Crazy Looking Bamboo Tower Creates 25 Gallons Of Drinking Water Per Day From Thin Air

On the direction of the cross product of vectors

One of my math professors always told me:

Understand the concept and not the definition

A lot of times I have fallen into this pitfall where I seem to completely understand how to methodically do something without actually comprehending what it means.

And only after several years after I first encountered the notion of cross products did I actually understand what they really meant. When I did, it was purely ecstatic!

Why on earth is the direction of cross product orthogonal ? Like seriously…

I mean this is one of the burning questions regarding the cross product and yet for some reason, textbooks don’t get to the bottom of this. One way to think about this is :

It is modeling a real life scenario!!

The scenario being :

When you try to twist a screw (clockwise screws being the convention) inside a block in the clockwise direction like so, the nail moves down and vice versa.

i.e When you move from the screw from u to v, then the direction of the cross product denotes the direction the screw will move..

That’s why the direction of the cross product is orthogonal. It’s really that simple!

Another perspective

Now that you get a physical feel for the direction of the cross product, there is another way of looking at the direction too:

Displacement is a vector. Velocity is a vector. Acceleration is a vector. As you might expect, angular displacement, angular velocity, and angular acceleration are all vectors, too.

But which way do they point ?

Let’s take a rolling tire. The velocity vector of every point in the tire is pointed in every other direction.

BUT every point on a rolling tire has to have the same angular velocity – Magnitude and Direction.

How can we possibly assign a direction to the angular velocity ?

Well, the only way to ensure that the direction of the angular velocity is the same for every point is to make the direction of the angular velocity perpendicular to the plane of the tire.

Problem solved!

Alloys: Steel

According to Dictionary.com, steel is “any of various modified forms of iron, artificially produced, having a carbon content less than that of pig iron and more than that of wrought iron, and having qualities of hardness, elasticity, and strength varying according to composition and heat treatment: generally categorized as having a high, medium, or low-carbon content”. 

Perhaps the most well known alloy around, as well as one of the most common materials in the world, steel is essentially iron with a small percentage of carbon (and, on occasion, one or more other elements). Not enough carbon and you’re stuck with wrought iron, too much carbon and you get cast iron. The graph above is a binary iron-carbon phase diagram that goes from zero percent carbon to about 6.5 percent, illustrating the various phases that can form.

Steel has been known about since ancient times, some pieces dating back to 1800 BC, but it was the invention of the Bessemer process during the industrial revolution that really popularized the alloy. (Technically, similar methods had been used before, particularly in China and Japan, but Henry Bessemer invented the modern method, industrializing it and obtaining a patent in 1856.)

Mainly used in construction, the alloy has been used for almost every possible application: from office furniture to steel wool, from bulldozers to washing machines, and from wires to watches, the possibilities are pretty much endless. Steel is also one of the world’s most-recycled materials, able to be used more than once, with a recycling rate of over 60% globally.

The addition of carbon allows the steel to be stronger than the iron it’s made from. Adding nickel and manganese increases its tensile strength, chromium increases hardness and melting temperature, and vanadium also increases hardness while making it less prone to metal fatigue. Stainless steel has at least eleven percent chromium, whereas Hadfield steel (which resists wearing) contains twelve to fourteen percent manganese. Check out these links for more information on the effects of adding certain elements.  

Sources: 1 (top images), 2 (bottom images)

Flat tires could eventually be a thing of the past. Michelin has unveiled the concept for a 3-D printed, airless tire.

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18 Science Facts We Didn't Know at The Start of 2017

We've learned so much already.

1. Lungs don’t just facilitate respiration - they also make blood. Mammalian lungs produce more than 10 million platelets (tiny blood cells) per hour, which equates to the majority of platelets circulating the body.

2. It is mathematically possible to build an actual time machine - what’s holding us back is finding materials that can physically bend the fabric of space-time.

3. Siberia has a colossal crater called the ‘doorway to the underworld’, and its permafrost is melting so fast, ancient forests are being exposed for the first time in 200,000 years.

4. The world’s first semi-synthetic organisms are living among us - scientists have given rise to new lifeforms using an expanded, six-letter genetic code.

5. Vantablack - the blackest material known to science - now comes in a handy ‘spray-on’ form and it’s the weirdest thing we’ve seen so far this year.

6. It’s official: time crystals are a new state of matter, and we now have an actual blueprint to create these “impossible” objects at will.

7. A brand new human organ has been classified, and it’s been hiding in plain sight this whole time. Everyone, meet your mesentery.

8. Carl Sagan was freakishly good at predicting the future - his disturbingly accurate description of a world where pseudoscience and scientific illiteracy reigns gave us all moment for pause.

9. A single giant neuron that wraps around the entire circumference of a mouse’s brain has been identified, and it appears to be linked to mammalian consciousness.

