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Ferrofluid

Tuesday, November 18th, 2014

One way to imagine magnetic fields is by drawing lines showing the direction a compass would point if placed into the field. Here’s an example:

The black lines depict the magnetic field directions. This can be hard for students to understand at first, so another technique is to show the field lines by placing iron filings near a magnet and watching them align themselves in the direction of the field, like this:

The black bar is the magnetic. These sorts of demonstrations can be artistic:

And given enough filings can even show the field in 3D:

But the best illustrator of the field, in my opinion, is to show the effect of the field on a liquid. ‘Ferrofluid’ is the name of a magnetic liquid invented in 1963 that suspends micron-sized iron nanoparticles in a viscous fluid. This allows them to flow as if they are a liquid, and leads to striking displays of magnetic fields like this:

The magnet in the above picture is underneath the bowl containing the ferrofluid.

I’ve been using images like all of the above in class for years when I introduce the magnetic field and when I found out last week how easy it was to actually purchase ferrofluid (which is toxic and can apparently stain anything) I just jumped at the chance. Here’s what my new bottle of ferrofluid looks like:

Just some black oil in a bottle isn’t it? The bottle is filled, most likely with pure water. The fluid is likely oil filled with the iron nanoparticles, and is extremely viscous and doesn’t mix with the water. It’s quite unremarkable by itself, but becomes something quite special when exposed to a magnetic field.

Here’s a short video I just made (it’s in HD, so fullscreen it if you like):

Wonderful isn’t it? This will stay in my office with all my other demonstration units, and I’m sure it will give students and my coworkers many smiles!

Posted in Miscellaneous, Nature, Tech | 1 Comment »

The Great Australian Road Trip

Tuesday, July 15th, 2014

One day I’m going to drive around Australia. And I don’t just mean here and there, I mean drive all around Australia. As in this:

It’s a trip of almost 20,000 km, or over 200 straight hours of driving at 60 mph. That’s 40 days of driving 5 hours a day, which means this would be lengthy and expensive. But what a trip it would be!

I’d do the reverse route from the map above, starting in Sydney and heading north through Newcastle, Brisbane and all the way up to Cairns. That’s a few days right there, with many stops and things to see on the way. The beaches and coastal roads, especially as you get more and more north, would be beautiful.

And then a several-day trip to Darwin through the outback. Hundreds and hundreds of dry empty miles with not even a radio station on the radio. That would be quite an adventure!

The Darwin to Perth leg may take a week. It’s some of the least inhabited parts of Australia, but there are just enough small towns to make a daily stop possible. Accommodation on this leg may include a tent, or sleeping in the car! I may stay in a comfy hotel in Perth for a day or two to reset 🙂

Half the trip would now be complete and I’d be on the opposite side of the country. But the southern coasts are still to come, and some say these are the most beautiful roads in all of Australia.

It may take a week to get to Adelaide from Perth, stopping everywhere that looks interesting. Between the desert and the southern ocean there would certainly be a lot to see!

And then the windy roads along the Victorian coast would take me to the extreme southeast, at which I’d have to make a decision: Tasmania or no Tasmania? After 5 weeks on the road, who’s to say what I’d decide at that point?

Eventually the landscape would become vaguely familiar, as I drove into NSW and found myself within a few hours of Sydney. Six weeks after starting, I’d reach my destination: exactly where I started.

I’d have seen the entire country, and made enough memories to last me forever.

I’ll do this one day. I have to. Who wants to come with me?

Posted in Animals, Nature, Time, Trip | 2 Comments »

River Monsters

Wednesday, May 14th, 2014

In a little under a month, KLS, Jim and myself will be crusing along the Erie canal in a rented houseboat!

The Erie canal is a man-made waterway that connects Buffalo in the extreme northwest of New York state, to New York City. It was opened almost 200 years ago and for a long while was the most important transportation thoroughfare in the state (and was instrumental in making NY the most powerful state in the country). Obviously roads, trains and air transport have mostly obsoleted the canal for commercial use, but it remains popular for recreational boaters.

Much like the British canalboats, people worked and lived on the canal in a particular type of narrow boat. Today a company near Rochester manufactures their own houseboats in the vintage style, and rents them out for 4 or 7 day cruises. I’ve known that such rentals exist for a long time, and this year finally decided it was time to try one for ourselves!

