You might try installing a satellite dish at the top of the hill, then running a line down to your house. Of course, if you don't own the whole hill, or the hill is too big, that wouldn't be an option. Alternately, I think you can pay to have cable lines run to your house from wherever the nearest junction is. But that would probably be too expensive. On another extreme, you could build a small tower, and mount a satellite dish on top of that. My grandfather was a ham and had an antenna that was essentially just a framework tower with a triangular cross-section. That might do the trick.
Me : "Well, I have more than 20,000 titles here. I'd be happy to list them all for you. There's 'Het Geheimzinnige Eiland', by Jules Verne (#22580), 'Bread Overhead', by Fritz Reuter Leiber (#22579),...
(hours and hours later...)
... Kennedy's Inaugural Address (#3), The Bill of Rights (#2), and the Declaration of Independence (#1)."
Agent : "Is that all?"
Me : "Yup! Oh, and 'The Catcher in the Rye'."
Agent : "One of those, are you? Take him in, boys!"
Speakers like this show up all the time in town meetings. They're annoying and a little kooky-sounding, they take too long, and sometimes they don't even ask a direct question. The same people sometimes show up on radio call-in shows.
In both cases, there is a universal standard response: The speaker or moderator interrupts the person, thanks them for their "question", and proceeds to answer it. In extreme cases, the person might have their mike cut off or be booed by the audience.
It's very clear from the video (link below) that the student fell squarely into this category. He had waited to be called on by Kerry, had asked a long and rambling question, and under a moderator's pressure was wrapping it up. The situation was entirely calm, and John Kerry was about to assert control and answer the question.
Then the police tried to grab the student and take him away.
Needless to say, the situation immediately escalated. You may blame the student for not going quietly, but I think you're missing the context. Although he sounded a bit loony, the whole situation was well within "town hall meeting" norms until the police acted. His knee-jerk "get away from me" reaction came out of sheer surprise. I would be shocked if a police officer grabbed me in such a situation.
Your perception after watching the video may be "dangerous wacko gets grabbed by police", but the situation did not become dangerous or wacko until after the police committed assault.
The real, broad danger from this incident is that it reinforces the idea that the initial police action in that situation was reasonable. It was not.
This YouTube video shows the whole incident from close up in excellent detail.
I'm a fourth-year PhD candidate in materials science. (For those who don't know, the field combines elements of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and physics, among others.)
When I need to know something, I have no hesitation about calling up Wikipedia to find information. Often a Wikipedia article will be in the top ten Google results, and I'll go to it first. More than any other encyclopedia, I find Wikipedia to be an easy and convenient resource to give me a starting point in my research. Often I have forgotten (or never learned) some basic principle in math or physics, and I'll always check Wikipedia.
Often in research, you don't know where to start. Wikipedia is an excellent place to start.
Would I ever cite Wikipedia in a peer-reviewed paper, or in my thesis? No.
Will I use Wikipedia to help me learn enough to find more useful, authoritative sources? Heck yes. I do that every day.
...or is anyone else uneasy that such a sarcastic, cynical, biased-sounding, unjournalistic writer is being published on the offical webpage of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment?
It seems to me that this is the first place we would like to see calm, rational debate and the last place we'd like to see partisan name-calling and rabble-baiting, which is what this writer seems to be doing.
There are extremists on both sides of the issue who have no understanding of the science behind it, and it shows in their writing. The scientists who actually do understand these subjects do not write like this to make their point, nor do they need to.
I'll second... er, third this opinion. They treat you VERY well, especially when you're in-warranty. But there's one kind of part they won't replace....
A day after I got my new IBM/Lenovo laptop last year, my cat jumped in my lap, snagged the Shift key with her claw, and snapped it in half.
So I called IBM/Lenovo and said, "Can you send me a new shift key? My cat snapped mine in half."
"Oh, no," they said, "we can't replace individual keys. We'll just send you a replacement keyboard. For free."
