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https://physicsworld.com/a/the-10-quirkiest-physics-stories-of-2020/

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Joshua Chawner (left) and Dmitry Zmeev with the world's first LEGO cryonaut (Courtesy: Joshua Chawner)

Despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, physicists have still found time to carry out research that touches on the quirkier side of science. Here is our pick of the 10 best, not in any particular order.
Low-temperature LEGO
Condensed-matter physicists like to put materials under extreme conditions to tease out their interesting properties. So why not see if anything interesting happens with everyday objects? That is exactly what physicists at Lancaster University did when they put four LEGO bricks into their dilution refrigerator and cooled them to a chilly 70 mK. LEGO bricks are made from a material called Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). The team found that this acts as a better insulator than many well-known bulk-insulator materials such as the glass-ceramic Macor or the plastic-based Vespel . Given that ABS is relatively cheap, the team says that 3D-printed scaffolds of the material could be an alternative to current materials used to build low-temperature equipment. Being a playful group of physicists, they also put a LEGO minifigure into the refrigerator, which not only survived the deep freeze but has also become the "world's first LEGO cryonaut".
Sag, settle, curl
Dried spaghetti has long perplexed physicists due to its tendency to break into three pieces when bent, rather than two. Nathaniel Goldberg and Oliver O'Reilly of the University of California, Berkeley, tackled another puzzle related to the stringy pasta. When placed in a pot of boiling water, a spaghetti strand will first sag and then settle on the pot's bottom before finally curving in on itself into a U-shape. The researchers identify these three separate states as sagging, settling and curling, with Goldberg and O'Reilly creating a model that could predict the mechanical behaviour of the pasta as it cooks. The duo says that the model could be useful for the food-production industry and that future research could focus on the deformation of other types of pasta such as rigatoni or lasagne. It seems like the pasta-bilities are endless.
Grinding it out
You'd think that making an espresso is easy - just force hot, high-pressure water through a bed of coffee grounds. Some of us have become coffee connoisseurs during lockdown, but even for skilled baristas operating top-of-the-range coffee machines, creating cups of espresso that taste consistent from one to the next is tricky. So to discover the secret of the perfect espresso, a team of researchers led by mathematician Jamie Foster from the University of Portsmouth created a model to describe the espresso-making process. Espresso coffee normally comes in a fine grind, which maximizes the surface area of coffee that is in contact with the water. That, in theory, should result in a strong cup of coffee that gets the most flavour out of the grounds. But by examining different grinds of coffee, Foster and pals discovered that if the coffee is too fine, the water can be prevented from reaching all of the coffee grounds. The researchers' theory is currently being tested at a coffee shop in Eugene, Oregon - which makes a mocha-ry of the notion that Americans aren't interested in a decent brew.
Parking theory, part 2
Finding the best place to park your car might be the least of your worries during the current global COVID-19 pandemic. But when life does finally return to normal and you're searching for that perfect car-park spot, US physicists Paul Krapivsky and Sidney Redner have some advice. Last year they examined whether it's better to park far from your destination (which should be easy but then require a long walk) or to park nearby (which should be harder but require only a short walk). Their conclusion was that a "prudent" strategy is best, in which you park in the first gap of cars you come across but take the spot nearest to the venue. This year the duo formulated a general rule for this prudent strategy. According to Krapivsky and Redner, drivers who observe a particular rule will have a probability of finding the best spot that can be as high as 25%. Trouble is, their calculation depends on every driver observing the rules, which as we know isn't guaranteed. And it assumes a 1D parking lot, which is the kind of place that only exists in a physicist's imagination.

