BearItAll <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>
<snip>
> I watch more TV and other entertainment online than I do on the TV. It's
> great, not only things like the news, but I watched many a program on
> youtube and others, usually split into 15 to 20 minute videos, but very
> watchable. But more, for my tastes anyway, various science things that
> would never make it onto the TV. You get school and college lecturers
> making videos of their science lesson, I love those things, teachers make
> natural presenters, comes with the job I suppose.
For me, this has always been the greatest strength of the internet, and
later, the web, when it first appeared. The huge commerialisation of
the web has changed the nature of much of the content, of course, but as
you say, there is still a huge amount of material which would otherwise
be very hard to find, if not impossible. I used to be a fan of the BBC2
OU lectures which were on at wierd times of the night or early morning,
for the very reasons you describe.
>
> Bet you didn't know you can generate power with four buckets and some water
> or that you can make 3d shapes out of a bit of (forgot what the stuff was,
> but it was just a sort of powder) and some vibrations, I had a go in the
> bath but it doesn't work with talc. Actually as I watched I remembered a
> school science teacher from when I was a kid say that possibly the only
> thing holding any solid together is vibration and movement, I didn't
> understand that and thought it was pure tosh. But he might be right.
>
It's a long time since I studied properties of matter, but my
recollection is that even in solids, unless you are at absolute zero,
then there is always movement in atoms, even those held in crystalline
state in solids. Phonons move through objects, of course, but also,
heat itself is energy and has to be stored somehow if an object is hot.
It's not very clear /how/ it is stored, but it seems likely that it is
stored by causing movement in the bonds between the atoms and/or
molecules, and measurements do give that impression.
We have a couple of other physicists here, (Roy C might still be reading
too), anyone else have any thoughts on this?
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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