I learned this today. A hand grenade works because the removal of the lever starts a series of steps that ends with an explosion. There are many different types of grenade. I am going to look at the fragmentation grenade. Most of us imagine the Mk 2 grenade when we think of a hand grenade. […]
#259 How does a hand grenade work? Read More »
I learned this today. The energy from the photons in a laser beam can be used to propel a very light sail into space. A laser powered solar sail could let us look at the planets around the closest star to us. Laser propulsion has been suggested as the best way we have of reaching
#258 How can a laser power a solar sail? Read More »
I learned this today. The Richter scale is a way of measuring the strength of an earthquake by looking at the height of its seismic wave. The Richter scale was developed in 1935 by Charles Francis Richter. He was an American physicist who was very interested in seismology. He came up with his system because
#256 What is the Richter scale? Read More »
I learned this today. The surface tension of water is higher than almost all other liquids because it contains so much hydrogen. Surface tension is what allows droplets to form on leaves, like the picture with this post, and for you to keep adding drops of water to a glass without it spilling over the
#255 Why is the surface tension of water so high? Read More »
I learned this today. Sustained G-force of 6 G are generally considered to be fatal because they squash our organs and starve our brains of oxygen. Gs is the shortened form of G-force, which is in itself a shortened form of the gravitational force equivalent. G-force can be caused by rapid acceleration or rapid deacceleration.
#253 How does G-force kill people? Read More »
I learned this today. Insulin is a peptide hormone that regulates the metabolism of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in the body. How is insulin made? Insulin is made in the pancreas. The pancreas is an organ that is found just behind the stomach. It is responsible for making enzymes that are known as pancreatic juices.
#251 What is insulin? Read More »
I learned this today. A touchscreen works because a tiny electric current is sent to your finger, which allows the device to calculate where your finger is. There are two different types of touchscreen: resistive and capacitive. The touchscreen in the phone you are probably reading this on is a capacitive touchscreen, so let’s look
#248 How does a touchscreen work? Read More »
I learned this today. Chloroform knocks people out by causing depression of the central nervous system. Chloroform appears to have been discovered by several people independently in 1830 and 31. A German pharmacist called Moldenhawer discovered it in 1830. An American physician called Samuel Guthrie, a French scientist called Eugene Soubeiran, and a German scientist
#241 Why does chloroform knock people out? Read More »
I learned this today. Bleaches react with colored organic compounds and turn them into colorless ones. Bleaches by working on the chromophore of a molecule. This is the part of the molecule that is responsible for the color we see. Our eyes do not see color. Our eyes detect a wavelength of light, which they
#240 How does bleach turn clothes white? Read More »
I learned this today. The Kola borehole is the deepest manmade borehole on Earth, and it is the deepest artificial point on Earth. The Kola borehole is on the Kola Peninsula, which is on the Russian border with Norway. It is in the very far north of Russia and is in the Arctic
#225 What is the Kola borehole? Read More »