Backgrounds to the fore
With video-conference services like Zoom all the rage this year, you still might want to impress your friends and colleagues with a background from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) in Canada. As one of the world's top centres for physics research, it released nine science-themed images for use as a backdrop when you don't want colleagues seeing the dirty-laundry basket, rioting kids or peeling wallpaper behind you. The images include an artist's impression of two colliding black holes, a dark-matter map of the cosmos as well as an exterior shot of the PI building in Waterloo, Ontario. Of course, PI isn't alone - other Zoom backgrounds are available too, including images of the ATLAS detector at the CERN particle-physics lab and shots taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Friday on my mind
Come Dine with Me is the brilliant British TV show in which amateur home cooks take turns hosting a dinner party for each other throughout the course of a week. Each dinner is scored in private by the other contestants on the evening it's served and whoever racks up the highest score at the end of the week wins a cash prize. Two physicists from the University of Hamburg analysed results from 2268 episodes of the German version of the show - Das Perfekte Dinner - and concluded that you have more chance of winning if you host a dinner later in the week. Cook on a Monday and you might as well just open a jar of sauerkraut. Peter Blum and Marc Wenskat say that their finding is an example of the "secretary problem", which arises when things are rated consecutively using the same criteria. Apparently, the application of those criteria change as each scoring occurs, skewing the results. "When competing, one should always carefully choose when to compete," the authors write. So if you want perfection, go last.
The bottom line
Researchers revisited a classic problem in the animal kingdom this year: why can penguins poo such large distances? In 2003 researchers from Germany, Finland and Hungary - who bagged an IgNobel prize in 2005 for their efforts - found that some penguins can fire their excreta as far as 40 cm, allowing these aquatic birds to continue to nurture their eggs without sitting in a sea of faeces. Researchers in Japan modified this pooping model to calculate the maximum distance that a penguin could manage to fling their dung when at a certain height. Thanks to the penguins' "strong rectal pressure", which they calculate to be higher than previous work, the team finds that the maximum distance is 1.34 m. The team says this information could be "useful" for zookeepers, who would know just how far away to stand to avoid getting hit by the firing faeces. So next time you visit the penguin enclosure - do keep your faecal distancing.
Cubic earth
We've long dismissed the notion developed by the Greek philosopher Plato that the universe is made of five types of matter: earth, air, fire, water and the cosmos. Each was described with a particular geometry: a cube in the case of earth. However, new research shows that Plato might have been onto something after scientists in the US and Hungary measured and analysed fragmentation patterns in around 100 rocks that they collected as well as thousands from datasets collected by others. To their surprise, they found that the resulting shape of the fragments is indeed a cube. "It turns out that Plato's conception about the element earth being made up of cubes is, literally, the statistical average model for real earth," says geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack from University of Pennsylvania. "And that is just mind-blowing."
Fair slices

What's the fairest way to slice up a watermelon? Physicists in Belgium, France and Italy tackled the problem using geometry and calculus. After cutting the whole watermelon in half along its length and then in the middle to yield four equal quarters, the researchers discovered that this "half rule" fell away when then trying to slice the watermelon up into equal thin portions. Instead, they found a "2/3 rule". So for a spheroid of length 10 cm, for two slices, the first slice should be made at 3.5 cm along the length but for three slices, the first slice should be 2.1 cm and the second 4.2 cm. After doing the calculations, the researchers tested them on a 4 kg watermelon and used Archimedes' principle to confirm that the slice volumes were equal. Eureka!
Borderline collider
And finally, in 1977 the Nobel-prize-winning physicist Leon Lederman published a tongue-in-cheek proposal to build a collider using existing subway tunnels in New York. The city was then in financial crisis and Lederman, who died in 2018, reckoned that physicists could acquire the tunnels for a knock-down price. It never happened, of course, but his proposal has now inspired Caltech physicist David Hitlin to propose building another collider to address the politically controversial wall along the US-Mexican border. In a preprint paper, Hitlin describes how long, straight sections of the border between the states of Sonora and Arizona could be blocked by a huge linear particle collider. Stretching some 300 km long, he reckons the machine could achieve a centre-of-mass energy of 5 TeV. The proposed International Linear Collider (ILC) in Japan, in contrast, would be a mere 20 km long and have an initial energy of just 250 GeV. And what would Hitlin call the facility if it was built? The TrumpILC, of course.

You can be sure that next year will throw up its fair share of quirky stories from the world of physics. See you in 2021!

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The 10 quirkiest physics stories of 2020 - Physics World

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From how to slice a melon fairly to a theory of parking, physics has had its fair share of quirky stories this year. Here is our pick of the best 10

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By converting our sims to HTML5, we make them seamlessly available across platforms and devices. Whether you have laptops, iPads, chromebooks, or BYOD, your favorite PhET sims are always right at your fingertips.Become part of our mission today, and transform the learning experiences of students everywhere!

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https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/real-time-imagery/interactive-maps/water-vapor-imagery

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National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service

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Water vapor imagery is created using a wavelength sensitive to the moisture content in the atmosphere.

