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Friday, August 2, 2013

The Doppler Effect and long-planet

We are all familiar with the Doppler Effect, even if you do not know the term. Today, scientists have found an alternative explanation for the phenomenon when the sound or the light spinning object is scattered. This discovery could help astronomers to measure the rotation of the planet, or even improve the performance of wind turbines.

Here is what the principle of the Doppler Effect: when the object emitting the noise is moving towards its sound waves converge together and produce a higher frequency. Conversely, when the subject moves away, the sound waves are scattered. The faster the object moves, the sharper the frequency difference.

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse: Just Do the Math

This equation could spell your doom: (bN)(S/N)Z = bSZ. That is, if you ever found yourself in the midst of a zombie pandemic.

That's because the calculation describes the rate of zombie transmission, from one walking dead individual to many, according to its creators, Robert J. Smith?, a mathematics professor at the University of Ottawa who spells his name with a "?" at the end, and his students.

Big Bang Light Reveals Minimum Lifetime of Photons

The notion of the speed of light as the cosmic speed limit is based on the assumption that particles of light, called photons, have no mass. But astrophysical observations cannot rule out the slim chance that photons do have a tiny bit of mass—a prospect with wide ramifications in physics. For instance, if photons weigh nothing at all, they would be completely stable and could theoretically last forever. But if they do have a little mass, they could eventually decay into lighter particles.