GeekwithEnvy

Science

Orionid Meteor Shower

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Dust from Halley’s Comet will begin to collide with our atmosphere tonight as Earth’s orbit places us in the path of the debris.Meteors in the Night Sky NASA says that the best time to view the Orionid meteor shower is between  11PM to 3AM EST tonight, October 20 through the early morning of the 21st. The meteor shower will be visible from everywhere in the world.

To best view the shower, make sure to get as far away as you can from local light pollution and then find a good spot to sit and relax. Make sure you get into a position where you don’t put strain on your neck while looking up at the night sky.

If your fortunate enough to have clear weather conditions you should be able to see 15-20 meteors every hour. As the debris hits the atmosphere at over 100,000 miles per hour it will begin to burn up, creating a wonderful cosmic display.

You can watch a LIVE feed of the shower form NASA below.

Free desktop streaming application by Ustream

Veritasium and Things We Can Learn From a Slinky

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VeritasiumLogoAs a geek, science is just a daily part of our lives and it’s really cool when we get to see science put on display in an beautiful way so we can look on in awe. Fortunately for us geeks there is a YouTube channel dedicated to showcasing the beauty of science,  it’s called Veritasium.

If you haven’t seen Veritasium then you’re missing out on some really great videos. I have stumbled upon a video that showcases a simple slinky and surprisingly there is some very interesting science at work.

There are many things in the world around us that happen so fast that we completely miss them. Our interaction with the world around us seems instantaneous but that is just our  perception of things. If we slow things down a bit, perhaps with a high speed camera, we begin to see our world very differently.

I have always enjoyed watching high speed footage of everyday actions and I have learned quite a bit by spending time observing things in slow motion. The high speed camera itself is a tool, just like a microscope or a telescope, that allows us to observe things that we can’t normally see with our naked eye.

In an amazing and intellectually provocative video posted by Veritasium, a slinky is dropped from just above eye level and the fall of the slinky is then captured by a high speed camera. Once the slinky begins to fall, something unusual begins to happen; the bottom of slinky remains in place while the top appears to collapse in a downward motion. How is this possible? Watch the video below to find out.

 

For more great videos like this head to the Veritasium YouTube Channel.

Red Bull Stratos

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StratosLogo

If you haven’t heard the Red Bull Stratos team is working on something quite amazing, they are pushing the limits of todays technology by making it possible for Felix Baumgartner to survive a free fall from a height of 120,000 ft above the Earth’s surface.

Felix is carried to these amazing heights inside a capsule which is attached to a high altitude ballon that when filled with helium is 550 ft tall. The pressurized capsule will protect felix from sub zero temperatures and provide much needed oxygen as the air begins to become very thin to virtually nonexistent at these heights.

Felix Baumgartner has already survived two earlier test flights, one at a height just over 70,000ft and a second jump from over 90,000ft. The third and final flight will have Felix jumping from a height of 120,000ft, which has never been done before. Felix could be the first human being to reach supersonic speeds without a vehicle as he will be falling at close to 700 mph.

StratosSuit

Joseph Kittinger was the last person to perform a jump like this on August 16, 1960 from a record breaking height of 102,800 ft. The project that had Joseph jumping from these heights was named project Excelsior and was comprised of three jumps. The first jump almost killed Kittinger as his equipment failed which rendered him unconscious during free fall and he began to spin rapidly allowing him experience up to 22 times the force of gravity, which was also record breaking. If it wasn’t for the automated parachute system he was equipped with, he would most likely not survived.

StratosCapsule

The purpose of all of this is to collect scientific data and test a new generation of space suit technology and even though this jump will be record breaking, the team has mentioned that  the overall goal is mainly focused on the data.

Complete details of the mission can be found here.

CA Governor Signs Self-Driving Cars Bill

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California Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed a Self-Driving car bill at Google’s headquarters. The bill is designed to help lay out safety guidelines for self-driving cars.Robot Driving Car

Google co-founder Sergey Brin talked about how autonomous cars will make our roads much safer and will allow others who would not normally be able to drive, to have a personal, safe, and reliable mode of transportation.

It all sounds like science fiction but autonomous cars already exist and the technology is getting better. We already have cars that park themselves, so why not keep going and take the technology further?  My current question is, would you ride in a car that you’re not controlling? I don’t know exactly how I feel about this but if it had been through extensive testing and had a override switch, then I guess I’m game. A few questions come to mind when I think about self-driving cars. I would imagine that if you take human error out of the equation you can increase travel speeds. Why not have speed limits of around 200mph?

Being able to have cars navigate themselves though dense fog,heavy rain or even driving at night would be a huge benefit for anyone. Perhaps we can wipe drunk driving out of the picture for good as your car can take you home safe and sound.

My major concern here with anything that becomes computerized and automatic is can it be hacked? Actually, we should be asking how will it be hacked because this technology will be vulnerable just like anything else we create and something like this could be dangerous in the wrong hands. There would have to be some digital connection to your drivers license that identifies a driver or passenger, kind of like in the movie The Fith Element, and there would have to be some way to detect whether or not drivers are using a “modded” vehicle that may allow them to exceed regulated speeds or drive irradically.

Another major concern of note here is liability. These self-driving cars will inevitability mess up at one point and damage other cars, property or people, and who will be responsible? How do you determine who was at fault? Computer “A” hit Computer “B”? Send the bill to the auto manufacturer? These are all questions we will have to answer when we move into a world with self-driving cars.

The bottom line seems to be that the potential safety advantages of having a self-driving car are what will push this technology forward. With law enforcement cracking down on texting and making phone calls while driving, this seems like an obvious direction to head. We really have nowhere to go but up here, traveling by car is a dangerous task. Perhaps we will be looking back many years from now and talking about  how crazy it was that people used to drive themselves around and how inefficient and scary that must have been.