THE END... for now

It is so interesting to look into the weird world of physics and this blog only made a microscopic dent on what the physics universe explores. The purpose of this blog was to give you a taste of physics that is so strange it is mind numbing. With the help of the internet and an admiration for freaky, funky, and fun physics this blog was born. From classical to modern, physics is only beginning to take shape and has evolved to the point that would be unrecognizable to the physicists of the past -- it is truly a transformative science. In the words of Stephen Hawking, "I hope I have helped to raise the profile of science and to show that physics is not a mystery but can be understood by ordinary people," while making it clear that physics remains an inconceivably broad and confusing science.

Simply Strange Physics

QUESTION #1: Does ice become slippery before or after someone steps on it?

Have you ever wondered why ice is slippery when you skate? Probably not, but now that the question is out there could you answer it? Scientists of the past rationalized that the pressure on the ice (applied for instance by an ice skater) caused the top layer of the ice to melt, in theory leading to a small layer of water to form on the ice and voila the ice becomes slippery. If you are wondering why this is a convincing argument well, the answer is that water is less dense as a solid (ice) than a liquid which means it holds the ability to have a lowered melting point caused by pressure. BUT, what if the answer is not that simple? In today's scientific community this simple explanation is not widely accepted. The point is that the pressure of the skates will only lower the melting point of the ice by a very, very small percentage. With that being said the answer is sort of unknown, some scientists think that the friction from the skates melts the ice (but this leaves the door open to questions like what if the person is NOT moving at all is the friction still a valid answer?), while other scientists think that the water on top of the ice is a natural occurrence made of unstable water molecules searching for stability (meaning they are in constant random motion).

ANSWER #1: Unknown! (However, the theories of a thin watery layer on top of the ice or friction and even some pressure probably play into the slipperiness of ice)

Websites Consulted;

http://mentalfloss.com/article/53650/why-ice-slippery
http://www.livescience.com/32507-why-is-ice-slippery.html
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/questions/what-causes-ice-to-be-slippery#.VoGSOpMrJEI

QUESTION #2: Is foam a liquid, solid or gas?

To really understand foam try holding it, can you make the determination -- is foam a solid, gas or a liquid (use the chart above if you want to review the basic properties of solids, liquids and gases).We use it every day when washing dishes, shaving, taking a bubble bath but do we really know the weird foam that permeates our lives? The answer is no. Actually as far as research has shown me no real theories exist on the stiffness of foam when looking at variables like bubble sizes or ingredients. Ironically, this is valuable information when for instance filling the cracks in buildings (no one wants bugs to easily squeeze through into their home). So, we know it is important but do we know it on the most basic of levels, can we determine if it is in fact a solid, gas or a liquid. There are many people who think foam is either a liquid or solid one or the other simply aerated with a gas. But this is because they are looking at the components, not the characteristics. When looking at a simple shaving cream well the line is harder to draw, since it holds it shape like a solid for a short period of time however, when left overnight it losses its shape being left as a layer of soap. But, unlike solids it will take the shape of a container (shaving cream containers being a prime example). This leads to the question, if a aerated liquid shows properties and characteristics of both liquids and solids what exactly is it?

*Note, in this example we were looking at liquid aerated foams NOT solid aerated foams like sponges which are actually solids with many air holes.

ANSWER #2: Liquid Aerated foam has the properties of both solids and liquids, but has a bunch of gas in it, so it is hard to say, it can be argued depending who you are and how you classify a compound.

Websites Consulted:

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/09jun_foam/
https://www.quora.com/Is-foam-a-liquid-a-solid-or-a-gas
http://mypages.iit.edu/~smart/hallden/lesson1.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam

QUESTION #3: Why are cheerios magnetic?

