Wednesday, January 30, 2008


The photo here (courtesy of Virginia L.Shuford Freire) shows a “glass frog,” a type of frog that inhabits tropical regions. Its skin is so transparent that you can clearly see the internal organs. Why can we see through the skin? Why aren’t you and I transparent? That is the "spotlight story" for February at http://www.flyingcircusofphysics.com/. The other stories for February are
1. Geoffrey Pyke's World War II plan to convert an iceberg into an aircraft carrier.
2. Throwing very hot water into very cold air --- how the water freezes before it hits the ground --- lots of videos of people with little more to do in life than to throw hot water into the air.
3. The next in the series of bar (pub) tricks, with the underlying physics explained.
4. The terribly frightening video showing Scott Macarney crashing in his final jump in the downhill ski race at Kitzbuehel last month. What went wrong?
As always, the archives at the web site contain all the stories posted since the site began, with hundreds of links to videos and photos. And if you are really interested in pursuing the stories, the pdf files contain thousands of links and over 10,000 references to the scientific literature. So, if you want something more interesting than sitting around waiting for your skin to become transparent, come to the web site. And if you want to see me on videos from television, read the next blog item here.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home