And they did.
Needless to say, I WILL be buying from IBM/Lenovo again.
The other day I downloaded the basic install CD of Ubuntu 'Dapper Drake' and tried to do a "fresh" install over an old Debian partition on my old desktop machine. Everything went smoothly until Step 5. Not wanting to lose my other partitions, I had naturally selected the "manually edit partitions" option (as opposed to "reformat entire hard drive")... and my desktop machine hung. Just froze up. I could hear the CD drive working, but nothing happened. I waited a couple hours (thinking that perhaps it was ridiculously slow)... nothing.
So I did a hard reboot and tried again. Same result. Looked on the Ubuntu site and found bug reports for this problem but no one seemed to be taking it seriously.
Previously, I'd had good luck installing Breezy Badger, so I thought, "no problem, I'll just download a copy of the old Breezy image and install that."
Yeah, right. Anyone know where (or if) Ubuntu archives old versions? Because I couldn't find one anywhere.
Finally I gave up and downloaded a copy of the (then in testing and oh-so-risky) Edgy, and it worked like a charm on the very first try. So I guess the moral is, when some bugs get fixed, more appear elsewhere. Your mileage may vary.
That's not the way I read it. It seems to me that he had simply programmed his keyboard to take care of complicated key operations with a single key press, and put himself in a situation where it was very difficult to die accidentally. Then he just sat there repeatedly pressing a couple of keys ("attack" and "heal self"?) while watching a movie.
The point is, it's no different from NOT using a macro keyboard, except you have to push fewer buttons. If he'd done the same thing without macro keys and gotten carpal tunnel as a result, it would have looked the same to Blizzard; so how can it be considered cheating?
The article is actually an incomplete form of the press release. The original press release can be found here.
You will see that, in fact, the display does NOT require constant power.
There are several unique things about electronic ink technology which make it desirable:
1. Low power requirements. Once an image is set, it stays set until energy is used to change it. Any ambient light can be used to view it.
2. Visual appeal. Electronic ink literally looks just like a piece of paper with printing on it. Would you ask what the "dot pitch" is of a page of newspaper, or of a paperback book? It looks this way under all viewing angles and lighting conditions, including bright sunlight.
3. Flexibility. This kind of display can be rolled up and carried with you, or spooled into a carrier much as a window shade rolls up.
There are still several weaknesses in the technology; for example, the refresh rate is rather low. But the technology is new and still in commercial development.
An example: My favorite "dream application" for this technology would be a "book" with electronic ink pages, with the "binding" containing a small computer system. Then you could upload many different texts into your book and it could shift from one to another at the touch of a button. It would take virtually no power since the images are fixed once set; turn on the computer, "open" your newest title, turn off the computer, and read as long as you like, no power necessary.
I have been a fan of this technology ever since I first heard of the idea in Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age". A web search several years ago turned up E-Ink and other companies developing this technology, several of which have been mentioned on Slashdot in previous months. However, this is the first "full-sized" display I've heard about.
IMHO, the long development time doesn't represent vaporware, it signifies good business sense. It was foolish to deploy this technology when there was little industrial infrastructure to support it, and when its capabilities were still far below those of LCDs and well-established display technologies.
Instead, they have waited to release it until its advantages outweigh the remaining unsolved problems. Once those few problems are solved it will easily out-compete existing display technologies, except perhaps in a few specialized applications.
Hydrogen technology is actually quite useful, but its use is as a very efficient, portable medium in which to store energy. Like a battery, basically. Most media articles, unfortunately, do not describe it that way. It's the media presentation that's the problem, not the technology itself.
Nonsense. There certainly is such a thing as correct English, and it is not necessary for an "official handbook" to exist, although I would be willing to nominate the dictionary, Strunk & White, and the Chicago Manual of Style. (I don't claim that any or all of these deals with the whole question, but certainly each book standardizes some aspect of the language.)