The Cheerios effect; when objects float on a surface and seem to attract each other. Example: if you put one cheerio in the milk it will create a small indent if you put another one in it makes its own dent and as the cheerios come closer and closer together at a point they can appear to act like magnets and stick together! The reasoning is that the barrier between the air and the liquid surface creates surface tension, the milk to air barrier does not like to bend in any way, but the force of gravity it still acting on the cheerio pulling it down which leads to a slight deformation with a floating object at the centre. When you add another cheerio into the mix it has the same outcome with a slight modification if the two cheerios get close enough one will fall into the others dent as if they are attracted to each other.


Alright, so we've answered one of the magnetic questions about cheerios but not the other, why can I use a magnet and pull a cheerio through water? There are two answers, one being that breakfast cereal is fortified with iron and iron is attracted to magnets. If you crush the cereal into a fine dust and put a magnet to it then you will see some of the cereal bits sticking to the magnet therefore it isn't the water but the ingredients of the cereal leading to the magnetism.  However, other objects with NO iron content will also be 'attracted' towards a magnet when left to float on water, the reason is the diamagnetic property of water meaning the water when exposed to a magnetic will actually produce a magnetic field in the opposite direction as the one produced by the magnet in essence the water is repelled by the magnet leading to an dent being made for the non-magnetic object to fall into, the object will continue to fall into the indent as the magnet is drawn across the water surface.

 

What the two magnetic field of water vs. magnet create, diamagnetism is why there is an indent in the water. 

ANSWER #3: Diamagnetism and IRON

Websites Consulted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheerios_effect
http://www.livescience.com/9350-cereal-science-floating-objects-stick.html
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/dv211/cheerios.html
http://io9.gizmodo.com/5514825/the-cheerio-effect
https://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=cereal-contains-iron

The Mpemba Effect

WORD WALL:

Nucleation: the timeframe the observer needs to observe something until it changes structures/phases. Nucleation is effected by impurities.

Have you ever wondered why on occasion hot water freezes faster then cold water? We all know it happens but the reasoning is a bit more challenging to grasp.  There are many theories to explain this conundrum labeled the Mpemba Effect and they go as follows:

1. Hot water will evaporate faster which means there is less volume for freezing. Or the faster evaporation an endothermic process cools the water faster. 
2. Cold water forms a frost layer which acts as an insulator. 
3. Solutes (like carbon dioxide) quantities alter the hot water from the cold water since when the hot water is heated these quantities change. 
4. The freezing point is affected by the impurities inside the water (like dust, or salts), which have nucleation temperatures. 
5. Warm containers enable better thermal conduction with the freezer, which means that heat is conducted better. 
6. The bonds in the actual water have unique properties that cause this weird effect. Specifically the hydrogen bonds, which lead to many of water’s weird properties, like high boiling points. The theory is that the water molecules are pulled close together by the hydrogen bonds leading to the repulsion in the covalent bonds to stretch out the bonds and store lots of energy, the heated water stretches the hydrogen bonds which allows the covalent bonds to lose some of their stretch and energy which leads to faster cooling, this along with normal old freezing makes the hot water freeze faster then the cold water.  
7. Hot water cools quicker due to the larger difference in temperature between the hot water and the cold freezer, which allows it to reach its freezing point before the cold water has time to reach its own freezing temperature.
8. Supercooling can be described as when water freezes at a temperature lower than the known freezing point of zero degrees Celsius if the water reaches a temperature lower than zero then it may want to be in the solid lattice formation but may not know how to actually form this pattern (requiring a nucleation site to provide the instructions which on occasion takes time for the molecules to find below their freezing point). Cold water is shown in some experiments to actually supercool more than hot water and this time and effort preformed by the cold water means a slower freezing. 

Looking at the name of this phenomenon I was wondering where it came from and like so many other theories it was named after its founder who was actually a Tanzanian high school student doing tests on ice cream (hot ice cream freezes faster than cold ice cream) -- this being said other people in history probably saw the effect first since there are actually notations of the effect made by Aristotle and other famed scientists.

