The Collapsing Can!

      The collapsing can.  Doesn't sound so interesting at first...But, when I observed this experiment, I easily saw how interesting and COOL it was!
      In order to do the experiment, we needed an empty aluminum soft-drink can (coke in our class), a 2- or 3-quart saucepan, a hot plate (for us), and a pair of kitchen tongs.  With only these four items, we were able to observe Charle's and Boyle's laws!  Here's how it went:

      We began by filling a large bowl with cold water and putting 15 milliliters of water into the coke can.  We then proceeded to heat the coke can on the hot plate that was provided.  At first, the coke can filled with water exuded steam, which told us that it was extremely hot and that the water inside was evaporating and condensing.  The water became steam and some stuck to the sides of the coke can as water droplets near the top.  The water in the bowl was ice cold.  When the water in the coke can was hot enough, we took the tongs and inverted the coke can into the water in the bowl.  The reaction was amazing! The coke can immediately was crushed and collapsed!
      This process applied both Charle's Law and Boyle's Law.  Charle's law states that the volume of a gas increases as the temperature increases.  Boyle's Law states that the volume of a gas decreases when the pressure increases.  These two extremely important laws were shown when the temperature around the can decreased as it was plunged into the chilling water (a decreased temperature) and likewise, its volume decreased.  They were also shown by the air pressure increasing as the liquid inside the can found its way out into the open water in the bowl and causing the volume to decrease since the air pressure was strong enough to crush it after the water was gone.  
      As you can see, this experiment proved to be much more than we all might have thought it was.  It allowed us to learn all about the powers of air pressure and how it affects everything around it.  In addition, I know now more about the two laws stated above.  Overall, this lab was a great way to learn about air pressure!


My first picture was from here.  

~Starflower794!

Popping Popcorn Pop-isciously!-Heat Transfer!

      Well, the "heat transfer" up there makes it seem a little boring but popping popcorn certainly isn't!  There are a few different ways to pop popcorn, two of them being radiation and convection.  In class, we were able to observe and perform both types.  
      At first, we tried radiation.  In order to do this, we just put kernels in a microwave and pushed the "popcorn" button.  After a couple of seconds, we heard, "POP, POP, POP, POP, POP, POP!"  The popcorn was popping!  We could tell that this was a form of radiation. Radiation is the transfer of heat energy through empty space.  The kernels had been surrounded by empty space and the waves coming  from the microwave transfered heat and caused them to heat up from within.  Trapped moisture from inside the kernels quickly heat up to more than 100 degrees Celsius, boiling point, and turn into steam.  This steam causes the kernel to burst open to show the delicious fluff!  This is radiation!

      Next stop, convection!  To demonstrate convection, we put kernels into a popcorn popper.  Convection is the transfer of heat energy in a fluid (gas or liquid).  First, the popcorn popper shifted the popcorn all around it.  Next, it transfered heat so that the liquid inside of the kernels heated up, turned into a gas, steam, and burst into popcorn!  This is how we demonstrated convection.
      This lab taught us all about how popcorn is made and, more importantly, the differences and likenesses between radiation and convection.  Personally, this has been an extremely insightful lab that has allowed me to learn a lot about types of heat transfer.  These types of labs are always the best!


I used this website for more information.  My first picture came from here.  The second can be found here.


~Starflower794!

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

      In my opinion, greenhouse gases are crucial to earth's survival.  However, at the same time, "there really can be too much of a good thing."  According to the article I read, approximately thirty percent of sunlight is deflected by the outer atmosphere and refracted back out to space.  The remainder of this sunlight reaches the earth's surface and is reflected back up as infrared radiation, or slow-moving energy.  The heat caused by infrared radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases such as water vapor and carbon dioxide, which slows its escape from our atmosphere.  Even though greenhouse gases make up about one percent of the atmosphere, they make a ginormous difference on our planet.  They regulate our climate by trapping heat in our atmosphere so that it is warm enough for us to live here.  Without the greenhouse effect, the average temperature of Earth would be about 30 degrees Celsius colder than what it is now.  Obviously, this is far too cold to sustain the ecosystem and our lives.  So, as you can see, greenhouse gases are extremely beneficial to Earth.  However, on the downside, humans have been releasing too much of these gases.  This has and will cause drastic changes to the planet.  With more greenhouse gases come an increased temperature, which in turn leads to different climates that might not necessarily be what we need at all.  All in all, although greenhouse gases can be trouble, they make it possible for life on Earth.


My article was from here.  The picture I used can be found here.


~Starflower794!

Temperature Game!

