Archives for the 'physics' Category
LHC sets record, and we are still here.
Published on 30 Nov 2009 at 3:27 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under physics.
According to a report on Science Daily, the Large Hadron Collider has set a new energy record. The twin beams were at an energy of 1.18 TeV, beating the 0.98 TeV energy of Fermilab’s Tevatron. That now makes the LHC the worlds most energetic particle collider. Despite all of the cries to the contrary, we […]
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What is Radiation?
Published on 10 Oct 2009 at 10:15 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under physics, space radiation.
As the second installment in my space radiation series, I thought that I’d take a moment to ask (and answer!) the question, “What is radiation?” After all, at heart, I am a physics and astronomy professor, so it makes little sense to me to talk about something without first introducing the topic defining the terms.
At […]
Aphelion, 2009
Published on 4 Jul 2009 at 1:17 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under astronomy, physics.
Last night, Earth reached the farthest point in its orbit from the Sun. This distance is called the aphelion of Earth’s orbit. The exact distance varies a bit from year to year due to perturbations in Earth’s orbit from the other planets, but it doesn’t vary by very much. We were just under 152,100,000 kilometers […]
Optical Coatings
Published on 7 Apr 2009 at 4:17 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under astronomy, physics.
When you buy binoculars, eyepieces, or telescopes, you often run into terms such as coated optics, multi-coated optics, or fully coated optics. To the uninformed, these all sound the same. It seems like just a different choice of words to describe the same thing. Unfortunately, sometimes the sales people behind the counter […]
Zero G without a spacecraft
Published on 7 Jan 2009 at 9:46 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under NASA, aeronautics, microgravity flight, physics.
Everyone is familiar with images sent back to Earth of astronauts frolicking in the weightless environment of a spacecraft. When John Glenn was in orbit around Earth, he radioed back to mission controllers on the ground that he was experiencing “Zero G and I feel fine.” But, do you really have to go […]
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Hadrons
Published on 10 Sep 2008 at 1:23 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under physics.
Despite what some of the doomsayers had been predicting, the world did not end this morning. Sometimes I wonder about people who seem to always believe that the world is coming to an end soon due to some catastrophe that only they and their friends know about. If I had a dollar for every time […]
Escape Velocity
Published on 3 Mar 2008 at 5:41 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under physics.
Every now and then, you hear physicists, astronomers, or rocket scientists talking about “escape velocity.” So, what is escape velocity?
To put it very simply, escape velocity is the speed needed to pull away from an object’s gravitational reach. Now, let me explain this. You can imagine throwing an object upwards. From […]