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https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/imagery/interactive-maps/the-world-real-time

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National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service

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Sharing imagery on an Earth map 3D Model, this globe map has a real-time satellite view of Earth. Zoom in on the satellite map!

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This site hosts many games you can explore
https://scichamp.com/physics-games/

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SciChamp.com - FUN GAMES TO LEARN SCIENCE

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Fun online Physics games for middle and high school

Reflection of Light

Level 1 - Use arrow keys to move mirror. Reflect the light ray and prevent the balloons from bursting. Level 2 - Use arrow keys to rotate the mirror and kill enemies with light beam. Level 3 - move mirror to light up colored tubes and more

Refraction of Light

Use the theory of light refraction to kill enemies. Change refractive index of material to bend the light beam at enemy and kill. Change slab thickness and refractive index of slab to bend the light and kill enemies. In the last level answer multiple choice questions on refraction of light.

Concave and convex mirrors

Play and understand ray diagrams in concave and convex mirrors. See the formation of real and virtual images. Learn the mirror equation and it's use for calculating the image position in both concave and convex mirrors. Understand the magnification formula for finding out if the image is enlarged or diminished.

Concave and convex lenses

Play to understand the theory and working of concave and convex lenses. Understand the formation of images based on object position. Learn about the lens formula and its use in solving numerical problems. Observe the use of concave and convex lenses as corrective lenses in eye defects. Play the game by choosing the correct key slot to open doors and choose correct answer blocks and cross all doors.

Physical Quantities and Measurements

Play this simple Physics game and answer questions on physical quantities like; area, volume, density and their measurements with numerical problems.

Sound energy

A fun Platformer game, where you play musical instruments in the Temple of Sounds and answer questions on theory of Sound energy. Use arrow keys to walk and jump.

Electricity and magnetism

Repel the tiny magnets by switching your magnetic pole. Collect coins in an electromagnet by closing the circuit. Light up lamps in series and parallel. Kill the clouds before they cast a shadow on the solar panel.

Motion

Race your car....avoid getting hit by coconuts! Answer questions and clear the various hurdles. Ride a monster truck through the jungle. Enter the answer to numerical question if stopped by a jungle animal.

Heat energy

Fly a hot air balloon and dodge the obstacles on the way. Answer a question if you hit an obstacle. Solve numerical questions and create a rainbow.

Games Walkthrough

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Fun Online Physics games - for middle and high school

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Fun Online Physics games for learning - Concave and convex mirrors, Quantities and measurement, Light, Sound, Electricity and magnetism, Motion, Heat

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https://www.navalengineers.org/STEM-FLEET

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Security Issues

FLEET is secure but new computers worry because we are a small company.
Here is more information for and on this issue.

Welcome to FLEET

FLEET is an engaging engineering game for students 8-18 years old. If you haven't played FLEET yet, click on the short video above to watch a 45-second overview. Schools taught physical science and the engineering design process with FLEET and now we hope to support your STEAM adventure at home.
Quick Start advice:

1. Download FLEET: The button in the upper left will allow you to get the video game. After you download it, you will create your very own FLEET account. (This account is different from your ASNE account.)

2. Creating your FLEET Account: Traditionally, students entered their school as organization. Today you can join a local competition (e.g., "Carderock Middle", "Sea Cadet", "Philadelphia", etc.).

3. QuickPlay! Budgets are terrible (but necessary); however, you can momentarily avoid them by choosing QuickPlay. Use the Mission Headquarters to complete the longer missions in the game.

4. Drydock Interface:The + button in the upper left is for adding parts to your ship (creative design choice by us!). The ship button below that shows what is already on your ship. Hit the green play button to test out your ship.
If you want the User Guide, click here for all 44 pages of FLEET directions!

5. Testing/Mission Interface:You can steer with the arrow keys, click on the rescue boat/helicopter to launch them, and get near or hover over seamen in need of rescue!

Common Engineering Problems:
Problem:The boat is stuck in the drydock.

Solution: Ensure the boat meets mission requirements, then click the green play button.

Problem:The boat fails the Stability Test (weight is distributed incorrectly).

Solution: Usually the engine is not in the center of the boat. Also, look at the deck to see if objects are not symmetrically placed on the top of the boat.

The boat is at sea and students don 't know what to do.

Solution: Hit "Esc" and "Restart Mission". The directions will be in the upper left corner.