Standard English can be defined as the English which is used, and understood to be correct, by a majority of contemporary native English-speakers. Some might narrow the definition to written English, especially as physically published in book or newspaper form; that is essentially the tacit definition that drives the Oxford English Dictionary.
I won't get into technical debate with you, but I will point out that "should have" is correct and meaningful, and that "should of" is derived from verbal bastardization. That doesn't make it wrong: if "should of" enters widespread use, it will eventually make its way into a dictionary, with its definition and (presumably) etymology. This is how language works.
I have no problem with people who use "incorrect" English, as long as I can understand them. However, I've noticed that posters who have responded in defense of poor written English have -- surprise! -- written their posts in poor English. I noticed because the posts were hard to read and hard to understand.
If you expect me to make the time and effort to read and consider your ideas, you should make an effort to write with care and clarity. Why should I respect your opinion when you don't appear to respect it?
A separate poster commented that some poor writing is a result of learning disability. Obviously I am not speaking about that issue here. However, I would suggest that that poster might find it useful to alert others of the disability in advance, to avoid the normal reaction.
The amount of energy being put into the system dwarfs by thousands of times the energy from fusion being put out.
They're not claiming it's self-sustaining. They're just claiming that it's novel, which it is, and that it's a neutron generator, which it is.
A commentary article in the current journal of Nature points out that "...portable neutron generators have found a wide range of applications, including welllogging for oil exploration, and the screening of baggage for airline security," but that "high-voltage power is required, and the apparatus is fairly complex."
This device is much simpler and more straightforward.
Third, this isn't even the discovery of table-top laboratory scale fusion.
True, but it is probably one of the simplest and most compact fusion/neutron generating techniques invented to date.
And I'm afraid it's a little bit of a dodge to say it's "at room temperature". The article doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.
Please RTFA before you critique it. This method uses a pyroelectric crystal, heated presumably up to 100-200 Celsius or so, and a thin deuterium gas and a target made of erbium deuteride, both of which are presumably at or near room temperatures.
In any case, by "cold" fusion we typically mean "at temperatures easily maintainable in a lab," to distinguish from "hot" fusion which occurs at many thousands or millions of degrees.
Also, you should know that even in a "perfect" vacuum, temperature is and can be well-defined, usually by thermal radiation equilibrium with the enclosure. Even outer space has a well-defined thermal radiation background, which I think is within a couple degrees of absolute zero.
Each person having their own flying machine....can you imagine the waste of fossil fuels and danger involved? It's bad enough with cars!!
Actually, Moller's website gives some guaranteed performance specifications for a pre-ordered aircar. This includes a "best mileage" of approximately 20 mpg, which is not much worse than the 1997 Subaru Outback I currently drive, or any other mid-range car.
He guarantees this figure, along with FAA certification by the end of 2006, or you get a full refund of your deposit. Doesn't seem like a bad deal.
I actually read the final report of the DOE committee that recently reviewed cold fusion research. Contrary to what this article implies, the committee concluded that most of the new research on "cold fusion", while of much higher quality, was still as inconclusive as the old evidence. They identified a couple specific physical phenomena that were both unusual and well-documented, and suggested further investigation of those.
In all I thought the committee's conclusions seemed reasonable, pragmatic, and scientific, without being strongly prejudiced for or against the "cold fusion" effect. However, in the media (such as this article) the final report has been painted with much broader strokes. I find that disturbing.
I'm a grad student now, but I've taught a lot of non-sciency undergrads, and it's mostly important to have things they can do that are hands-on and visually interesting.
[A side note: the most important thing to remember is that for this to be successful, you must make the students feel comfortable. I know many students who were turned off to science, and it was always by a bad experience in high school. Students will be interested in science, but it must be understandable to them.
High technology is fun, but the average student doesn't know the first thing about programming or building a robot, and might not find something interesting if they don't understand it. So your project should be aimed at things that build interest, but are also easy for high school students to understand. Take care to emphasize that anyone can do it if they're willing to work at it a little. Students must not be allowed to feel dumb or stupid, or to think that the teacher feels they are.]