We’ll leave from very close to J&J’s house in Rochester, and cruise at a maximum speed of 6 miles a day. The rental company sent me a wonderful packet of information so we can plan the trip, and as of right now we’re probably going to head east on the canal through a more rural area, including a nature reserve. We’ll leisurely cruise for two days and then turn around and come back! The boats themselves are quite luxurious! We rented the largest they have (42 foot) that has two ‘state rooms’ (both with queen beds), a dining area, fully-equipped kitchen and a shower with hot water! The boats also include a grill for cooking on the deck, and some bicycles in case we want to moor up and explore. All we need to bring is some food and games 🙂

Here is a newspaper article about a canal cruise rental. Needless to say, you can expect to read all about our own adventures on this very blog 🙂

Posted in Family, Miscellaneous, Nature, Trip | Comments Closed

The Flatwoods Monster

Tuesday, March 25th, 2014

It’s been a while since a cryptid post, so today I introduce…The Flatwoods Monster!

In 1952 some children and their parent, investigating what they believed was a UFO crash, saw something resembling the above sketch in the woods near the town of Flatwoods, in West Virginia. The monster briefly menaced them before fleeing to its UFO. The children and adult ran screaming and despite many searches no further evidence of the monster was found.

Despite this being very likely a misidentified barn own as a result of hysteria, the so-called Flatwoods Monster has entered into the UFO/Cryptid lexicon and far, far outlived it’s very brief 15 seconds of fame. Crackpot theories include such things as it being a member of the lizard race from inner Earth, an angel (or demon), a conventional ‘grey’ alien piloting an antigravity suit and the (rather mundane) possibility it was indeed exactly as seen – a representative of a hitherto unknown alien race. The Flatwoods encounter may have also inspired the ‘black oil’ as seen on The X-Files (due to ‘moving oil’ residue allegedly found at the scene) and almost certainly (since it was widely reported) contributed to the fear amongst some that UFOs and their alien inhabitants may be hostile in nature (enforced by the Hopkinsville Goblin encounters three years later).

In short, it was the result of hysteria that would possibly inspire hysteria in others.

But – and here’s why I feature it today – the Flatwoods Monster has become a sort of alien icon in that most imaginative of places – Japan! Just as the western world has adopted ‘the greys’ as the quintessential alien blueprint, Japan has given equal status to the Flatwoods Monster, of all things. And as a result it has made many and varied appearances in Japanese popular culture.

Here’s an ‘alien poster’ from what looks like 1960s or 1970s Japan:

Notably absent are conventional grey aliens, which is not surprising since they weren’t popularized until the late 1980s (and we can thank Whitley Streiber for that…). You can of course see our Flatwoods Monster on the lower left, along with a few other ‘famous aliens’ of the time (notably Adamski’s Venusians second from the left on the top row).

Of those shown above, the Flatwoods Monster appearance seemed to gain authority in Japan, and I’ve read that throughout the 70s and 80s whenever aliens (as in UFO inhabitants) were required they were often drawn using this appearance. This continued into game depictions of aliens, and over the years I have chuckled at the multitudes of Flatwoods Monsters I’ve seen, fought or even befriended in games!

The above is from the anime Keroro Gunso. Here’s a few examples of the monster in games…

That’s the penultimate boss of Tumblepop (Arcade). It’s a good depiction!

That’s the nonhuman form of the queen from Space Harrier 2 (Genesis). The inspiration is obvious.

The final boss of the NES game Amagon.

The aliens from The Legend Of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (N64).

A type of random monster encounter in Wild Arms (PS1).

That’s a boss from the Wii U game Wonderful 101 (which I am playing right now).

And a scary version from Elminage for the PSP (photo I took from my Vita).

So a probably-nonexistent monster seen over 60 years ago in a small American town has now become the standard alien archetype for Japanese video games. That’s a path to fame that would impress even an alien!

Posted in Art, Games, Nature, The Unknown | 1 Comment »

Snow Day 2

Friday, February 14th, 2014

Yesterday and last night we got hit by a massive snow storm. As with last week, I decided to document it in pictures.

Here’s what we saw when I opened the garage door this morning:

Here’s a better look at the mail box:

Here’s the front steps:

It was a colossal snowfall. I’d actually cleared the drive way fully last night, and had to again this morning:

The snow was deep and heavy. The snowblower was worth it’s weight in gold! All this new snow had to go on top of yesterday’s snow, which itself is on top of the still-unmelted snow from last week. After clearing the driveway, we have a wonderful ice wall edging the sides:

Yes that’s a normal sized soda can!

And here’s the steps cleared once again. You can see we’re running out of places to put the snow:

I had to go out for a while afterwards. The roads were cleared, but the snow piles were titanic in places. Here’s a shot taken at school:

And here’s the school itself:

I’m guessing we got 20 – 24 inches in total these past two days. On top of the 10 inches last week, this means there is still thigh-high deep snow in our backyard. This is surely a winter to remember!

Posted in Family, Home, Nature | Comments Closed

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