Mastodawn

🧵 Post 3 / 3 — Why This Matters
🌀 Why this feels new (but isn’t wrong)
Physics didn’t get this wrong — the mathematics works beautifully.
But often we stop at abstraction because it’s sufficient for calculation, even when mechanical intuition still exists underneath.
Sometimes understanding doesn’t come from more abstraction,
but from slowing down and examining constraints we already know.
A childhood toy just made those constraints visible again.
🌀
#FromFirstPrinciples #ScientificUnderstanding #LearningNeverStops
#EverydayPhysics #ChemistryIsPhysics

Maikel de Bakker 6d ago

Tilburg. Home. The place where I was born, and where my children were born.

After many days that felt far too warm and far too grey for this time of year, the sun finally broke through. Blue sky appeared — almost as if the city itself was taking a deep breath. I went out for a short walk in the Spoorpark, close to home. As usual, I didn’t leave without a camera.

While walking, my attention was caught by something easily overlooked: a simple puddle. There was barely any wind, no ripples at all. From just the right angle, the puddle turned into a quiet mirror, reflecting Westpoint against a clear blue sky. A small inversion of reality — sky below, city above — reminding me how perspective can change everything.

Scientifically speaking, it’s nothing more than specular reflection: a smooth surface reflecting light at equal angles. But emotionally, it feels like something else entirely. A moment where chaos pauses, where the city aligns with itself, if only for a second. These moments are fragile — a breeze, a footstep, and they’re gone.

Photographically, this was about being present and reacting quickly. Shot handheld with the Canon 5DsR and the Sigma 24–70mm Art at 29mm, f/2.8, 1/500 sec, ISO 100. No tricks. Just observation, timing, and letting light do what it naturally does best.

Sometimes home reflects back more than you expect.

Photography, after all, is just another way of studying light and life.

#Tilburg #Spoorpark #Westpoint #ReflectionPhotography #UrbanObservation #EverydayPhysics #LightAndReflection #SeeingDifferently #CityDetails #MinimalMoments #DutchCityscape #UrbanNature #CalmMoments #HandheldPhotography #Canon5DsR #Sigma2470Art #F28 #ISO100 #MirrorWorld #BlueSkyDays #QuietScenes #VisualScience #ObservationOverAction #SlowLooking #PhotographicCuriosity #CityAsLandscape #EverydayWonder #PerspectiveShift #UrbanStories #Pixelfed #ByMaikeldeBakker #MaikeldeBakkerPhotography #ByMaikelPhotography #WonderingLens #wonderinglens

j_bertolotti Jan 16

#PhysicsFactlet
It's a foggy day here in Albion, so let's talk about light (multiple) scattering!
Fog is composed of micrometre sized water droplet that can scatter light. This has two main effects: some of the light that was supposed to reach your eyes don't (because it is scattered away), and some of the light that was not supposed to reach you gets scattered into your eyes.
The denser is the fog and the further an object is from you, the more likely light is to be scattered away before it reaches your eyes. The amount of unscattered light (i.e. the one your eyes can use to form a sharp image) goes down exponentially (Lambert-Beer law), so an object in the fog gets dimmer pretty quickly. On the other hand there is a chance that light that was never meant to reach you is now scattered into your eyes, but since it arrives from a largely random direction, mixed up with a lot of other scattered light, your brain perceived it as a white blur on top of everything else. And since far away object were already dim, this white halo can easily overpower them, so you can't see them anymore.

#Physics #Optics #ITeachPhysics #EverydayPhysics

j_bertolotti Jan 15

#PhysicsFactlet
Light propagates in a straight line (actually it is more complicated than that, but this is good enough for us here) and we see only the light that comes to our eyes. As a result you usually don't see the light going from its source to the objects it illuminates.
Unless it is misty, in which case light can scatter on the water droplets and you can "see" the light's path ("Tyndall effect").

#Physics #Optics #EverydayPhysics

Paul Guinnessy Jul 22, 2024

This had #everydayphysics written all over it. What shape of pebble is best for skipping it across water? (and yes its experimental). #physics

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/s85?utm_campaign=weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_source=emailalert

A Slight Curvature Gives Pebbles an Impacting Edge

Pebbles that are slightly curved—rather than completely flat—exert the highest impact forces when dropped onto a watery surface.

Physics

Paul Guinnessy Jun 3, 2024

We're getting better at gun #forensics for use in court cases. #everydayphysics #physics

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/77/6/26/3294595/Firearms-forensics-is-becoming-more

Firearms forensics is becoming more quantitative

Science over subjectivity could increase juries’ confidence in gun identification.

AIP Publishing

Paul Guinnessy May 9, 2024

Seems a tad cruel this turned up in my inbox when I just spent 40 minutes dismantling my #coffee grinder to unblock it. Mind you, I usually prefer my coffee hot. #acoustics #ultrasonic #physics #everydayphysics

https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/05/Ultrasonic_cold_brew_coffee_ready_under_three_minutes

Hear that? That’s the sound of an ultrasonic cold brew coffee ready in under three minutes

UNSW Sydney engineers have utilised sound waves to cut the time it takes to make a cold brew coffee from many hours down to mere minutes.

UNSW Sites

Paul Guinnessy May 22, 2023

The most important cooking question for a physicist, what second‐order differential equation should you use to grill a steak to perfection? #EverydayPhysics #cooking https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article-lookup/doi/10.1063/1.882728

The Virtual Cook: Modeling Heat Transfer in the Kitchen

With a second‐order differential equation and a computer, the gastro‐physicist can challenge much of the conventional wisdom about how to grill a steak to perfe

AIP Publishing

Bean Thinking May 22, 2023

A glasshouse cafe with two sorts of cooling system. Pokok in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is air conditioned but also, if you look carefully you can see a sprinkler on the roof of the cafe - pouring water on the roof which then evaporates to help the cooling.

#noticing #cafe #coffeescience #TakingFiveMinutesToNoticeThings #physics #EverydayPhysics