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Newton's Cradle

The physics toy Newton made is called  "Newton's cradle" and is also called "colliding balls", "Newton's spheres", "counting balls", "impact balls", "ball-chain", the "executive pacifier", and even, believe it or not, "Newton's balls."When the ball on one end is pulled aside and allowed to swing as a pendulum, it hits the next ball. But the outcome is fascinating, the one ball on the far end is knocked away from the others with the same speed as the first ball had initially and all of the other balls remain nearly at rest. If you pull back two balls and let them strike the others, two balls are knocked from the other end, and all the other balls remain nearly at rest. Why does this happen? Why are these the only outcomes that occur? Why not others? This happens because: When a ball is lifted, it is given potential energy. When it is dropped, it is given kinetic energy. This kinetic energy is passed on through the balls and given to the last ball which rises and the cycle starts all over again. If you do not own a Newton's cradle, then please play with this interactive flash animation demonstrating the behavior of this toy. For more information go to http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/scenario/cradle.htm. 

The Atom

The word atom is comes from the Greek word atom which means indivisible. The Greeks thought that matter could be broken down into pieces too small to be seen. These particles were called atoms. Atoms are composed of three types of particles: protons, neutrons, and electron. Protons and neutrons are responsible for most of the atomic mass e.g. in a 150 person 149 lbs, 15 oz are protons and neutrons while only 1 oz. is electrons. The mass of an electron is very small (9.108 X 10^-28 grams). Both the protons and neutrons reside in the nucleus. Protons have a postive (+) charge, neutrons have no charge --they are neutral. Electrons reside in orbitals around the nucleus. They have a negative charge (-).The electrons of an atom are bound to the nucleus by an electromagnetic force. Likewise, a group of atoms can remain bound to each other, forming a molecule. An atom containing an equal number of protons and electrons is electrically neutral, otherwise it has a positive or negative charge and is an ion. An atom is classified according to the number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus: the number of protons determines the chemical element, and the number of neutrons determines the isotope of the element.

 

Costal Redwoods

 This is some information about Costal Redwoods I dug up. Coast redwoods are truly amazing features. They grow only in California due to glacial activity. A redwood tree is considered an adult when it has lived a millennia! People come from the other side of the world to see them. Coast redwoods do not die of old age. In fact, they may produce 600,000,000 seeds per year! Coast redwoods grow in a narrow strip on the coast of California, 150 miles north of San Francisco. The strip is 500 miles long, and 20 to 50 miles wide, but the conditions have to be perfect for a coast redwood to survive. There needs to be frequent summer fog, and considerable rainfall. Redwoods usually grow with Douglas fir, Tan oak, Madrone, Grand oak, and Bay lourel. However, there can be redwoods that grow by themselves. Some animals that live near redwoods are: raccoons, skunks, elk, deer, squirrels, and birds. No wonder birds live near redwoods, because they are huge.Redwoods grow up to 360 feet tall in good conditions. They can be easily named the tallest tree species on Earth. Redwoods grow so big, because they grow very fast. A 20 year old tree grows 50 feet tall and 8 inches thick! The average size for mature redwood tree is 200-275 feet tall. The biggest trees are 200-275 feet tall. The tallest tree on Earth is named Hyperion and is 370.1 feet tall. However, in order to succeed these massive things need to reproduce.  

Raccoon Report

Raccoons are truly amazing creatures. Here are some facts about them. Raccoons climb very easily, and are not bothered by a drop of 35 to 40 feet.  Both captive and wild raccoons have been known to live up to 16 years. However, the species' life expectancy in the wild is only 1.8 to 3.1 years, depending on the local conditions in terms of traffic volume, hunting, and weather severity. It is not unusual for only half of the young born in one year to survive until their first birthday. There are seven species of raccoon, five of which live on tropical islands.  Raccoons can swim as fast as 3.0 mph and are able to stay in the water for several hours.  The raccoon has short legs compared to its own body, so it is not able to run fast or to jump far. Raccoons are extremely adaptable, being found in many kinds of habitats and easily living near humans. Raccoons are considered the most omnivorous animals on the planet! They are very intelligent. In studies, raccoons were able to open 11 of 13 complex locks in less than 10 tries and had no problems when the locks were rearranged or turned upside down, also they can distinguish boxes containing two or four grapes from those containing three. Raccoons are commonly associated with washing their food. Their Latin name, Lotor, means "the washer." People sometimes keep young raccoons as pets, because they are curious and intelligent. Once grown, however, raccoons can be quite destructive in and around homes. I hope you enjoyed these facts!

