Creative Pumping
What do you get when you combine a merry-go-round and the boundless energy of kids?Clean water.
At least in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zambia where over 2 million people are benefiting from the installation of PlayPumps.
In a creative effort between scientists, community leaders, advertisers, and many others, the pumps, driven by spinning a merry-go-round, are bringing new freedom.
People that once had to walk up to 5 miles to water can now turn on a tap at the village center. Girls have the time to go to school and women can spend their extra time growing vegetables, starting businesses, and caring for their children.
From the PlayPump website:
While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round (1), clean water is pumped (2) from underground (3) into a 2,500-liter tank (4), standing seven meters above the ground.
A simple tap (5) makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole (6).
The water storage tank (7) provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities. All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance.
Manhattan Narrative
I just heard L. Worth Seagondollar speak of his experience as a graduate student on the Manhattan Project, figuring out the critical mass of plutonium required for an explosion.
His talk ranged from amusing anecdotes about military vehicles breaking down and menacing guards watching his every move to serious accounts of the blazing radiance of the bomb and its terrible destructive power. If you get a chance to hear him speak of his experiences, take it.
My favorite part of the talk, however, was during the Q & A when Gary White of the Society of Physics Students mentioned that he had heard that the sphere of plutonium had been dropped. From Seagondollar's reaction, it was clear that there was truth to this rumor. In fact, he was responsible.
He had been working late in the lab, his shift between midnight and 8 a.m. The plutonium was set up in two hemispheres, each side covered in a layer of a metal that Seagondollar believes to be silver in order to keep it from oxidizing and entering the respiratory systems of researchers. The two hemispheres had a hollowed-out region in the middle, about one inch in diameter, to house a neutron source.
Seagondollar had bumped the plutonium sphere, causing it to topple. One hemisphere hit the bench, the other fell toward the floor but was scooped up by Seagondollar's hands before it struck. He quickly put them into an ionizing chamber to be sure that the silver layer had not been damaged, putting him at risk. The layer was fine.
Unfortunately, the hemisphere that had landed on the table was bent so that the two halves no longer fit together. In Wisconsin, we learned to take care of problems ourselves, said Seagondollar in reference to his to his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin. He expressed some doubt about this wisdom as it led him to find a ball-peen hammer and reshape the hemisphere by striking it (ever so gently).
He reports that Oppenheimer spoke to him the next morning, saying only that it was lucky for everyone that Seagondollar handled the incident as well as he did.
I ♥ nerdy jokes
What did the Nuclear Physicist have for lunch? Fission Chips.
Where does bad light end up? In a prism!
How many physicists does it take to change a light bulb?
If the light bulb is a perfect sphere, one. The solution for a light bulb of arbitrary shape is left as an exercise to the reader.
Want more? Jokes compiled by Canadian physics grad students.
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US Physics Students Compete Internationally
The International Physics Olympiad competition is on in Isfahan, Iran right now! 76 countries sent 340 of their brightest high school physics students to compete. They were welcomed to Iran Friday, July 13th, with opening ceremonies held Saturday morning.
US Physics Olympiad team and coaches. From left, Paul Stanley (coach), Rui Hu, Jenny Kwan, Haofei Wei, Kenan Diab, Jason LaRue, Robert Shurtz (coach).
Kenan Diab, Jenny Kwan, Rui Hu, Haofei Wei, and Jason LaRue are representing the US at Isfahan University. Since their arrival, they have taken a theory exam, visited the Persian Gulf and walked about town, braved the searing heat of up to 120°F, feasted on kabobs, and enjoyed an introduction to Iranian culture. But you don't have to take my word for it. The team (or, largely the coaches) have been recording their activities in a blog.
They took the theory exam on Sunday and finished the experimental exam today, so it's a little late to be wishing them luck, but they'll have a few more adventures in Iran before heading back home on July 22nd. I'll post more when I find out how they did. As last year's team took home four gold metals and one silver, they have big shoes to fill. They are a wicked smart bunch, though, so expect great things.
Photo Credit: Matt Payne, American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT)
God of Thunder and Lightning
Jupiter is visible! Well, at night it is. It's been hovering right over Scorpius, low in the southwestern sky. This is quite exciting for me because it is the first time that I have known a patch of the night sky well enough to recognize that one "star" didn't belong. Naturally, I was filled with nerdy excitement and had to look online to figure out what exactly I'd seen. Jupiter was my best guess, and by Jove, I was right. This nifty Planet Finder helped me confirm it.
Jupiter is, Earth notwithstanding, the most interesting planet...in my humble opinion. I admit to some bias because I recall sitting on a sofa with my mom, maybe six or seven years old, looking at a picture of the Great Red Spot in a dusty tome of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. This feature made Jupiter her favorite planet. Imagine a storm, large enough to engulf three Earths, that has raged for well over three hundred years if seventeenth century scientists Robert Hooke and Giovanni Cassini are to bebelieved.
Apart from the turbulent atmosphere, Jupiter has a pretty sweet
magnetosphere. Particles from the solar wind, the volcanic eruptions from the moons, and Jupiter's own atmosphere get trapped into the magnetic field generated by eddie currents in the metallic layer of liquid hydrogen (where the electrons can move freely) in Jupiter's core. The volcanic moons like Io, Ganymede, and Europa move through the magnetosphere, creating a spectacular aurora.If you get a chance to visit an observatory while Jupiter is out, go for it. You will probably be able to see the lines on the planet's surface and maybe even the Great Red Spot.
Anyway, I encourage y'all to check it out. Personally, I'm going to get myself a little telescope. While I can't afford one fancy enough to see details of the planet's surface, perhaps I can catch a glimpse of the Galilean moons!
Find an observatory near you! If nothing comes up for your city, just enter your state.
Image Credits:
All from NASA through Wikipedia.