All right so we've go the theories but we do not understand the basics of water and how it freezes. Temperature is all based on energy in the molecules; heat ergo can be directly related to the amount of energy. More molecules are in more water and more molecules means more potential energy storage which goes back to temperature. As thermal energy in the water decreases so does temperature and once zero degrees Celsius is reached the water will start to freeze, this temperature is known as the freezing point. Conduction helps with freezing in order for water (a liquid) to freeze it must be in some type of container the container sits on the freezer and as it gets cold the water gets cold, so using conductive materials like metals can speed up cooling since the conductive material can easily transfer the cool temperature to the water. In the freezer there is also cold air, which will exchange the hot air from the water with the cold air in the freezer quickening the freezing. Evaporation leaves the lower energy molecules behind; less energy as we've established means less heat this lowers the temperature. The process of convection also aids in water freezing, one example being that the cold water is denser then hot water so the cold sinks to the bottom of the container this leads to convection currents. The problem is that if the water moves too much then the process of freezing actually slows down. All these factored are important to note when looking at the Mpemba Effect and are what led to the theories looked at in the list above.

In the end conclusions are hard to draw, the only answer is that there are many possible answer and one of them or maybe a bunch of them are correct or maybe a combination of these theories answers the weird, wonderful question left by the Mpemba Effect.

Watch this video for a summary of the Mpemba Effect:

Websites Consulted

http://phys.org/news/2010-03-mpemba-effect-hot-faster-cold.html
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/why-hot-water-freezes-faster-than-cold-physicists-solve-the-mpemba-effect-d8a2f611e853#.qme2mhyeg
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/mpemba.htm#.Vn8dwpMrJEI
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/hot_water.html

Invisibility

Have you ever heard of the magical Invisibility Cloak from Harry Potter. I know, it is very much fiction, hence the magic part. But, what if we could render a three-dimensional object invisible using something other than magic?  Well, that is exactly what the U.S. Department of Energy at the Berkeley Laboratory have done, with the creation of a thin cloak which when placed on a object will mould to it and leave it impossible to detect with visible light (the stuff we use to see!). You see instead of magic scientists are using physics to create Invisibility Cloaks. However, on the downside, unlike Harry's Cloak, the one designed by scientists is so small that it could maybe shield a couple of your cells, not your entire body. 

The cloak is made of little building blocks of gold Nano antennas and is about 80 nanometers thick. The principal is light reflection, wherein the light is reflected in a way that makes the object appear invisible. The metamaterials that make up the cloak (also called a skin) can bend the light, altering it's behaviour.  *Metamaterials are very organized structures and really exceed normal everyday materials. They are commonly made with a conductor (aka: a metal).

So, other than being microscopic the cloak has other downfalls, like if the observer moves the illusion is gone and the object can be seen. Plus, to actually work on such a bigger scale (like to hide a person from view) the skin would be huge, like four times the person's actual size.

Now, lets talk physics. As mentioned above we see visible light, the light is reflected off an object detected by our eyes and sent to the brain via electrical impulses which makes an image. The frequency of the light is how colour is determined, without the light frequency, we would live in a colourless world.  So, it is easy to make the conclusion that for something to be invisible we need to prevent the light from reaching our eyes. This means there are really only two options, bend the light around the observer (us) or reflect the light preventing it from reaching the observers eyes. In modern times we have a less high tech method and it is camouflage, which if done well enough means that the object is able to blend into the surrounding so that it is impossible to point out. But, camouflage is unable to render something 'invisible', all it can do it make it fit into it's surroundings. 

Lets go back to the special metamaterials which with measurements and some spectacular physics can actually produce a negative index of refraction. The idea is that the metamaterial bends the light waves around itself and the thing it is concealing, which means that no distortions of the electromagnetic waves from the metamateria are detectable by any observer. This principle is not new, there are cloaking devices for different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum. Metamaterials can conceal and reveal, for instance they can act as lenses, showing us things that are smaller than was thought could possibly be seen, which again goes back to the negative refraction, a unique property of the metamaterial.

Want more history, or even just some cool information on cloaking devices this short video is for you!

