Sleepysneezeydopeydoc-blog - Physics Nerd

I guess it’s also the right setting for pictures of the Moon at night.

ISS Solar Transit [Explained]

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Blue Angels

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Ratrod Moskvich IZH 2715 pickup from Fast Family Show (Moscow, 2017)

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If you put that ball on that machine while it wasn’t spinning, it would just roll straight down the lower sides. 

The raised edges would keep it in the middle line, but it’s only controlled in one direction. By spinning it, you constantly alternate the position of the tall sides, meaning that the ball is held in the middle, never able to fall off.

Particle accelerators control particles in the same way. Magnetic or electric fields can only direct particles in one plane at a time, so to keep a beam of particles rushing down a particle accelerator in one focused stream, the current gradient must constantly oscillate. This means the particles are constantly held in place, never able to shoot off in one direction.

Here’s the same principle in action: these are tiny pollen grains being held in place by an oscillating field. Rods in the four corners of the beam establish a field that oscillates many times a second to keep the pollen trapped. If it didn’t constantly switch, the pollen would all fly off in one direction.

Watch the full film with Dr Suzie Sheehy for more.

The faster you move, the heavier you get

If you run really fast, you gain weight. Not permanently, or it would make a mockery of diet and exercise plans, but momentarily, and only a tiny amount.

Light speed is the speed limit of the universe. So if something is travelling close to the speed of light, and you give it a push, it can’t go very much faster. But you’ve given it extra energy, and that energy has to go somewhere.

Where it goes is mass. According to relativity, mass and energy are equivalent. So the more energy you put in, the greater the mass becomes. This is negligible at human speeds – Usain Bolt is not noticeably heavier when running than when still – but once you reach an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, your mass starts to increase rapidly.