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Full Listing of PAIN News and Events for 2012:
13th May 2012:
We have an Error Bar for Friday 18th, Stirling Engines! This Friday Sammy and Nathaniel will leading us building working (?) Stirling Engines from soft drink cans and other common items. These clever heat engines are external combustion, with sealed working fluid system. Carolyn assures us that they are completely non-splody! Start at 5:00PM, 7-208, ΦTR, this Friday. Finish with pizza slices and cans of drink at $1.00 each. Use your membership card to get a free drink.
Transit Trivia #2, Mikhail Lomonosov:
To celebrate the upcoming Transit of Venus on June 6th, we bring you some Transit Trivia. Mikhail Lomonosov is an extremely famous scientist of the old Soviet Union (now Russian Federation). He observed the 1761 transit from St Petersberg, and observed a "ring of light" near the perimeter of Venus, even as it was crossing the edge of the Sun. He attributed this to refraction in Venus' atmosphere. Lomonosov predicted, correctly, that Venus has an atmosphere. To honor his achievements, a town, a university, an underwater oceanic ridge, craters on both the Moon and Mars, and a gold medal have been named "Lomonosov". His likeness has appeared on a coin. One more accolade is on the way. The Russian Federation has begun manufacturing floating nuclear power stations. Just tow to where it is needed, anchor, and plug in to the grid. The first of these will be named "Akademik Lomonosov".
Mikhail Lomonosov FNPS Akademik Lomonosov Transit with ring picture
Image courtesy of Lorenzo Comolli, Gruppo Astronomico Tradatese, ESO VT-2004 Project.
6th May 2012:
Questions were asked, answers were given, chocolates and pizza were eaten, and a generally good time was had by all. Trivia night was won by team which started the evening as N2D but ended up as N2DA.
The Alienese website logo from April is here.
Transit Trivia #1, Guillame Le Gentil:
To celebrate the upcoming Transit of Venus on June 6th, we bring you some Transit Trivia. In March 1760 French scientist Guillaume Le Gentil departed Paris, to observe the 1761 transit fron the French colony of Pondicherry in India. A slight war between France and Britain disrupted these plans and he was unable to make the observation. He then decided to wait (8 years!) and observe the 1769 transit. This observation was prevented by bad weather. After even more delays he eventually arrived back in Paris, 11 years after his departure, only to find that he had been declared dead. His wife had remarried, he had lost his seat on the Royal Academy of Sciences, and his relatives had plundered his estate. With legal action and help from the King, he was declared alive and well, regained his seat, remarried, and lived happily for another 21 years.
Guillame Le Gentil Transit of Venus Transit picture
22nd April 2012:
Q: What is the next Error Bar? A: Stevo's Trivia! These were incredibly popular and great fun last year, so now we are having one this year. When will it be held? What is the room number? Has Stevo run out of questions? Are pizza slices and cans of drink still only $1.00? (Answers: 5:00PM Fri 4th May, 7-326, no, yes) What is the correct spelling for President Kyle's surname?
18th April 2012:
The Error Bar for Friday 20th April is... LAB TOURS! Are you curious about Quantum Optics, excited about Excellence in Engineered Quantum Systems, or baffled by Bose-Einstein Condensates? This Friday is your opportunity to meet postgraduates, and also undergraduates who have done the appropriate research, and learn what goes on in the lab! Start at 5:00PM, 7-208, ΦTR, this Friday. Finish with pizza slices and cans of drink at $1.00 each. Use your membership card to get a free drink.