Websites Consulted:

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/09/17/making-3d-objects-disappear/

http://www.sciencealert.com/watch-nano-sized-invisibility-cloak-can-make-small-objects-disappear

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/cloaking.cfm

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/apr/10-metamaterial-revolution-new-science-making-anything-disappear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcTOPFMEEkM

String Theory

WORD WALL:

1. Fermion: a subatomic particle that obey's the description given by Fermi and Dirac. (A particle with a spin that is half of an odd integer and where no more than one particle can exist in the same quantum state). *Obeying the exclusion principle. 
2. Boson: a subatomic particle that obey's the description given by S.N. Bose and Einstein. (A particle with an integral or zero spin that can exist in the same quantum state as another identical particle) *Not obeying the exclusion principle.

String Theory:

String Theory simply looks into particles and their relationship. The point is to try and make sense of how the theory of gravity and quantum physics are connectable. Quantum physics can describe elementary particles but only when gravity is not factored into the equation. Relativity is great at orbits, and evolution of space; however, in order for the theory to be acceptable we need to take away any quantum mechanics that is used to describe Nature. So, in order for these two different theories to fit together science has invented another theory – String Theory. If you are like me then you want to know the simplified version and that is what we will look at in this post.

String Theory is still evolving so all the answers have not yet been found. The main thing to understand is that according to this theory everything is made of energy and strings (vibrating filaments if you want the technical term). Supersymmetry is the relationship between bosons and fermions (particles). Also, the Universe has more dimensions than we normally look at.

All right, so before we get lost in this weird universe that things are made up of little strings we need to understand what a ‘string’ in this sense actually is. Strings are supposed to be the building blocks so, it is better to think of them as the start of everything instead of actually having their own building blocks. Essentially, strings make up the elementary particles (electrons…) that make up everything else. This is all just talk though with no real mathematical proof having been made (at least to my understanding).

Now, if you have not caught on and are thinking ‘but wait maybe strings are made of energy’ – you are sadly wrong. I can say this definitively since electrons or really any other elementary particle is not made of energy, energy is simply a property NOT an actual building block – it would be like saying the electron is made of momentum and this is just to ridiculous.

Now, that we have a grasp on strings we should learn sort of what they are. Strings are to be looked at as 1D objects, they can be liner or looped. Each string is tiny meaning that even with the best-grade science equipment we have going there is just no plausible way to see the strings, instead we would see the predictable point-particle.  The small, minute size allows for the strings to vibrate, and all particles that we have are just variations of vibrating strings.

Lets go back to the basic fundamentals of String Theory and go a little deeper into supersymmetry, which is the concept that every single particle will have a friend. The friend particles are related. The naming is pretty easy, a fermion’s superpartner will have a ‘s’ prefix and a boson's superpartner will have an ‘ino’ suffix. An example; the fermion electron will be partnered with a selectron, the boson proton would be partnered with a photino.

Again, going back to the basics paragraph you may be wondering why we need to imagine more dimensions. The answer is simple for string theory to be mathematically correct there needs to be more than the four dimensions. The scientists who use this theory proposed that these extra dimensions are so tightly compact and small that we just cannot detect them.

In the end, String Theory still has a bunch of unanswered questions however; it is a way for quantum and gravity to work in some sort of weird physics harmony.

Websites Consulted:

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/string-theory-for-dummies-cheat-sheet.html

http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae138.cfm

https://www.quora.com/What-are-strings-made-of-in-string-theory

http://www.superstringtheory.com/basics/basic3.html

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/boson

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sysimages/Guardian/Science/contributors/2011/8/28/1314561399991/bosonsandfermionssmall.jpgw=620&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=05b7b7af59d6c7bbeabff4f099ec6110

Come to the Dark Side: We have dark matter!