      In this game, I was able to learn a lot about temperature and what happens at certain temperatures.  The object of this game was to match all the different items or subjects (such as "body temperature" or "Saturn") to the correct temperature.  You could complete this game using Celsius, Fahrenheit, or Kelvin.  At first, I chose Celsius.  During this game, I learned that Antartica was approximately 20 degrees colder than Mars!  I was extremely surprised since I thought that it would be the opposite.  When I looked at the Fahrenheit section, I was amazed that Death Valley was 134 degrees!  It's no surprise it's called Death Valley.  I already knew that boiling point was 100 degrees Celsius and freezing point was zero but I didn't know that boiling point in Fahrenheit was 212 degrees.  The coldest was superfluid helium at -271 degrees Celsius or -455.76 degrees Fahrenheit.  That certainly is cold!  However, the most intriguing part of this game was learning about Kelvin.  We all know about Fahrenheit, which is used mostly only in America, and Celsius, used by almost everyone everyone else in the world, but for me, Kelvin is something new.  I had no idea it even existed before now!  The Kelvin scale is an "international standard for scientific measurement of temperature" and has zero set at absolute zero.  Absolute zero is the theoretical absolute coldest temperature there can be.  To get this, the molecules and atoms of the subject must not be moving at all.  It's not realistically possible to achieve this.  However, scientists have come very close using lasers.  As you can see, this game, although a game, gave me a handful of interesting, new information to learn about and was extremely enjoyable.  

The game I played can be found here.  The picture I used is here.

~ Starflower794!

Top Ten Ways to Destroy Earth!

      As you can imagine, as soon as I saw the title of this article, I could't resist the temptation to look at it...What I found out was amusing, fairly impossible - for now, at least - and fun to read.  The author of this article, Sam Hughes, states the name of the method of destruction, the probability of it happening, what you would need, and how you could do it.  So, lets begin with number ten...

NUMBER 10:    EXISTENCE FAILURE

Rating: 0/10

For this highly unlikely method, you would need absolutely nothing.  You would have to do absolutely nothing.  Just wait, and watch.  All that would happen would be that every single atom making up Earth (which is a lot!) would suddenly cease to exist.  Quick and easy, but it most probably won't happen.

NUMBER 9:    GOBBLED UP BY STRANGELETS

Rating: 1/10

In order to accomplish this, you need a stable strangelet.  Strangelets are particles that hold equal amounts of up, down, and strange quarks.  First of all, you would need to take control of (hijack!) the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.  Then, all you have to do is create and maintain a strangelet.  Soon, a the strangelet will absorb the Earth into a "mass of strange quarks".  Finally, at the end, the Earth would look like a glob of strange matter.

NUMBER 8:    SUCKED INTO A MICROSCOPIC BLACK HOLE

Rating: 2/10

You would need a microscopic black hole to place on the surface of the Earth.  The black hole would eventually consume the Earth. 

NUMBER 7:    BLOWN UP BY MATTER/ANTIMATTER REACTION

Rating: 5/10

2,500,000,000,000 tons of antimatter would be needed in order to do this.  Antimatter is the most explosive substance possible and would have to be made into a bomb that could blast Earth to pieces.  Unfortunately, this method involves quite a lot of calculations, so would be hard to do for some... Anyway, this method could be the cause of the Earth's destruction if someone actually makes the antimatter.  It would lead to a second asteroid belt around the sun.

NUMBER 6:    DESTROYED BY VACUUM ENERGY DETONATION

Rating: 5/10

All you need is a light bulb for this!  You just have to figure out how to extract the vacuum energy and how to harness it in some kind of power plant.  The result would be a huge amount of energy that would easily destroy Earth and most probably the sun, too.  At the end, the Earth would have been reduced to a swiftly expanding cloud of particles of different sizes.

NUMBER 5:    SUCKED INTO A GIANT BLACK HOLE

Rating: 6/10

To accomplish this, you obviously need a giant black hole.  After locating it, you need to get it and the Earth together somehow.  Once you do all this, you let the black hole do the work for you and suck the Earth in.

NUMBER 4:    METICULOUSLY AND SYSTEMATICALLY DECONSTRUCTED

Rating: 6/10

For this method, you would need a powerful mass driver, preferably more than one.  You use them to simply dig up parts of the Earth and hurl them out to space!  What would remain of the Earth would be tiny pieces, scattered across the solar system.  

NUMBER 3:    PULVERIZED BY IMPACT WITH BLUNT INSTRUMENT

Rating: 7/10

A big heavy rock, something like Mars would be needed for this method.  All you do is accelerate the speed of your rock to an extremely high speed and smash it into Earth, obliterating our planet.  This would create a bunch of roughly moon sized chunks of rock, floating around in space.

NUMBER 2:    EATEN BY VON NEUMANN MACHINES

Rating: 8/10

A von Neumann machine is any device that is able to create an exact copy of itself given only the necessary raw materials.  Use this machine and release it into the Earth's crust.  Soon, there will be millions of them and Earth will be completely covered with the machines.

NUMBER 1:    HURLED INTO THE SUN

Rating: 9/10

In order to achieve this, you will need some kind of earthmoving equipment.  Using this, you have to somehow propel Earth into the Sun, thus causing Earth to eventually sink into the Sun.

