There's a relatively new development in cars that I've never quite understood: start-stop systems.
That's when stopped cars - at a red light, for example - automatically turn their engine off and start up again when the driver tries to get the car moving again. According to this video - which cites research articles - it only takes about seven seconds of idling to use up more fuel than it takes to simply turn the car off and restart it.
It's almost like engineers know what they're doing.
I've know the broad strokes of the mercury-hatter connection for a while but not the specific details and history that are retold in today's video.
Sounds like the hatter/Danbury shakes were a very early version of lack of workplace protections. The hatters might as well have been told to lick their radium paintbrushes.
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| Source - vintag.es |
The Royal Institution is a British group founded in 1799 and historically known for promoting and sharing scientific knowledge both within scientific circles and to the general public.
Since 1825 they have been putting on a series of Christmas lectures, many of the most recent of which have been recorded and posted on YouTube for us to see.
This video is the 2014 Christmas lecture going through a fair portion of the periodic table, telling stories about each one and helping us to understand a bit of their arrangement along the way.
As promised last week, here's the first Veritasium video about thermite.
I'm not thrilled that Dr Derek's titles seem to be getting more clickbaity and less informative. Again this week, the video's title isn't really what the video is about. It's a minor part of the video - here addressed in about six minutes in the middle of the video - and doesn't really cover the bulk of the video's content.
With that being said, seeing thermite in slow motion and through glass is pretty stunning.
Great video...bad title...
The title of this video - which might change since I'm writing this up just a day after it was posted to YouTube - is a bit misleading. The actual question in the title - why don't railroads need expansion joints - is only answered in the last half minute or so of the video and is answered more thoroughly in a Practical Engineering video that I'll post after a jump.
The bulk of the video is spent explaining how railroad welds using thermite work. The video explains the nuances far better than other thermite videos I've posted before, explaining why the rails must be aligned and peaked, why the rails must be preheated (including a nice demonstration of heat treating), how the crystal structure changes as a result of the weld, and eventually why the rails don't need expansion joints.
This is the second of at least three thermite videos from Dr Derek. I thought I'd posted the first video to both blogs, but I can't seem to find it, so it'll likely show up next week.
I've posted about plasma before, specifically from Veritasium. That video does a great job explaining why halved grapes - and other similarly sized, primarily water objects - can create plasma in a microwave oven
Today's video looks at why plasma can be created from non-water systems like matches under an upside-down beaker, something I've tried before and can verify the ease of it working.
Just to protect myself legally, don't try this at home. Be smart, folks.
#forbiddenfrosting
Most hand manufacturing processes are stunning to watch, and in this case it apparently produces a product that is superior to mass manufactured competitors. It has to be way more expensive and time-consuming, though.
So pretty...so mesmerizing...so colorful...
This video was published by Adam Ragusea in November 2024 about a study from a month or so earlier than that.
The tl;dr of the study is that many black plastics are produced from recycled black plastics that are frequently sourced from electronic waste which contains higher amounts of particularly toxic, flame-retardant chemicals. Those 'new' black plastic items could - especially if used in high heat areas like food flippers and turners on the stovetop - release higher than safe amounts of those chemicals.
In the above video, Adam goes through the possible concerns that this raises as well as noting a possible math error in the study's calculations suggesting that the level of concern is slightly lower than the authors might have initially suggested.
The article was corrected - noting exactly the math error that Adam suggested, and Adam published a spectacular video explaining why that error should not undermine faith in the scientific process or even in the researchers and authors of the original article.
No, I knew most of that information before. I wasn't wrong.
The new stuff for me is the brilliance of the demonstration showing how the different colors of light have maxima at different angles.
All in all, another great - if increasingly lengthy - video from Dr Derek.
I remember this happening to me in a chemistry lab at Wabash. We didn't got 45 minutes, of course, but I know that we kept thinking there should be a color change by 'now' based on the other titrations we'd done and adding a drop of phenolphthalein just to make sure.
The flask turned bright fuchsia, and we dumped out that trial.
I'll admit that Alec, the host of Technology Connections, might be a little more bothered than is reasonable about the harshness of blue and green LEDs during the holiday season, but he's at least trying to do something about it. (check the videos after the jump)
In this video, he celebrates the fact that a company is now producing warm white LEDs inside multicolored plastic (or maybe glass) bulb covers resulting in something more akin to the same colors as produced by the incandescent filaments inside colored glass bulbs of yore.
I do agree that the blue and green LEDs can be harsh, and the flicker can bother me at times - don't get me started on the LED bar light in my guest bathroom - but mostly I just grumble and move on.
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| Source - reddit |
But like every rule that humanity has come up with to describe the world around us, nature doesn't give even a little thought to following that rule. Nature does whatever nature does and our rules be damned.
As such, the octet rule is followed far more frequently that it is violated, but there certainly are compounds that don't follow the octet rule.
Now, as long as he doesn't make cherry coke from from scratch, too, we should be okay.
I love the idea of quasi-carbonating the sugar solution to trap unstable bubbles as it solidifies.
I also love that the large rocks of pop rocks look to be a little dangerous, actually.
I would absolutely eat that big rock.
This guy does a lot of things that I don't think I should do.
My wife has, admittedly, suggested that she might be interested in buying a freeze dryer. It's not something that's come up more than once or twice, but it's been mentioned.
Clearly buying a freeze dryer would be bonkers and nuts. We don't need it. The energy spent isn't remotely worth the very, very few times we'd ever use it before letting it sit unused in a closet somewhere.
At least that's my perspective on the thing, and clearly Mr. Technology Connections agrees with me.
Even though the science involved is kind of fascinating.
