Popular Science magazine also hosts a blog, and it’s got a bunch of fun stuff on it. I had always thought of the old school Popular Science as a pretty silly magazine, mostly about hyped up quasi-science fluff. But it’s gotten a lot better over the last few years, and their blog is so entertaining that it definitely drives me to purchase the actual paper magazine more often.
They’ve been a real tear with their last few entries. I don’t know if they’re getting any work done on the magazine, because somebody’s doing an awful lot of web surfing. Here are a few choice items from the past week:
Watch a racing motorcycle crash and burst into flame. The rider is okay, and there is an interesting discussion of why this kind of thing never happens with cars, but did with this motorcycle. Goodbye, Moto
Watch a crane trying to lift a truck out of a river and back onto a bridge. As it happens, the truck pulls the crane down into the river. The Breakdown: Crane Overboard!
Every physics teacher who teaches the concept of resonance needs to show this in their class. A Boeing Chinook helicopter has two rotors, and if they start exciting vibration modes of the fuselage when it’s sitting on the ground, bad things can happen. If the word “resonance” doesn’t sound so bad, take a look at this video: Shake, Shake Chinook.
And don’t miss the African watering hole cam. It’s a live video feed with sound, and there’s something very appealing about listening to crickets on another continent.
Rambles Blog at Star Chamber 