If you want something like a fair or competition, you might try a pumpkin' chunkin' competition. I don't mean large scale, though. You could have fun with a smaller competition such as the one at my university. The launchers must fit in a 4-foot cube and must be human powered. These limitations make it fairly safe, and the competition is an entertaining and respected event. In the process, students can learn some basic things about ballistics and engineering.
Alternately, you could form a project to build a larger single device, like a trebuchet or catapult. This can be a lot of fun to fire (for a rally before a big game, perhaps?) and provide a larger project where students can use a variety of skills including math, physics, and metal- or wood-working.
On the other hand, if you want smaller projects that might fit into a short class, here are a few suggestions:
- Anything with liquid nitrogen is cool by definition.:-) You can make liquid nitrogenice cream, freeze a rubber ball and shatter it, let the nitrogen roll off the back of your hand... all the standard tricks. In addition you could get one of the small superconductor kits and levitate a small magnet; you can talk about new materials research.
- Bring in a strobe light and look at things under it like water from a faucet, a turning bicycle wheel, or other semi-periodic phenomena.
- Astronomy, with a good telescope, can be really fun. Start off with something easy like looking at the surface of the moon, and save calculating orbits for much later.;-)
- Photography appeals to non-technical students but also introduces a lot of more technical subjects in a non-threatening way.
There are all kinds of great activities that will catch the interest of students. I don't think the kind of activity is as important as its level.
Ask yourself: will the average high school student see your activity advertised and think "I wish I could do that," or "I know I could do that!" ? Use that as your guide.
The reviewers believed that
this field would benefit from the peer-review processes associated with proposal submission to agencies and paper submission to archival journals.
So it seems like the final opinion is that the field should be taken out of the scientific "dog house" and allowed back into the mainstream of peer-reviewed research. Admirable. The true test of a theory should not be how crazy it sounds, or how ridiculed it is in the popular press. Rather, we should consider all research with care and reason, and allow the evidence to be the judge.
This evidence is uncertain, and I'm pleased to see them treating it with a good spirit of scientific inquiry.
Slashdot Mirror
You might try installing a satellite dish at the top of the hill, then running a line down to your house. Of course, if you don't own the whole hill, or the hill is too big, that wouldn't be an option. Alternately, I think you can pay to have cable lines run to your house from wherever the nearest junction is. But that would probably be too expensive. On another extreme, you could build a small tower, and mount a satellite dish on top of that. My grandfather was a ham and had an antenna that was essentially just a framework tower with a triangular cross-section. That might do the trick.
With an 8 GB memory stick.
Agent : "What are you reading, there?"Me : "Well, I have more than 20,000 titles here. I'd be happy to list them all for you. There's 'Het Geheimzinnige Eiland', by Jules Verne (#22580), 'Bread Overhead', by Fritz Reuter Leiber (#22579), ...
(hours and hours later...)
Agent : "Is that all?"
Me : "Yup! Oh, and 'The Catcher in the Rye'."
Agent : "One of those, are you? Take him in, boys!"
Or you could use a Sony Reader, too...
Speakers like this show up all the time in town meetings. They're annoying and a little kooky-sounding, they take too long, and sometimes they don't even ask a direct question. The same people sometimes show up on radio call-in shows.
In both cases, there is a universal standard response: The speaker or moderator interrupts the person, thanks them for their "question", and proceeds to answer it. In extreme cases, the person might have their mike cut off or be booed by the audience.
It's very clear from the video (link below) that the student fell squarely into this category. He had waited to be called on by Kerry, had asked a long and rambling question, and under a moderator's pressure was wrapping it up. The situation was entirely calm, and John Kerry was about to assert control and answer the question.
Then the police tried to grab the student and take him away.