GMI Specific Gravity:
Don't you just hate it when you car runs out of fuel? Wouldn't you just hate it even more if you were a passenger on a commercial jet aircraft that ran out of fuel? This has happened a few times, with mixed results. One notable incident, nicknamed the "Gimli Glider", occurred on 23rd July 1983 when Air Canada flight 143 ran out of fuel at 41,000 ft. It glided to a landing that could be described as "good enough under the circumstances". What went wrong? Canada was in the process of converting from imperial to metric units, and the almost new Boeing 767 was one of the first aircraft to be calibrated in liters and kilograms rather than the old gallons and pounds. When the aircraft was being refuelled a "conversion factor" of 1.77, the specific gravity of jet fuel in pounds.liters-1, was used instead of the correct value of 0.803 for kg.liters-1. As a result the aircraft took off with only 22,300 pounds of fuel on board, less than 50% of the required 22,300 kg. The aircraft also had some faulty instruments that prevented the error from being detected, but that is another story (a Great Moment in Soldering). The pic is here
Gimli Glider
26th March 2012:
We think the Error Bar for Friday 30th is "Holography and Microwave Oven". To find out for sure, be there, 5:00PM, 7-208, ΦTR, this Friday. This will be followed by the ever popular pizza slices and cans of drink at $1.00 each. Use your membership card to get a free drink.
Please note the new URL for UQ Physics. It has migrated to the SMP website. http://www.smp.uq.edu.au
GMI Quantum Electrodynamics:
Serious audiophiles spend enormous amounts of money on their hifi systems, hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases, to get the very best ampilifiers, speakers, DACs, long crystal oxygen free interconnect cables and so on. The "golden ears brigade" as they are called want only finest quality electricity to power all that expensive equipment, which in turn requires a superior 50/60Hz power cable. That grey or black PVC thing hiding behind your computer just isn't good enough. (What about the house wiring that supplies the power point?) The "Lessloss DFPC Signature" is the first 50/60Hz cable designed using the principles of Quantum Electrodynamics! WHAT? That's Feynman stuff! He won a Nobel prize for it! (What about the wires running from the house up the street to the substation?) It is claimed that electron/photon interactions in the 50/60Hz cable affect audio quality. (What about the transmission grid that connects the substation to the power station?) The DFPC only costs $1150.00 too! (Why is only the last 2m important?) CAVEAT EMPTOR! The pic is here.
Stereo Times
Lessloss
Feynman
QED
Oxford: "caveat emptor"
21st March 2012:
GMI Fluid Dynamics:
Australia is the land of droughts and flooding rains. Other countries have... well... other kinds of floods. Spare a thought for the residents of the St Giles area of London, England in 1814. On the 17th October a huge vat at the Meux and Co Brewery containing 135,000 imperial gallons (610 kl) of beer ruptured. This caused other vats to rupture in a domino effect, and a total of 323,000 imperial gallons (1.47 Ml) of beer poured through the streets of London. Basement rooms, homes for whole families in the slum area, were flooded. People desparately tried to salvage the precious liquid either for sale or personal consumption using kettles, cups and even their hands. The local pub was damaged by the flood trapping an employee! The brewer had already paid excise duty to the government on the beer that was lost! Eight people drowned or died from other injuries.
If that was't bad enough, fast forward a century to Boston, MA, USA, January 15th 1919, when the Great Molasses Flood happened. A giant storage tank at the Purity Distilling Co (what is it about alcohol?) burst releasing 2,300,000 US gallons (8,700 m3) of molasses. An immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 feet (2.5~4.5 m) high swept along streets at 35 MPH (56 km/h), exerting a fource on the ground of 2 ton/ft2 (200 kPa). Steel girders were bent and a railway was damaged by the flood. 21 people and several horses were killed, and many others injured. Oh, the viscosity of it! The pic is here.
Beer Molasses
18th March 2012:
The AIP is holding a careers evening Wednesday 21st of March, 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm, Queensland University of Technology, Gardens Point, Owen J Wordsworth Room (S block, Level 12). A panel of physicists from industry to academia, including UQ's Dr Tamara Davis will be speaking on their careers. This will be followed by pizza, refreshments, mingling and networking. Undergrad and postgrad physics students, AIP members and non-members, and others are welcome.
RSVP: Monday 19th March: k.vernon@qut.edu.au
15th March 2012:
A decision has been made! PI day is on Friday 16th, ΦTR, Parnell 7-208, starting 5:00PM promptly.
