Mirrors can be lots of fun. We've all fooled around with them as children, and as adults while shaving etc. Two aspects in particular are fascinating: the left-right reversal, and the angle of reflection. If you have two large mirrors mounted at an angle of say 120-degrees or thereabouts, like in a clothing store, there are multiple reflections ( Read more... )

You know, it's funny ... I thought for sure I had posted here last year about finding yellow trilliums in the woods. But I cannot see the post -- so will do so now. guess I put only the photos online (link below), and forgot the post at Livejournal. Doing it now ( Read more... )

It's customary to speak of wavelengths, and similar periodicities, in water waves. But when one examines the ocean, it turns out that waves are far from regular in shape and period. Today I went to the oceanside, and recorded a 3-minute video of waves coming ashore and crashing over a large rock. There was a moderate but steady breeze from ( Read more... )

A stereogram is a pair of related photos which are slightly offset from one another. If each photo is viewed with one eye, you see a 3-D image. Think of the Viewmaster. There were some antique stereograms around my wife's parents home, some 40 years ago, along with a viewer ( Read more... )

If two materials are joined, and the junction is heated, electric current is generated. For instance, an steel wire and a copper wire, with the junction heated. Current flows while there is a temperature gradient within the wires. The phenomenon is called the thermoelectric effect or the Seebeck effect. It is also sometimes termed the Peltier ( Read more... )

"Physics in My Generation" is a collection of essays, on scientific philosophy and social topics, by Max Born. It was published (2nd revised edition) in 1969, and collects essays from 1921 to 1966. Born is an interesting thinker and writer. This book of his essays has been my frequent reading companion for the past month. Now that I've finished ( Read more... )

A conversation today reminded me about Jeannine Mosely's Menger sponge business card project. See the URL http://theiff.org/oexhibits/menger02.html for photographs and a link to the pdf file with full instructions. I made a level 1 sponge several years ago, and it sat around ( Read more... )

A while ago, I mentioned my hope to visit the Cappella Emiliana in Venice, particularly to see the pentagonal antechamber. I was there, and saw it -- a very interesting solution to a novel architectural problem, Namely, how to join a hexagonal structure (the Cappella Emiliana) to the corner of a rectangular church building (San Michele in Isola ( Read more... )

Yesterday evening was an open house at ICFAR (pronounced "I see far"), an institute working on chemicals and fuels from alternative resources. Website http://www.icfar.ca for info ( Read more... )

Michael Faraday's book "The Forces of Matter" is my latest read. It is a transcript, with illustrations, of the series of six lectures for young people which Faraday gave at the Royal Institution during the 1859-60 Christmas holidays. Quite some time ago I read Faraday's "The Chemical History of a Candle", another series of juvenile Christmas ( Read more... )