Needless to say, the situation immediately escalated. You may blame the student for not going quietly, but I think you're missing the context. Although he sounded a bit loony, the whole situation was well within "town hall meeting" norms until the police acted. His knee-jerk "get away from me" reaction came out of sheer surprise. I would be shocked if a police officer grabbed me in such a situation.
Your perception after watching the video may be "dangerous wacko gets grabbed by police", but the situation did not become dangerous or wacko until after the police committed assault.
The real, broad danger from this incident is that it reinforces the idea that the initial police action in that situation was reasonable. It was not.
This YouTube video shows the whole incident from close up in excellent detail.
I'm a fourth-year PhD candidate in materials science. (For those who don't know, the field combines elements of mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, and physics, among others.)
When I need to know something, I have no hesitation about calling up Wikipedia to find information. Often a Wikipedia article will be in the top ten Google results, and I'll go to it first. More than any other encyclopedia, I find Wikipedia to be an easy and convenient resource to give me a starting point in my research. Often I have forgotten (or never learned) some basic principle in math or physics, and I'll always check Wikipedia.
Often in research, you don't know where to start. Wikipedia is an excellent place to start.
Would I ever cite Wikipedia in a peer-reviewed paper, or in my thesis? No.
Will I use Wikipedia to help me learn enough to find more useful, authoritative sources? Heck yes. I do that every day.
...or is anyone else uneasy that such a sarcastic, cynical, biased-sounding, unjournalistic writer is being published on the offical webpage of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Environment?
It seems to me that this is the first place we would like to see calm, rational debate and the last place we'd like to see partisan name-calling and rabble-baiting, which is what this writer seems to be doing.
There are extremists on both sides of the issue who have no understanding of the science behind it, and it shows in their writing. The scientists who actually do understand these subjects do not write like this to make their point, nor do they need to.
I'll second... er, third this opinion. They treat you VERY well, especially when you're in-warranty. But there's one kind of part they won't replace.... A day after I got my new IBM/Lenovo laptop last year, my cat jumped in my lap, snagged the Shift key with her claw, and snapped it in half. So I called IBM/Lenovo and said, "Can you send me a new shift key? My cat snapped mine in half." "Oh, no," they said, "we can't replace individual keys. We'll just send you a replacement keyboard. For free." And they did. Needless to say, I WILL be buying from IBM/Lenovo again.
The other day I downloaded the basic install CD of Ubuntu 'Dapper Drake' and tried to do a "fresh" install over an old Debian partition on my old desktop machine. Everything went smoothly until Step 5. Not wanting to lose my other partitions, I had naturally selected the "manually edit partitions" option (as opposed to "reformat entire hard drive")... and my desktop machine hung. Just froze up. I could hear the CD drive working, but nothing happened. I waited a couple hours (thinking that perhaps it was ridiculously slow)... nothing.
So I did a hard reboot and tried again. Same result. Looked on the Ubuntu site and found bug reports for this problem but no one seemed to be taking it seriously.
Previously, I'd had good luck installing Breezy Badger, so I thought, "no problem, I'll just download a copy of the old Breezy image and install that."
Yeah, right. Anyone know where (or if) Ubuntu archives old versions? Because I couldn't find one anywhere.
Finally I gave up and downloaded a copy of the (then in testing and oh-so-risky) Edgy, and it worked like a charm on the very first try. So I guess the moral is, when some bugs get fixed, more appear elsewhere. Your mileage may vary.
"I think you should be more explicit there in step 4..."
That's not the way I read it. It seems to me that he had simply programmed his keyboard to take care of complicated key operations with a single key press, and put himself in a situation where it was very difficult to die accidentally. Then he just sat there repeatedly pressing a couple of keys ("attack" and "heal self"?) while watching a movie.
The point is, it's no different from NOT using a macro keyboard, except you have to push fewer buttons. If he'd done the same thing without macro keys and gotten carpal tunnel as a result, it would have looked the same to Blizzard; so how can it be considered cheating?