Student's helicopter can't rescue people.

Solution: The helicopter needs to be directly over the people, keep moving forward and the button will appear to drop the rescue equipment.

It's hard to resize the screen..

Solution: You could change this in Settings, but the easiest way is to hit CTRL+F for Windows (or Command F for Macs).

Problem: I just downloaded FLEET and I get an error message.

We are working to get Microsoft and Apple to approve our software, in the meantime you can still download FLEET. Here are specific directions for and .

Here is a quick Office of Naval Research program overview and you may want to consider a Science and Engineering Apprenticeship next year. It's an engaging field that allows you to practice many engineering disciplines while working in some of the most stimulating environments across the globe!

Teaching with Video Games

FLEET in Elementary School Science

We work with upper elementary teachers to use FLEET as they introduce pushes and pulls (before we talk about forces!). These pushes can equal out as shown by FLEET looking vertically. The push from gravity and the push from the water balance out so the boat floats at the same level. We have classroom activities that support this understanding. FLEET also shows when forces are unbalanced. When the force of the engine exceeds the force from the water then the boat moves forward (or backwards!). Our materials have many hands-on activities that connect these forces in the virtual simulator with real-world experiences with these pushes and pulls. (Scroll down to see the list of activities.)
Check out an elementary activity today!
FLEET is perfect for showing the forces middle school curricula cover without emphasizing the numeric calculations used in high school. Students can study how gravity affects masses up to 2 million pounds. They can see gravity's effect on the object as a whole and on different sections of the ship. This force is balanced by the force of water, which is shown in each FLEET mission as well as in the simulator embedded into the curriculum. Students understand how mass is related to force and how these work together to make objects speed up (accelerate) and slow down (decelerate).
Explore the 10-lesson middle school curriculum today!
Most high school classrooms using FLEET employ it to demystify the physics equation, especially for students that do not have a strong math foundation. FLEET shows F = ma in stunning detail because these masses are not able to be replicated in classroom environments. Because FLEET is a video game, it can also re-engage students that are not engaged by traditional learning materials. The High School curriculum
Download the 10-lesson high school curriculum today!
We know kids are excited to "game" but using these virtual physics engines are more impactful than fun. Simulators give students the opportunity to control the physical environment and scientifically test for results with virtually no investment of time or money. Students can add or move weight, immediately see the effects as water lifts in the dry dock and then measure how it affects speed and turning ability. FLEET and the PhET simulators used in the curricula exemplify these materials.

For example, FLEET shows the relationship between force, mass and acceleration explicitly. Teachers know that force equals mass times acceleration. Students know that big characters move more slowly. FLEET lesson plans make the connection between force, mass and acceleration obvious while reinforcing the vocabulary that students need to use as scientists and engineers.

Here is a list of the key FLEET vocabulary by grade level.
Elementary School Middle School
Current FLEET Hands-On Activities:

Strong Boat: Test your boat in a sink or pool. Can you hold up a brick? How about two?

FLEET Speed Test: Use the FLEET video game to discover what makes a million-pound ship move fast!

Stable Boat: Design a boat for unpredictable passengers!

Tall Boat: Scrape the sky with your best design!

FLEET Search & Rescue Mission: Test your naval engineering skills in this real-world simulation.

R U a gamer?

Excited about video games? We have step-by-step instructions on how to identify and submit 3D objects for FLEET'. And, we have a Blender tutorial if you want to learn how to make your own video game objects.?

The FLEET Hall of Fame is open!

Experienced engineers that set a FLEET high score join the prestigious FLEET Hall of Fame! You may be able to join this elite club if you study hard!

FLEET is well underway!

(Student ship from Robotstock in Oaks, PA on August 23.)

If you are interested in FLEET attending your event, please email us at fleet@navalengineers.org.

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Home page for the FLEET video game. Find all information about the FLEET engineering curricula and activities.

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https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id616064935?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

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‎Become an inventor with Algodoo - Start designing and testing your ideas in seconds. Algodoo is endless fun for any age to create, play & learn physics! In a simulated “real” world you can build, play and make your inventions come alive. With simple drawing tools, objects like gears, motors, lase…

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NASA.gov brings you the latest images, videos and news from America's space agency. Get the latest updates on NASA missions, watch NASA TV live, and learn about our quest to reveal the unknown and benefit all humankind.

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