11th March 2012:
PI day is next week some time, but we aren't sure when. You get to choose! Would you like your PI day on Wednesday 14th or Friday 16th? Vote in the poll on facebook, link is above. PI day celebrates all things 3.14159etc related with PI related food, clothes, songs, and competitions. This is what we did in previous years. 2009 part 1 2009 part 2 2008
GMIS:
One by one the chemical elements were discovered, starting with early use of common elemental metals (Cu, Au, Pb, Ag, Fe) long before modern recorded history. From about the 1700s onwards, recognisably modern chemical and electrochemical techniques isolated (or liberated) gases, metals and non-metals (P, Co, Pt, Ni, Mg, H, O, N, Cl, Mn, Ba etc). While various periodic tables were created by others, the definitive version and precursor to standard modern tables is attributed to Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. Known elements were organised, but the table contained gaps which led to predictions of new elements, which were subsequently discovered. Fluorine, the most reactive element, was not the last to be isolated but due to the extreme difficulty of working with it only nobel gases and rare and radioactive elements followed. After other researchers died in the attempt, Fluorine was finally isolated by Henri Moissan in 1886 using electrochemical means. There matters might have ended, but for Karl Christe. Approaching the 100th anniversary of the isolation of Fluorine, Karl, an expert in the element, was asked to give a talk explaining why it would never be possible to isolate Fluorine, the most electronegative element, by purely chemical means, only electrochemical. With decades of experience, Karl immediately knew this was wrong. Within a few days he had isolated Fluorine by purely chemical means, starting with precursor reagents that can be derived from naturally occuring minerals by purely chemical means. Ignoring the artificial superheavy elements, which are useless for chemistry, Karl Christe wrote the last page of the last chapter of the book about how the periodic table was filled. The pic is here. Scientist illustrated is not Karl Christe.
Timeline Periodic Table Fluorine Henri Moissan Karl Christe
23rd February 2012:
Thank you everyone who helped out on Market Day, and made it such a successful and fun event for all of us - President Kyle.
Free BBQ Friday 2nd March. PAIN will be hosting a free BBQ. (to be confirmed, details will be announced).
First Error Bar for 2012 is LN2 icecream, Friday 2nd March. Cryogens meet calories to give "yum" in the first error bar for 2012. This will be held in ΦTR, Parnell 7-208, starting 5:00PM promptly. To see how just much fun this is, look at what we did last year.
19th February 2012:
Market Day is Wednesday 22nd February. Come visit the PAIN stall, which will probably be somewhere near Parnell, join the club, shake hands with a holographic pig, join the club, generally make physics phun, join the club and just say hello. Enquiries to the exec here.
PAIN is building up momentum (always conserved) in 2012 with our next exciting innovation, A New Logo. This was designed by Wonder Woman herself, Secretary Elise, and features GREEK CHARACTERS! That logo is coming soon to a T-shirt near you.
Wakey... Wakey...
15th January 2012:
PAIN is off to an exciting start in 2012 with... a meeting... and room warming... There will be some kind of GM held in 7-208 at 12:00 midday-ish, Friday 27th January, to discuss... Really Important Stuff. Elise says so and she is secretary so she should know! Join, re-join, rejoice, and discuss important club business for 2012. Enquiries to the exec here.
2011 Archives: The archives of PAIN activities for 2011 can be found here: Advertising Graphics - Physics & Phun - News & Announcements - Photo Galleries - Physics Poetry - Physics Illustrated #1 - Physics Illustrated #2 - Error Bars - Mailing List - Past Exec.
GMIS:
Why on earth would a sculptor make a bronze brain and half bury it in the ground? Who cares. What is far more interesting is the location of this particular brain (not it's identical twin which is elsewhere), Albert Einstein Science Park, Telegraphenberg Hill (a tautology), Potsdam Germany. There are several scientific buildings on the site. It was in one of these buildings that Michelson made his first unsuccessful attempt to find the luminiferous aether, before teaming up with Morley to perform the more accurate and better known experiment. There was still no luminiferous aether though. The park is also the site of the Albert Einstein tower, which houses a solar telescope intended to measure gravitational red shift of the sun's spectrum. Initially at least, this measurement didn't work either. Gravitational red shift was first demonstrated elsewhere by Pound and Rebka in a very clever laboratory experiment. (and I got my favourite experiment, Pound Rebka, onto the website - webmaster) Science Park Wikipedia Michelson and Morley Luminiferous Aether Einstein Tower Pound Rebka The pic is here.
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