A few years ago the accepted idea was that gravity was going to gradually slow Universal expansion over time. This was all just talk since no one had any proof that the Universe had begun to recoil in on itself. However in the year 1998 the Hubble Space Telescope found that a supernovae in the distance proved that today the Universe is expanding faster than it was in the past. This defies all the logic of gravity since gravity pulls everything together not apart. There were then three ideas proposed, Albert Einstein’s unaccepted proposition of a Cosmological constant. Which is essentially the constant that explains that space is filled with some kind of energy. It is still unknown whether Einstein was in fact correct however, today we are given a name to the really unknown explanation and that is dark energy.

Dark energy is really not a known thing as stated it is a name given to an unknown. The only fact that is proven is that it is the reason for the Universal expansion.  The weirdest thing is that Dark energy makes up a huge 68% of the entire Universe. Dark matter is equated to about 27%, and the stuff that is physical and observable on Earth makes up only about 5%.

Einstein said that empty space is not just a bunch of nothingness. He though that dark energy could just be the energy that empty space posses.  Actually, dark energy could just be one of the properties of the weird and wonderful space . Dark energy would come in good company with the other strange space properties like space can just become, it can just pop up out of the blue (as far as we know today). This being said, if space is constantly growing then the amount of energy would also increase which leads to the theory that this increase in energy also leads to faster Universal expansion.

The theory that dark energy is just a new kind of dynamical energy field, describes how dark energy basically fills space with the opposite effect of normal energy – aka it makes the universe expand instead of shrink. The people who came up with this actually went as far as labeling it quintessence. But, still the unknowns pile up and quintessence is unable to fully be explored, leaving gaps like why it even exists.

If we really want to throw out all the possibilities we could say that Einstein was wrong in his theory of gravity. This would lead to new theories, which would have to provide a solution to fit dark energy into the gravity equation. The problem is that we do not have any of logical theories, and it would be hard to come up with something so broad that will describe both dark energy and the effects of gravity. *Some theories exist but none appear at all correct.

If you recall the Quantum section, it too has a theory. Proposing that in empty space there are temporary particles that form and then disappear over and over. The calculations for this theory were so wrong however that it is not really the favoured theory – and just makes dark energy a problem even to some of the people looking at very strange physics.

So, now that I’ve rambled on about dark energy you are likely wondering about dark matter. I can tell you that dark matter is not stars or planets, it is not made of the baryons clouds like normal matter, it does not interact with any electromagnetic forces, it never will absorb or reflect light (therefore we cannot see it),  it is not some large black hole , and it is also not antimatter.

Fritz Zwicky discovered the gravitational effects of dark matter way back in the 1930s as he was studying the Coma Cluster and the movement of galaxies within this cluster. There are about 1000 galaxies in the Coma Cluster. Gravity is said to hold the galaxies in this cluster. So, how did his research lead to dark matter? When he looked at the total light output and compared it to the mass of the Cluster the ratio was not adding up to that of the Kapteyn stellar system (the amount of light was less than one single Kapteyn star). This means that the cluster would need to have some unaccounted matter and this matter must be dark matter. At the time this was not one of the main issues, scientists were still worried about other more pressing matters and put the dark matter issue to the side for awhile.

You’re wondering; if we cannot see it how are we so sure it exists. For one I just got done talking about dark energy and it’s effect of gravity, well dark matter has an effect on normal, visible matter.

So what in the world is dark matter? There are theories, for instance dark matter could be made of weird things like axions, or it could be a hidden form of baryonic particles shielded in dense masses of other elements. This is what is referred to as massive compact halo object.

Maybe the strangest thing about dark matter is that it is seen as such an abundant thing that it could literally be passing through/by us every single second. The problem is that is does not have any strong interactive properties, not even with other dark matter.  The fact is that it is hard to study, but also it could literally be anywhere or everywhere however we would not know with the naked eye if it were actually right next to us this very moment.