        After reading this, I know that the destruction of Earth is fairly impossible until someone comes up with this kind of technology - and actually wanted to destroy Earth.  This was an extremely interesting and fun article to read.  I learned more about different kinds of substances, such as antimatter, and scientific objects, such as the von Neumann machines.  Although this article was meant to be humorous, I still learned a great deal of information from it.  I think this also proves that the "end of the universe" that is supposed to be 2012, most probably won't happen since there aren't a large amount of things that would be able to end the world, such as the ones in this article, that are easily obtained.  And besides, who'd want to end the world???  Even though there are multiple, numerous ways to pulverize Earth, all of them wouldn't happen unless someone wanted this planet's life to end.  Everything could be used as a weapon or in this case, a way to destroy planet Earth.  However, if we use the things we've been able to create and find out about safely and correctly, we won't have anything to worry about.  Basically, I think that these top ten ways to destroy Earth are all highly unlikely to happen, so we don't have to stress about them - for now.

The article I used was from here.  The first picture is from here.  The second picture is from here.  The third picture is from here.  The fourth picture is from here.

~Starflower794!

Math Blog: Global Warming

      Proven over and over again all the time, math can be found anywhere and everywhere.  Global warming, for example, is a threatening predicament that has many statistics to prove that it must be slowed down.  Already, global warming is responsible for approximately 150000 extra deaths a year.  This figure is expected to double by 2030, according to the World Health Organization.  This astonishing fact is horrifying since it proves that global warming has started to affect humans even more rapidly than ever before.  Additionally, it tells us that we must stop releasing so much pollution into the air and stop using so much energy so that we can prevent global warming from continuing rapidly into a path of certain disaster.


      As another example of how the climate change is effecting us is that an unusually harsh heat wave in Europe in the summer of 2003 led to 20000 deaths.  According to Grolier, these types of brutal summers may seem normal in fifty years.  If summers like the one in Europe happen more often, how many more deaths will there be?  How many more will suffer?  There is no answer to these two questions right now, but, looking at all the frightening statistics, everyone can tell that it is more than many more.  However, if we can work to overwrite our mistakes, global warming can be slowed down.


      Taking a step back from global warming, I can definitely say that statistics help people understand the reality of all situations.  Numerous and various things can be shown to relate to mathematics.  As stated in the beginning, math can be found anywhere and everywhere.  


 ~Starflower 794!

A Green City: Masdar

      Far, far away, in the land of a desert named Abu Dhabi, a green city, powered 100% by solar energy, is being constructed.  The aim of this ambitious project is to go, simply put, completely green.  This city, Masdar, scheduled to be completed in 2016, is being built on a humongous cement platform that's made of 60% recycled waste.  As you can already see, the city is obviously striving to be as energy efficient and environmentally aware as possible.  Although it costs approximately 22 billion dollars to construct, the project is well worth it. Here's why...

      First of all, all cars are banned in the city. In lieu of using them, everyone uses the PRT system, or a personal rapid transit system.  The PRT system basically consists of about 3,000 electric cars that operate on recyclable batteries instead of gasoline, which is better for the environment.  Solar thermal farms use the sun's heat to supply Masdar with a quarter of its needed energy.  More carbon-free power comes from photovoltaic plants that utilize sunlight by turning it directly into electricity.  In addition, biofuels are grown in urban farms that are all irrigated from the city's wastewater.  The average temperature of Masdar is expected to be around 20 degrees cooler than the surrounding desert.  The world's first 100% solar powered office building, being built in the green city, will produce at least 3% more energy than it uses.  The building is eight stories tall and three blocks long.  A layer of glass on the outside of the building reflects the sun's heat but allows natural light.  Further, the way it's built protects inhabitants from too much sun.  Amazingly, the office is built entirely of 85% recycled steel!  All around Masdar, lush, beautiful gardens provide more than a pretty picture.  They keep the environment cool and absorb carbon dioxide to release more oxygen.  Most importantly, the city will use 60% less water, 75% less electricity, and 98% less landfill space than a city of a similar size.  


      When I found the article, A Green City Blooms in the Desert, I was immediately intrigued by it and quickly flipped to the page it started on.  After I was done reading, I was amazed at how environmentally conscious the people of Abu Dhabi were.  In my opinion, their city will make a big effect on the world.  It will probably become the role model of what future green cities should be like.  Masdar will save A LOT of energy and will definitely make a difference.  It will create more jobs by just being there since a city needs people to run it and offices need people to work in it.  Plus, the city will be an incredibly healthy environment to live in because of its non-smog-y atmosphere, organization, and order.  I now want to visit Masdar one day and see for myself how energy efficient the city is.  Global warming may be able to be slowed by this small but huge step toward a cleaner world.  However, America contributes the most to global warming so if we can change our ways and build or fix cities so that they use more alternative fuels and solar power like Masdar, we could slow the process of global warming  down considerably.  Hopefully, soon, many more cities just like this one will be constructed so that we can correct our mistakes and let the environment breathe. 


My article was from the Fortune magazine, Volume 158, Number 11, page 133.  The first picture was from here, my second picture from here, and my third picture from here.  An internet link to the article I read can be found here.


~Starflower794!