You will see that, in fact, the display does NOT require constant power.
There are several unique things about electronic ink technology which make it desirable:
1. Low power requirements. Once an image is set, it stays set until energy is used to change it. Any ambient light can be used to view it.
2. Visual appeal. Electronic ink literally looks just like a piece of paper with printing on it. Would you ask what the "dot pitch" is of a page of newspaper, or of a paperback book? It looks this way under all viewing angles and lighting conditions, including bright sunlight.
3. Flexibility. This kind of display can be rolled up and carried with you, or spooled into a carrier much as a window shade rolls up.
There are still several weaknesses in the technology; for example, the refresh rate is rather low. But the technology is new and still in commercial development.
An example: My favorite "dream application" for this technology would be a "book" with electronic ink pages, with the "binding" containing a small computer system. Then you could upload many different texts into your book and it could shift from one to another at the touch of a button. It would take virtually no power since the images are fixed once set; turn on the computer, "open" your newest title, turn off the computer, and read as long as you like, no power necessary.
I have been a fan of this technology ever since I first heard of the idea in Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age". A web search several years ago turned up E-Ink and other companies developing this technology, several of which have been mentioned on Slashdot in previous months. However, this is the first "full-sized" display I've heard about.
IMHO, the long development time doesn't represent vaporware, it signifies good business sense. It was foolish to deploy this technology when there was little industrial infrastructure to support it, and when its capabilities were still far below those of LCDs and well-established display technologies.
Instead, they have waited to release it until its advantages outweigh the remaining unsolved problems. Once those few problems are solved it will easily out-compete existing display technologies, except perhaps in a few specialized applications.
Hydrogen technology is actually quite useful, but its use is as a very efficient, portable medium in which to store energy. Like a battery, basically. Most media articles, unfortunately, do not describe it that way. It's the media presentation that's the problem, not the technology itself.
Standard English can be defined as the English which is used, and understood to be correct, by a majority of contemporary native English-speakers. Some might narrow the definition to written English, especially as physically published in book or newspaper form; that is essentially the tacit definition that drives the Oxford English Dictionary.
I won't get into technical debate with you, but I will point out that "should have" is correct and meaningful, and that "should of" is derived from verbal bastardization. That doesn't make it wrong: if "should of" enters widespread use, it will eventually make its way into a dictionary, with its definition and (presumably) etymology. This is how language works.
I have no problem with people who use "incorrect" English, as long as I can understand them. However, I've noticed that posters who have responded in defense of poor written English have -- surprise! -- written their posts in poor English. I noticed because the posts were hard to read and hard to understand.
If you expect me to make the time and effort to read and consider your ideas, you should make an effort to write with care and clarity. Why should I respect your opinion when you don't appear to respect it?
A separate poster commented that some poor writing is a result of learning disability. Obviously I am not speaking about that issue here. However, I would suggest that that poster might find it useful to alert others of the disability in advance, to avoid the normal reaction.
I, for one, welcome our new canine zombie masters...
They're not claiming it's self-sustaining. They're just claiming that it's novel, which it is, and that it's a neutron generator, which it is.
A commentary article in the current journal of Nature points out that "...portable neutron generators have found a wide range of applications, including welllogging for oil exploration, and the screening of baggage for airline security," but that "high-voltage power is required, and the apparatus is fairly complex."
This device is much simpler and more straightforward.
Third, this isn't even the discovery of table-top laboratory scale fusion.
True, but it is probably one of the simplest and most compact fusion/neutron generating techniques invented to date.
And I'm afraid it's a little bit of a dodge to say it's "at room temperature". The article doesn't say this, but presumably this takes place in a vaccum, where temperature is basically undefined in any conventional sense.
Please RTFA before you critique it. This method uses a pyroelectric crystal, heated presumably up to 100-200 Celsius or so, and a thin deuterium gas and a target made of erbium deuteride, both of which are presumably at or near room temperatures.
