What's something interesting in Physics that you know about that isn't common knowledge?

Question

Something that can't be found on the internet.

Answer 1

I'm always entertained by antigravity conspiracies!

You may want to research the TR3B, which is scarcely distributed on the internet. It's basically a top-secret U.S. government flying craft that reduces gravity and inertia by 89%. Awesome.

Answer 2

It is possible to draw a triangle with angles that add up to more than 180 degrees if you do it on the surface of a sphere.
Pyrex and corn oil have exactly the same refractive index. A Pyrex beaker immersed in corn oil completely disappears.
The speed of light is 186,282.393 miles per second through a vacuum. Through diamond it's about half that.
A beam of light can go around the world nine times by the time your voice reaches the other end of the living room.
Hydrogen atoms are so small they can pass right through glass.
Due to frictional heating the SR-71 Blackbird was 11 inches longer when it was flying at cruising speed (mach 3.2)

Answer 3

Little everyday information: Gravity isn't a stress and a loose-falling physique isn't accelerating. a lot of human beings don't comprehend that a loose-falling physique has no forces utilized to it (push aside air resistance). leap off the roof and you will experience no stress till you hit the floor. Astronauts in orbit (an orbit is a particular variety of loose-fall) are "weightless". Weightless is yet another observe for having no forces utilized -- weight is, in spite of each and every thing, a level of stress. stress = mass x acceleration, or F=ma when you consider that there is not any stress on a loose-falling physique the above formulation (thank you, Mr. Newton) argues that it is not beinging speeded up. Drop an accelerometer out the window and, particular adequate, it shows 0 acceleration.....till it hits the floor. Strictly speaking gravity isn't a stress. it incredibly is the distortion of area-time in accordance to customary Relativity. bodies in gravitational fields don't experience any stress till they conflict with one yet another or pull on one yet another. Then forces are utilized and stress implies acceleration. subsequently, Einstein's equivalency concept which states that being at relax in a gravitational field looks like acceleration. place an accelerometer at relax on the floor and, particular adequate, it measures acceleration of a million g. Spooky, isn't it?

Answer 4

I like the "delayed choice" experiment in quantum physics. Although there are some attempts at explanation on the Internet, I have not found anything that explains it well enough to truly understand. I like that experiment, because it is hard to look at the results and not think that there is some form of "consciousness" even in elementary matter particles. Cool stuff.

Answer 5

Ooh, good question. I'm giving you a star for it.

OK, here's one: It is an "urban myth", ie a total falsehood, that meteors burn up in the atmosphere due to friction with the air.
Nonsense. There is not enough air up there to create friction sufficient to burn up rock.

Instead the heating comes from the compression of the air miolecules in front of the meteor.

Compressiong air causes it to heat up, and since these meteors move at such high speeds they create a major compression in front as they enter the atmosphere, even though there aren't many moleculs of air at these altitudes the compression is still effective.

It is this compression that causes the heating that causes the meteor to burn up.

Thought you might like to know.

Answer 6

1. The speed of light is the fastest possible speed. Say the fastest you can throw a ball is 30 mph. If you're driving a car at 60 mph, and you throw a ball as fast as you can, it'll be going 90 mph. It takes the 60 mph of the car and adds it to your 30 mph throw, and comes up with 90 mph. But if you shine a light while you're driving a car, it won't go at the speed of light plus 60 mph. It'll just be the speed of light. Because you can't get any faster than that.

2. If you move really fast, you'll travel forward in time. The faster you move, the more you'll travel forward in time. I think that if you got to light speed, you could go as far forward in time as you want. We can't get anywhere near light speed. But the people on the space station in orbit around the earth are moving so fast that for every year that passes for them, they move about one year and one second into the future.

3. I used to think we'd never be able to create a time machine, because if we could, then in the future someone would have done it, and traveled back to now and told us about it. Which they haven't. But I just read that scientists have come up with a theory of a time machine that might work. But it couldn't take you back in time any farther than when it was made. So maybe it is possible, and the fact that nobody in the future traveled back to the present doesn't disprove it.

4. Going to the center of a black hole wouldn't transport you to another universe or anything. You'd just get crushed. It'd be like a giant weight, way bigger than the whole earth, was dropped on you. But actually, you'd die on your way into the black hole, even before you got to the center. If you get near a black hole, it'll suck you in. As you get closer and closer to the center, you'll move faster and faster. If you go in feet first, and you're 2 meters tall, then your feet will be 2 meters closer to the center of the black hole than your head. Which means they'll be moving faster than your head. So it'll stretch you out. So much that eventually you'll break in half. Then the halves will break in half. Over and over again.

5. Either humans are the only intelligent life in the universe, or it is impossible to build an interstellar civilization so big that we would be able to notice it. (Or both.) Some people say we're the only intelligent life in the universe, and we're special. But if we're not special, and there are other species, then there are probably billions of them, since the universe is so big. And if there are billions of other species, and it is possible for one of them to build an interstellar civilization, than one of them probably would've done it by now. But they haven't. We've been looking, and we haven't seen anything.

6. Even if there is life on other planets, we'll probably never casually interact with them. The reason is that the distance between stars is so enormous that even if we traveled as fast as possible (at the speed of light), it'd take years just to get from our star system to the next closest star system.

Answer 7

how about geophysics? Everyone knows that the moon's gravity pulls the water on the ocean. We call it "tides". IT also does the same thing to the the solid earth (rock and dirt) causing a measurable uplift of the dry parts of the planet as well.

Answer 8

Quantum Physics.
The teleportation of light from one place to another instantly.
If the practice could be done on humans the need for public transport would be eliminated

Answer 9

It is impossible to flip a block of wood (or a book) lengthwise in the air without it tumbling.
You can hold a book flat and rotate it around its centerpoint. You can rotate it around an axis parallel to its binding (if you tape the book shut).
But you can not rotate it around the axis that is perpendicular to its binding.
Try it and see.
Rotation around an axis that has an intermediate moment of interia is unstable.

Answer 10

I don't have the time to search the internet to determine if what I know is not there.