Another fun physics game

I love games that make me use my brain. In Splitter, you split the wood and tethers to make the smiley face go where you want. A great lesson on levers and slopes.

See? SEE!?

When the wackadoos finally turn on the LHC, create a sustainable blackhole, this is what's gonna happen. So suck it, theoretical physicists, with your "highly" improbability.

Physics can be fun: Fantastic Contraption

Studies have shown that legos improve visual-spacial skills in kids, and that's why boys have a slight advantage over girls (ya know, 'cause parents would rater buy their little girls pink-clothed baby dolls than a lego kit). BF found this game online last night, and while it's Crayola-colored, it's actually a really good game about physics and engineering. If kids played with it, they'd have a head start when they hit science in high school.

Fantastic Contraption: A fun online physics puzzle game

The end of the world delayed...again

Well, it looks like the world isn't going to end today. For those of you not in the know, a bunch of scientists have built this ginormous, 17-mile long particle accelerator called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is supposed to slam particles together to recreate the environment in which the universe was born. They're hoping to learn more about the universe's origins, as well as possibly find the elusive Higgs-Boson, that which holds everything together. In other words, the Force.




Look closely at this picture. You see a circle on the landscape? That's it. The LHC.



This is the inside of it. There's apparently an eiffel tower's worth of metal and gold wires.



Opponents of the LHC claim that it's possible that the scientists will inadvertantly create a sustainable black hole, which would be bad. As in end-of-the-world bad. Several lawsuits and cease and desist orders have been filed to stop the turning on of the LHC. Proponents of the experiment say that the probability of this happening is practically negligable. I suppose we shall see, eh?



Today was supposed to be the day that the LHC was turned on. There was a countdown page and everthing, which has mysteriously vanished from existance. And now Reuters is reporting that the launch date has been rescheduled for September 10. The scientists postponing the end of the world to ensure that the opening ceremonies of the olympics go on without a hitch, mayhaps?

At least we can take comfort in the fact that if the LHC does indeed manifest a sustainable black hole, which in turn implodes the earth due to its jigundo gravity, it'll probably happen so fast that no one will notice. Here one second, all spaghettified the next.

Unless it's already happened, and this is hell. Shit, man, it would suck if my hell was my office. I can't stand an eternity of talking to these yahoo patients.

Geeks of the world REJOICE!

Discovery News just published a story, and I think every geek just simultaneously creamed their pants.

Here you see a graphical representation of a new type of engine to drive space ships: a real, live, warp drive. Like in Star Trek. Honestly.

Scientists at Baylor University say it's possible*. And they're totally not joking.

"A design first proposed in1994 by Michael Alcubierre is illustrated. The Alcubierre drive, as it's known, involves expanding the fabric of space behind a ship into a bubble and shrinking space-time in front of the ship. The ship would rest in between the expanding and shrinking space-time, essentially surfing down the side of the bubble."

The cool part: "The tricky part is that the ship wouldn't actually move; space itself would move underneath the stationary spacecraft. A beam of light next to the ship would still zoom away, same as it always does, but a beam of light far from the ship would be left behind."

How bad-ass is that?

When I was a kid, sitting in the back of my parents' stupid renault, counting the lines on the road as they flashed by, I used to wonder if we were moving over the world, or if we were standing still, and the world was moving beneath us. Similarly, someone once asked Einstein why the chicken crossed the road. He replied, "Did the chicken cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?" I envision this "warp-drive" the same way. The space ship stays still, while space moves around it.

Totally bad-ass.

*Yes, they also said it's impractical, and probably still a couple millenia from fruition, but dude, come on, we landed on the moon ahead of time. Let's be optimistic here, people. I've got my eye on a time share in the general vicinity of Betelgeuse.