Posts Tagged ‘fake’

Here is the deal. Why would you put a lot of effort into explaining something wrong? I just don’t get it. Wouldn’t it be easier and better to just not say anything? The particular show I am ranting about is the 2008 Punkin Chunkin on Discovery (I think). Fairly ok [...]

Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 14:23 | 1 comment
Categories: physics

I put together this short presentation on fake videos for a class. What the heck, I will also put it online so that maybe some other people can use it. So, here it is. I have it in many forms. First, a video of me going through the talk. Then [...]

Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 21:02 | Comments Off
Categories: physics

I wrote two letters (for two different classes). These are letters from the students of the near future to themselves in the present. this first one is for a non-majors lab. In this lab, I let them turn in “informal” lab reports that they can then use on the midterm and the [...]

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009 at 14:33 | Comments Off
Categories: learning, physics
Tags: ,

This is amazing. I can’t believe that power companies are paying Blacklight Power money, but they are. I guess Blacklight Power must have great advertising. Ok, so what is this whole Blacklight-hyrdino thing? Honestly, I am not fully familiar with it, but basically this guy says that you can get energy [...]

Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 12:16 | 7 comments
Categories: physics
Tags: ,

This Giant water slide video is extremely popular on the internets. Maybe you have not seen it (doubtful), then here it is:

This is such an incredible stunt that the very first question that comes up is – fake? or not fake? From my previous analysis, I can say:

Even though there is some [...]

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 18:26 | 9 comments
Categories: physics

Sciencegeekgirl is blogging from the AAPT. She talks about showing something interesting to get students thinking, and here is her example:

This reminds me of Dan Meyer’s What Can You Do With This stuff. Anyway, I can’t help it. I must analyze this video. Plus, Fran essentially threw down the gauntlet and [...]

Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 21:28 | 6 comments
Categories: physics

Note: This is a repost from my old site. Time to move it over.

First, what is different about motion on the moon and on Earth? Since the moon has a smaller mass in spite of its smaller size*, the moon has a smaller gravitational field. The gravitational field on the surface of [...]

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009 at 23:29 | Comments Off
Categories: physics

Basically, Hancock gets upset with this boy and throws him in the air to scare him or something. In case you did not time it, the kid was in the air for 23 seconds. I claim that in order for Hancock to throw a person in the air for this long, the acceleration during throw would be deadly.

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 01:06 | 5 comments
Categories: physics

I have been wanting to look at this whole curved bullet thing, but I wasn’t sure how to approach it. In case you are familiar with the myth, this is from the movie WANTED (which I did not see). Apparently, some people learn how to make bullets curve by moving their gun. Here is a shot of a bullet curving in front of someone.

Friday, June 19th, 2009 at 19:14 | 12 comments
Categories: physics

I haven’t seen the Pixar Movie “Up” yet, so don’t spoil it for me. I have, however, seen the trailer. In my usual fashion, I have to find something to complain about. There is this scene where the old man releases balloons out of the house.

What is wrong with this scene? [...]

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009 at 12:51 | 8 comments
Categories: physics