Websites Consulted:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

 http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/sites/default/files/images/standard/Feature_DarkMatter3.jpg

http://home.cern/about/physics/dark-matter

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/hidden-cosmos/ferris-text

https://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/text.html?unit=10&secNum=2

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/sites/default/files/images/standard/Feature_DarkMatter3.jpg

http://astronomer.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/DMPie_2013.png
http://www.abmedia.com/astro/CCDMono/Coma-Cluster-130EDF.jpg

Time Dilation

If you have studied High School physics then you should understand that everything depends on where the observer is observing something. When looking at things like time and distance the idea is taken to a new marvellous level.

So, what is time dilation? You could say that stationary equates to slow and moving equates to fast. If we take a look at Albert Einstein the creator of the relativity theory (who by the way in 1907 proposed time dilation), made time travel a theoretical possibility – but only to go to the future never to the past. The idea is that action in space can change and modify time. In space if we were to, I don’t know, reach light speed then we could speed up the passage of time.

Don’t believe me? Well, I have proof! All right, imagine two super clocks (called atomic clocks) flying on two planes going in antiparallel directions; these clocks will show time difference, that directly correspond to their direction of travel. You still think I’m making this up – like how do airplanes prove anything? Do not fret; there are more complex sciency ways to prove time dilation. Like looking at pions and muons (two particles). Both of these babies have proven decaying rates however as they shine down on the earth in cosmic rays they move very, very fast. As they are moving so fast their decaying rates do not appear correct but to a somebody who knows about special relativity this is just another simple calculation. I know some of you will be thanking Einstein after you find out that satellites like the ones providing you with GPS on your long trips can only exist because calculations that incorporate time dilation allow them to do so.  We can give credit to special relativity for the little ability to go on road trips without having to bring a map of the world along. 

Now are you interested in skipping a couple years? Time dilation is the solution for you. Get in a space ship go for a little flyby to one of the trillion stars and bippity boppity boo you come back a few weeks later to realize that a couple years have passed down here on Earth!  The biggest downside is the speed requirement; you need to be going faster then any of us will ever-likely travel in our lifetime. The reason these speeds are so out of reach is acceleration's relationship to mass – as something accelerates it's mass increases to the point that the fuel needed to continue to accelerate is so large that it is just unfeasible with the resources we have today. 

Another thing that this little journey into space is good at explaining is the Twin Paradox. So, to make matters easier pretend you have a doppelgänger (or identical twin). You decide to go into space and he or she is left behind. When you come back you may have aged about a month while they could look like an old folk.  Weird right? 

I know what you are thinking, how could we make time stop? That is a question the universe is not willing to allow us to answer. Think of it as if you are driving your car but there is a max speed that the thing can go and it just cannot pass this speed. According to special relativity we can only travel just under the speed of light, it is the universes speed limit that cannot be overpassed (except of course light is able to reach the speed of light). Theoretically however, at the speed of light time would seem to stop!

So, now I think I owe you an explanation about light and it's ability to get away with going the speed of light without getting a ticket! This is because of the photon which really doesn't have mass meaning unlike you and me it does not need the unlimited supply of energy to reach such high speeds. It is important to understand that just because light can travel at such high speeds does not mean that it always does. It will only travel at the speed of light in a vacuum.  Maybe the most incredible thing to learn from this is that the light in the sky can really travel from place to place instantly since time has no impact, until it is no longer able to travel at the speed of light it is able to travel whenever and wherever it pleases without time being of any consideration.

Lets go back to the observer, if we put sent two people as lookout telling them to measure the time elapsed between an event, we would expect it to be the same. But if by chance the observers are at different distance from a gravitating mass the observer who is farthest from the place that the gravitational pull is emitted will experience a faster passage of time! So, yeah, physics is like a science fictional science, where we can literally time travel.

Websites Consulted:

http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/specialRT/relativity_space_time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/slowing-time-to-a-standstill-with-relativity.html

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view6/2739769/bibbidi-bobbidi-boo-o.gif

http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/images/relativity_time_dilation.jpg
http://www.emc2-explained.info/Time-Dilation/#.Vj5FYq6rREI