-and-recall review. Do this out loud. As you walk. (It’s okay to do this quietly to prevent unexpected institutionalization). In 10 minutes you might knock off 2-4 questions. Some additional notes on this process:



• Get in the habit of sprinkling these detours throughout your working hours on working days. (If you’re between classes, your mind is probably already in a deep thinking mode — or a mild coma, depending on the professor).



• Try to review new material within 24-hours to help cement it while it’s still fresh.





3. Ask questions every class. Attend every office hours.

To make stealth studying work, you need to understand all the material as quickly as possible. This means you need to come to class attentive and be a question-asking fiend. When you don’t quite understand how something fits a broader point, ask. If you don’t want to keep interrupting the class, save a collection of specific, concise questions to ask the professor immediately following class. Attend office hours most weeks to discuss the topics you found most difficult. Think of this as a pain-free, advanced review session. We have no time to spare for you to re-learn this material later on before the test. If you don’t get it down the first time, we can’t get your study time down to an hour.

Class, November 5, 2009

Today in the begining of class we talked about the importance of sleep and the results of not getting enough sleep. We also discussed how losing an hour of sleep sets you back significantly without your knowing it. After our sleep discussion we worked on tons of seperate stations at which an object (at rest) was being exerted on by forces. At each station we had to answer questions about the object and forces and then draw a free-body diagram (FBD) to scale of that object.

The next scribe is Connor.

The physics of free throw shooting

Now that basketball season is here, it's a good thing that physicists have worked out the best way to shoot a free throw.

See here: The physics of free throw shooting

Some tips from the article:

First, the engineers say that shooters should launch the shot with about three hertz of back spin. That translates to the ball making three complete backspinning revolutions before reaching the hoop. Back spin deadens the ball when it bounces off the rim or backboard, the engineers assert, giving the ball a better chance of settling through the net.
Where to aim? Tran and Silverberg say you should aim for the back of the rim, leaving close to 5 centimeters - about 2 inches - between the ball and the back of the rim. According to the simulations, aiming for the center of the basket decreases the probabilities of a successful shot by almost 3 percent.

The engineers say that the ball should be launched at 52 degrees to the horizontal. If you don’t have a protractor in your jersey, that means that the shot should, at the highest point in its arc to the basket, be less than 2 inches below the top of the backboard.
Free-throw shooters should also release the ball as high above the ground as possible, without adversely affecting the consistency of the shot; release the ball so it follows the imaginary line joining the player and the basket; and release the ball with a smooth body motion to get a consistent release speed.

“Our recommendations might make even the worst free-throw shooters - you know who you are, Shaquille O’Neal and Ben Wallace - break 60 percent from the free-throw line,” Silverberg says with tongue firmly in cheek. “A little bit of physics and a lot of practice can make everyone a better shooter from the free-throw line.”