… and put down your coffee mug, unless you really enjoy burn blisters.
Favorite moments for me include F=MA, and Hans… or whatever!
January 16, 2009
June 13, 2008
Perpetual motion device
I was thumbing (figuratively) through the deluge of emails I receive from my crazy uncles tonight and happened to read one of them that almost literally caused me to suck a whole Pringles chip down into my lungs. I’ve pasted it below verbatim for your enjoyment, but let me give you a little context.
My dad and his brothers are wonderful men, really, but every one of them is absolutely convinced that he alone has all the answers to life and the universe neatly categorized within the archives of his mind. But not only do they have all the answers, they are led compulsively to share – sometimes rather vehemently – that wonderful morass of knowledge with the others…
I love them all, and who wouldn’t really? They’re a very interesting and diverse bunch of self described intellectuals all indoctrinating each other with their brilliance. It provides my wife and I with hours of entertainment on days when we should be doing something else but just don’t want to. After months now of somehow falling onto their mailing list I’ve come to know each one of my uncles in a new light, each with their own particular sarcastic and passionate character. It is like watching my own sons interact when they think we’re not watching… they know each other’s emotional triggers and poke those buttons with gleeful abandon.
Anyway, on to the reason for this post… my wonderfully cynical uncle Dale’s view of perpetual motion:
It is an well known fact that a buttered piece of bread will always land on
the buttered side, and likewise a cat will always land on it’s feet.
There is a new theory that if one was to take a buttered piece of bread and
tape it to the back of a cat, (buttered side up) and toss them into the air that
they would not come down but simply hover in an spinning circle as each one
fights to land first, going round and round forever in midair, or until the cat
dies.
Likewise, if one were to glue a piece of bread to the feet of a cat, butter
facing inward then the two would exert enough force upon each other to morph
into a black hole, and finally an “big bang” ending all life as we know
it.
Scientists tried to see if the first theory, of the spinning cat/bread
would result in an ever increasing speed surpassing the speed of light and
perhaps time travel. They got the three ingredients necessary, a cat,
a piece of buttered bread and some tape or glue, but realized after obtaining
the last ingredient that the cat had disappeared, probably back in time on it’s
own.
Science….. where you can prove anything if you really want.
-DMD
October 23, 2005
Multiple Dimensions
I’ve always believed that alternate dimensions exist, even as a child. It is something that has dug its way into my vision of reality over the years, a belief that needs no proof, no test, no scientific backing. That is why when I listened to a re-run today of National Science Friday I was interested in the topic: Multiple Dimensions, are they real?
I must admit that the beginnings of my belief in alternate dimensions stem from religious instruction. As a child I learned about the eternal nature of spirits, about how the human soul began before birth and would continue after death. It is a beautiful doctrine really, and an easy one to understand and when I was taught that the spirits of those who’ve died remain here on the earth it started the idea of an alternate “reality”, or dimension. This was backed up by further research into religious writings and through my own logical deductions. I also realized as I got older that the market for voodoo, fortune tellers, palm readers, and “intermediaries” was pretty hot in many societies, and even though most in the scientific community would scoff at the suggestion I believe there is something real about some of these practices.
The problem with thinking about it in a purely scientific manner is that there really is no finite proof that these things are valid. There is no process that one can follow that would reproduce a metaphysical event that could offer any hard proof that spirits exist and can “be” in the same physical space as the rest of us… I’m ok with that. It’s all good. It really doesn’t need proof – in fact if there were proof I don’t think that the scientific community would be able to handle it. Yet.
I love science. Physics has become one of the most fascinating subjects of study for me in recent years, and I plan to follow it up with at least an advanced degree. My new five-year goal is become known as Fred the physicist, with the hard earned pedigree to back it up.
Someday I believe we’ll discover evidence of these alternate dimensions. Someday we may even be able to see into them. There has been some excellent progress of late into the study of these dimensions, but nothing substantial has resulted from it – only the excitement of being on the verge of something great. That, however, is one of the greatest types of discoveries there are. It creates the motivation to continue, the willpower that moves the immovable and discovers the undiscoverable.
Everything is matter. Some things however are just a different kind of matter, a more refined type of matter. Something we just cannot yet see.
June 4, 2005
I’m Wireless!
I am sitting on the toilet in the downstairs bathroom typing out a blog entry with my brand new wireless connection! I just finished securing it, and looking at what other networks I can see in my neighborhood… very interesting.
I must say, this is very liberating. I can browse the net while… uh just a sec… ok, um, while taking care of other business. Yay!
March 9, 2005
Make: magazine/book
MakeZine.com:
The first magazine devoted to digital projects, hardware hacks, and D.I.Y. inspiration.
I was introduced to this magazine yesterday by my friend Jason. He got it through the LUG he helped organize for free and thought I’d enjoy it. Man was he right! This is one of the most exciting magazines I have ever seen.
Let me give a little background here. I am fascinated by all things scientific, I am a nerd, a geek, I love math, science, computers, and anything related. I also love sports and am not the typical pasty white toothpick thin hunchback who lives in the basement with coffee stains on his shirt. No, I am an average guy who just happens to love geeky things.
I also have a dream that one day I will fulfill… just as soon as I can afford it. I want to have a very large backyard with a nice little (well big, really) workshop where I can build just about anything that I want. It is my fantasy, my dream, and now I am one step closer to it with this magazine, or mook really – it looks more like a book than a magazine.
Make: is O’Reilly’s newest publication that includes all kinds of super l337 projects that I can do at home. I am excited about it not only because it will be fun to read the articles and build the projects, but because I will learn a TON about the science and engineering behind the projects. Not only I will learn though, I plan to have my sons helping me so that they can find the joy in building cool stuff and see the importance of education. I think this is one of the best things I can do to help my sons get excited about school and want to do well, especially in maths and sciences.