Category: SCIENCE!

Burning Stuff for Science and Preparedness

A year or two ago I purchased a rather large bottle of olive oil (it was on sale) in the hopes that I’d use it for cooking at whatnot. While I did use it for cooking, I used it in such moderation that it passed the “use by” date while still having about three-quarters of the bottle remaining.
I purchased a new, smaller bottle of oil and have been using that for cooking, but what was I to do with the old bottle of oil? Throwing it out seemed like such a waste, so I decided to put it to good use.
By setting it on fire.
After doing some brief searching on the internet, I discovered that many old oil lamps (prior to more modern kerosene-burning ones) burned olive oil, so I was in luck. All I needed was an oil reservoir and a wick and I could make a lamp. In addition to being a rather fun thing to do, it would also yield a useful source of long-term, low-intensity light that would be handy in extended power outages — candles are bulky and don’t burn for long, and flashlights (of which I have several) require batteries which burn out relatively fast. Olive oil is relatively safe compared to other oils, as it is very difficult to ignite without a wick, and so wouldn’t cause a massive fire if the lamp were to tip over.
I decided to start with the basics: I had an empty, clean, dry jar that used to contain spaghetti sauce and a paper towel. I punched a hole in the lid of the jar, widened it to about a quarter-inch, rolled up the towel, inserted it into the hole with about a bit more than a quarter-inch protruding, filled the jar with oil, put the lid on, and let the oil soak up into the wick. Once it was soaked, I lit it with a lighter. It took about 5-10 seconds to light, but once lit it’s burned cleanly and smokelessly for several hours. I haven’t been able to detect any odor, and the lamp is not unpleasant to be around. The paper towel wick has turned black where the flame is, but has not burned down by any noticeable amount in the last several hours.
I could go about punching more holes in the lid and adding more wicks for greater output at the expense of greater oil consumption, as well as using a better wick (I’d imagine that the paper towel will eventually degrade in the oil) like cotton or something. We shall see.
Anyway, the point was that I was able to make a very inexpensive, clean, long-burning lamp using only the most basic of household ingredients. While a mass-produced oil lamp would likely be more effective for lighting, this sort of MacGyver-esque approach is useful for people without a lot of storage space that can be dedicated to emergency supplies (such as my small studio apartment), as well as a lot more fun.
I’ll post some pictures once I find my camera. It’s somewhere around here…

Photos

I recently discovered the fantastic program called Autostitch that will “stitch” together pictures into a panorama. Obviously, the pictures need to be taken from the same position and at differing angles, but Autostitch does all the hard work.
Here’s one of my better ones from today:

(click to enlarge)
There’s some obvious blurring and visual artifacts due to several factors: people/vehicles moving around between each frame, the photos were taken through glass at different (occasionally shallow) angles, and I moved the camera between two positions about 5 feet apart (different panes of glass, with different angles). Even so, it turned out reasonably well.
For those who are curious, the large, white-roofed building in the center is the Physics & Atmospheric Sciences building at the University of Arizona, which is where I spend most of my waking hours. The red-roofed, horseshoe-shaped building across the street from it is the Yavapai dormitory. In the lower-right-hand corner, there are four tall palm trees; barely visible between the heads of those trees is a weather research station. In the distance, slightly to the right of center is the university’s football stadium. The picture was taken from the 10th floor of the Gould-Simpson building on campus.
I should really see about getting more panoramic photos of various interesting places, like the local range. Taking pictures on campus is a pain, as there’s always people moving about.
On a similar note, is anyone aware of a flash or Java-based viewer for panoramic images? Displaying them in 2D creates a lot of distortions.

Nerdy Thoughts on Government

I wish that government policies could be based on the scientific method: gather information, present a hypothesis, test it in a well-defined manner, analyze the results, and see if the hypothesis is true or not. If not, discard the hypothesis and, if needed, formulate a new one. Progress is made by implementing policies based on confirmed hypotheses, and repealing policies based on failed ones.
I’m a student of science, and so believe that things should be tested by experiment. However, the consequences of a failed experiment in the lab are very different than those in the real world: in the lab, you might lose your eyebrows, your funding, or maybe your reputation. At the very worst, you might be killed or seriously injured by a spectacular failure, but this is extremely rare. Even if a theory is shown to be incorrect, useful data is generated, a better theory can be crafted, and a new experiment with the same starting conditions can be conducted.
The real world is much less forgiving: a policy mistake can cost trillions of dollars and many lives. The realities of bureaucracy and government can take a good idea, implement it poorly, and make things worse. Due to the inertia of society and bureaucracy, some flawed policies can be essentially impossible to undo.
Thus, it is extremely important to learn from the past, recognize which policies failed and which worked, make informed decisions, and make policy decisions based on fact and a realistic worldview.
Unfortunately, things rarely work this way, and the same mistakes are made over and over again. As a student of science, this annoys me to no end.

Quote of the Day

Coworker*: [looking at ruler]”Wow, I had no idea that there was about two and a half centimeters per inch.”
Me: “Actually, there is exactly 2.54 centimeters per inch, by definition.”
Coworker: [glares sharply at me, then attacks me with ruler]
* Coworker at my day job (doing IT for a university department). He’s not really a science/math type.

I Was Told There’d Be No Math

I bet you’d never hear this on a gunny blog, but it has to be said:
The Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is amazing.
It may seem incomprehensible to those who haven’t seen it, but those who have will appreciate the Theorem’s simplicity, its power, and its mind-blowing elegance. As much as a math formula can be, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is sexy*.
Back when I took integral calculus, these properties were not evident to me. It was simply a formula to be memorized and employed to solve equations. Tonight, after about six hours of solving problem after problem with it, I had an epiphany and sat in stunned amazement for several minutes.
Probably 99% of the world’s population will never need to use calculus, and most of those who do use it won’t really appreciate its beauty. Those of us who do lead very interesting (and often very weird) lives.
* Thank goodness I’m dating a geeky math teacher who understands me and my quirks. Fortunately, she doesn’t get jealous when I think that formulas are sexy. She also thinks I look cute whilst wearing a lab coat. Go figure.

Science, It Works

After a few weeks of wrangling about in the lab, I was finally able to get some good data out of my experiment.
I haven’t fully analyzed the data yet, but my back-of-the-envelope calculations seem to indicate that I have experimentally measured the speed of light within about 6% of the accepted value.
Not bad for an experiment consisting of a laser, a few mirrors (with one strapped to an electric motor), a multimeter, and what basically amounts to a very fine ruler attached to a microscope. The distance the beam traveled was about 15 meters.
With better instruments, and a longer distance, and more beer it’s quite likely that I could refine this number even more.