Archive for the 'The wonderful world of science' Category
If you leave a can of fizzy drink in a too cold fridge, so that it freezes, the CO2 will be released from the water and go into the gas pocket in the can, right? Right. And this will increase the pressure inside the can, right? Right. And the freezing and expanding water will increase the pressure even more, right? Right. And eventually the increasing pressure inside the can will cause the can to crack along the weakened opening, releasing the pressure in a spray of gas and liquid, right?
Actually, not always.
Since I’ve announced it everywhere else, I might as well say it here, too: I’ve got a new job. At New Year’s, I’ll be moving to Longyearbyen to study polar cap patches, an obscure phenomenon in dayside northern lights. If all goes well, I’ll have a Ph.D. to my name in three years.
Oh, one more thing:
Wheeeee!
One of the incrediblest things I’ve heard in a while: over a hundred children have had half their brains surgically removed as treatment of extreme seizures. Apparently it works remarkably well.
So another thing I decide that the world needs:
- A CAT scan of my head, used to construct a 3D model of my skull.
- Said model is fed to a 3D printer.
- Repeat, only this time use an MRI scan of my brain.
Voilà, I can reenact Hamlet’s conversation with Yorick with my own skull. Or, at least, a replica of it. And contemplate the mystery of the brain using my own as a paperweight.
All the technologies are right here. We have them today. We had them years ago. All that is needed is for Someone™ pull a wire from one to the other and connect them.
Finally, somebody took the trouble to enumerate and rank the various methods for destroying the Earth.
So I stumbled across this neat blast radius simulator. Now, seeing as I don’t really have any real grasp of how big Manhattan is, I found Oslo around (10.76, 59.92) instead. Very interesting. Since it’s Google Maps-powered, I found my apartment at (10.76021, 59.93917). Quite… interesting to simulate the collateral damage in the event that somebody nukes me. Some interesting numbers: 15 kT (Hiroshima), 21 kT (Nagasaki), 50 MT (Tsar Bomba).