10. The world’s rarest and most ancient dog isn’t extinct after all - in fact, the outrageously handsome New Guinea highland wild dog appears to be thriving.

11. Your appendix might not be the useless evolutionary byproduct after all. Unlike your wisdom teeth, your appendix might actually be serving an important biological function - and one that our species isn’t ready to give up just yet.

12. After 130 years, we might have to completely redraw the dinosaur family tree, thanks to a previously unimportant cat-sized fossil from Scotland.

13. Polycystic ovary syndrome might actually start in the brain, not the ovaries.

14. Earth appears to have a whole new continent called Zealandia, which would wreak havoc on all those textbooks and atlases we’ve got lying around.

15. Humans have had a bigger impact on Earth’s geology than the infamous Great Oxidation Event 2.3 billion years ago, and now scientists are calling for a new geological epoch - the Anthropocene - to be officially recognised.

16. Turns out, narwhals - the precious unicorns of the sea - use their horns for hunting. But not how you’d think.

17. Human activity has literally changed the space surrounding our planet - decades of Very Low Frequency (VLF) radio communications have accidentally formed a protective, human-made bubble around Earth.

18. Farmers routinely feed red Skittles to their cattle, because it’s a cheap alternative to corn. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

NTU and JTC develop enhanced fire protection for steel

Credit: shutterstock/Anusorn Abthaisong

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and national industrial developer JTC have unveiled what they are calling a 3-in-1 coating for better fire and corrosion protection.

‘In a fire, our coating forms a compact charred layer that acts as a protective barrier against the heat,’ explained Aravind Dasari, a Principal Investigator at the NTU–JTC Industrial Infrastructure Innovation Centre.

Called FiroShield, the coating functions like regular paint and is easy to apply, according to the research team. It can be applied on bare steel without the need for sand blasting, and provides protection against fire for two hours. 

Dasari explained, ‘While typical fire coatings will also form a charred layer, those are thick and foam-like, which can fall off easily and leave the steel exposed to the fire. What we aimed at was an innovative coat that works differently from conventional intumescent coatings and can stick to the steel surface for as long as possible under high temperatures, and yet has durability and weather resistance under normal conditions without a need for a top coat of paint.’

To find out more see the January issue of Materials World or visit  bit.ly/2nft8Z3

Due to the Mandela Effect, we remember things that didn’t happen or exist. Get the answer and why in our NEW VID: https://youtu.be/hvu4D1jngCY

How platinum powers the world

Platinum bars. Image: Sprott Money@Flickr 

Platinum is one of the most valuable metals in the world. Precious and pretty, it’s probably best known for jewelry – and that is almost certainly its oldest use. But its value has become far greater than its decorative ability; today, platinum powers the world. From agriculture to the oil markets, energy to healthcare, we use platinum far more than we realise.

1. Keep the car running

Platinum is needed to make fuel for transport. Image: Pixabay

Platinum catalysts are crucial in the process that converts naphtha into petrol, diesel, and jet-engine fuel, which are all vital to the global economy. The emissions from those petroleum fuels, however, can be toxic, and platinum is also crucial in the worldwide push to reduce them through automotive catalytic converters. In fact, 2% of global platinum use in 2016 was in converting petroleum and 41% went into reducing emissions – a circle of platinum use that’s more impressive than a ring.

2. Feed the world

Nitric acid is a by-product of platinum which is used in fertilisers. Image: Pixabay

Another vital global sector that makes use of platinum catalysts is agriculture. Without synthetic fertilisers, we would not be able to produce nearly as much food as we need. Nitric acid is essential for producing those fertilisers and platinum is essential for producing nitric acid. Since 90% of the gauzes required for nitric acid are platinum, we may need to use more of it as we try to meet the global food challenge.

3. Good for your health

A pacemaker. Image: Steven Fruitsmaak@Wikimedia Commons 

Platinum is extremely hard wearing, non-corrosive, and highly biocompatible, making it an excellent material to protect medical implants from acid corrosion in the human body. It is commonly used in pacemakers and stents. It is also used in chemotherapy, where platinum-based chemotherapeutic agents are used to treat up to 50% of cancer patients.

Keep reading

Vantablack absorbs 99% of light and is the darkest material ever made.

This is the Hollow Mask Illusion.

At first, it looks like the face is popping out towards you, but as it turns far enough, you realise that it is in fact concave, bending inwards from the base, away from you. This illusion plays on the fact that our perception is influenced by past experience; we expect faces to protrude outwards, which helps the illusion trick our brains.

You can make your own version of this mask at home, and it’s an awesome activity to try with your kids to get them thinking about the science of psychology. Click here for all the info!

But that’s not all it can do. Microsoft and NASA teamed up to “bring” you, yes you, to Mars.

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