In any case, by "cold" fusion we typically mean "at temperatures easily maintainable in a lab," to distinguish from "hot" fusion which occurs at many thousands or millions of degrees.
Also, you should know that even in a "perfect" vacuum, temperature is and can be well-defined, usually by thermal radiation equilibrium with the enclosure. Even outer space has a well-defined thermal radiation background, which I think is within a couple degrees of absolute zero.
Actually, Moller's website gives some guaranteed performance specifications for a pre-ordered aircar. This includes a "best mileage" of approximately 20 mpg, which is not much worse than the 1997 Subaru Outback I currently drive, or any other mid-range car.
He guarantees this figure, along with FAA certification by the end of 2006, or you get a full refund of your deposit. Doesn't seem like a bad deal.
I actually read the final report of the DOE committee that recently reviewed cold fusion research. Contrary to what this article implies, the committee concluded that most of the new research on "cold fusion", while of much higher quality, was still as inconclusive as the old evidence. They identified a couple specific physical phenomena that were both unusual and well-documented, and suggested further investigation of those.
In all I thought the committee's conclusions seemed reasonable, pragmatic, and scientific, without being strongly prejudiced for or against the "cold fusion" effect. However, in the media (such as this article) the final report has been painted with much broader strokes. I find that disturbing.
Slashdot covered the DOE report here.
[A side note: the most important thing to remember is that for this to be successful, you must make the students feel comfortable. I know many students who were turned off to science, and it was always by a bad experience in high school. Students will be interested in science, but it must be understandable to them.
High technology is fun, but the average student doesn't know the first thing about programming or building a robot, and might not find something interesting if they don't understand it. So your project should be aimed at things that build interest, but are also easy for high school students to understand. Take care to emphasize that anyone can do it if they're willing to work at it a little. Students must not be allowed to feel dumb or stupid, or to think that the teacher feels they are.]
If you want something like a fair or competition, you might try a pumpkin' chunkin' competition. I don't mean large scale, though. You could have fun with a smaller competition such as the one at my university. The launchers must fit in a 4-foot cube and must be human powered. These limitations make it fairly safe, and the competition is an entertaining and respected event. In the process, students can learn some basic things about ballistics and engineering.
Alternately, you could form a project to build a larger single device, like a trebuchet or catapult. This can be a lot of fun to fire (for a rally before a big game, perhaps?) and provide a larger project where students can use a variety of skills including math, physics, and metal- or wood-working.
On the other hand, if you want smaller projects that might fit into a short class, here are a few suggestions:
- Anything with liquid nitrogen is cool by definition. :-) You can make liquid nitrogen ice cream, freeze a rubber ball and shatter it, let the nitrogen roll off the back of your hand... all the standard tricks. In addition you could get one of the small superconductor kits and levitate a small magnet; you can talk about new materials research.
- Bring in a strobe light and look at things under it like water from a faucet, a turning bicycle wheel, or other semi-periodic phenomena.
- Astronomy, with a good telescope, can be really fun. Start off with something easy like looking at the surface of the moon, and save calculating orbits for much later. ;-)
- Photography appeals to non-technical students but also introduces a lot of more technical subjects in a non-threatening way.
There are all kinds of great activities that will catch the interest of students. I don't think the kind of activity is as important as its level.
Ask yourself: will the average high school student see your activity advertised and think "I wish I could do that," or "I know I could do that!" ? Use that as your guide.
Good luck!
So it seems like the final opinion is that the field should be taken out of the scientific "dog house" and allowed back into the mainstream of peer-reviewed research. Admirable. The true test of a theory should not be how crazy it sounds, or how ridiculed it is in the popular press. Rather, we should consider all research with care and reason, and allow the evidence to be the judge.
This evidence is uncertain, and I'm pleased to see them treating it with a good spirit of scientific inquiry.
You could say that dog is your copilot.
...he was watching way too much reality television.