 

Google's new browser: Google Chrome

As many of you probably already know, Google has made a ney browser called Google Chrome(this post is proudly made using Google Chrome). This browser is better than Safari, Firefox, Operah, and Internet Explorer combined. Firefox users, your browser has so many buttons that I don't know about you but they get me confused! With Chrome, all of the options are stored in a little button that says, surprisingly enough, "Options". Same with settings and bookmarks. Operah users, your browser is so...........well.............boring. I mean the buttons are so ugly! Chrome is new. It has it's own buttons, even it's own theme! I have nothing bad to say about Sarari, exsept that it dosent have tabs. Chrome has tabs so you can open many windows at a time by just clicking on the plus! Internet Explorer users, your browser is so plain and gray! So many confusing buttons and is slow(also depends on your router). To download thin amazing brpwser, follow this link:http://www.google.com/chrome

And the best part: Its FREE! I assure you this browser has no bugs.

reivew for Journey to the Center of the Earth

 Journey to the Center of the Earth is a great movie and I really recommend it. It may be a little sudden it 3D, so I suggest you see it the old-fashioned way. It has a great plot of science fiction, history, and adventure. The movie is about a man, who's brother disappeared not long ago, for an unknown reason. The man is a scientist who studies what is going on under the world. he has placed many sensors throughout the world that sense the temperature underground. When that temp. exceeds a certain level, they send an alarm to the scientist. When a 4th sensor in Iceland sends an alarm, the scientist goes over there immediately to get the sensor and read its history, but the weather is terrible, so they get trapped in a mountain that leads to the center of the Earth, meanwhile the temp. rises to an extreme height in which they will not be able to survive in. Can they get out before they are boiled alive in their own bodily fluids like the man's brother? Journey to the Center to the Earth is a great movie and I really recommend it.
  

Invisibility Cloak

This may seem perfectly belivable when your reading a fiction book such as Harry Potter, but in the real world that's impossible, right? Wrong! Scientists invented a material that absorbs light, instead of letting it bounce off. As you can see, it dosen't absorb light completely, but absorbs most of it. Scientists at the University of Tokyo experimented this by putting a piece of copper and a piece of cloak under radiowaves. When the radiowaves hit the copper, it disturbed the pattern. But, when the waves hit the part of the cloak, it disturbed the pattern very slightly. This matereal also has a similarity to dark matter(see Dark Matter), for it also dosen't reflect light the right way, and it is also invisible. To see the video, and learn more, go to

http://science.howstuffworks.com/invisibility-cloak.htm.

Aluminum Foam

In science, there is a new concept of using metals. It is aluminum foam. It intigrates the property of air, and aluminum together. This foam is very usefull because we can use it in buildings. It is shock-absorbant. In case or a bomb, or just an explosion of the building gas line, the aluminum foam will absorb most of the explosion. Know how? Take your hand and run it through the air. What do you feel? No impact, right? But now take your hand and hit it against a solid. You felt the solid, but what if the force of your hand was so strong that you broke it? Same principal with buildings! You can't break the air, so why not make buildings out of air? And that's what we're doing! However, this aluminum foam is hard to make. One needs to soak a block, or sheet, of aluminum in an extremely hot, corrosion-resistant substance, soak it into another chemichal solution, in a special tank that lets out bubbles, and spreads them evenly. Making this foam is not easy, but the result is worth it.

Dark Matter

What is Dark Matter? Dark matter is the stuff from space that we don't see, but we can tell it exists. We can't see it because it dosen't reflect light the right way. In fact, we can't see about 70% of the universe, for it is dark matter. As it turns out, this dark matter saved our lives! A long time ago, the universe started to expand, and the dark matter, using all its gravity, pulled it together. Everything that we have seen from Earth is only 5% of what is really out there! Just to give you an idea of what remains unexplored. Some things are influenced by dark matter. Such as the stars from the spiral galaxy. They are moving too fast for them to be natural. We have proof of that besause two galaxies: M51 and NGC5195 are so close to each other, that their gravitational forces affect each other's stars. As you might already guess, there is also bright matter. Bright matter is what we can see, and reflects light the right way, but not nearly as mysterious as Dark Matter.

Antimatter

Look in the mirror. What if the person you see actually existed? Well, he might! Scientists think that in a different universe there is a planet just like ours, in a solar system just like ours, in a galaxy just like ours in, a universe just like ours! Think of it like the universe is looking into a mirror, except the image is real. We want this antimatter because it can produce a ton of energy. Enough to launch a space shuttle 10 times! It could be a completely new source of energy! But we have to be careful, because if one full atom of matter comes intact with it.. Oops! Nuclear explosion! That is what they are doing at C.E.R.N. world's largest study of particle phisics(see blog below). There is a theory that when they get to close to each other, they explode because particles get excited, they generate so much heat, they release so much energy, that they blow up. Like all regular atoms, antimatter atoms have antiprotons, antineutrons, antielectrons, and antinucleuses.

Particle Accelerator C.E.R.N

People at the Particle Accelerator shoot particles around a huge tube. When the particles hit each other, they create more particles. Their goal is to create Antimatter, Dark Matter(see blogs above),or recreate the Big Bang, to see how we were created. However, this project is expensive. 8 billion dollars just to build it, and the parts.