http://www.physicallyincorrect.com The Deductions of a Physicist Thu, 08 May 2008 12:59:29 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Ok - this week you get two puzzles wrapped up in one. Here we go: You are given an arbitrary rigid object (say, a statue of the head of Elvis :) ) and asked to determine/estimate the position of its center of mass without doing any calculations. You can perform any ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/05/physics-puzzle-know-thy-center-of-mass/ Here's a nice puzzle that left me scratching my head for a while: If you stand in front of the mirror with a shirt that has something written on it, you will see it "inverted" (left-to-right becomes right-to-left). Informally, we can say that a mirror inverts left and right. However, note ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/05/physics-puzzle-the-inverting-mirror/     I've been writing this blog for quite a while now (almost half a year). It has been an enjoyable experience, but it seems a bit lonely sometimes, as only a brave few have attempted to solve the puzzles I've put on the site. Basically, I'd like to ask you, my readers ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/physically-incorrect-needs-you/ Another weekend has come, and another puzzle with it! This time, we'll be making good use of Ohm's law. Quite a few physics puzzles ask you to find the equivalent resistor of a given network - a particularly famous one is finding the equivalent resistor between two opposite corners of a ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/physics-puzzle-infinite-resistor-network/ Or: "What, No Goldstein?" Of all of physics, mechanics is my favorite subject (followed by electromagnetism). It's the easiest to grasp, because it deals with daily phenomena, but the problems can be very challenging. As a service to the aspiring physics undergraduate and graduate student, here is a list of my ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/my-top-5-mechanics-textbooks/ Here's a riddle about a well known object known as Crooke's radiometer. This is a glass "bulb"-like object with four plates fitted on a metal rod, free to rotate (much like a horizontal windmill). Each plate has a black side and a silver side, as is evident from the photo: The ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/physics-puzzle-crookes-radiometer/ After our last week's excursion into computer science, we're back to physics and an interesting puzzle, which I'll split into two parts - one will be given in a few days. An ideal gas of temperature T1 is stored in a container with walls at a fixed temperature T2. Will the pressure exerted ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/physics-puzzle-gas-pressure/ While this is a physics-oriented blog, computer science has some great puzzles, too! If you're a professional computer scientist they'll probably be easy for you, or you'll already know the answer, but for anyone who isn't familiar with the ropes, they can be very challenging. It's always good to learn ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/computer-science-puzzle-finding-the-maximal-sum-of-a-vector/ There's an interesting physics puzzle hiding behind that painful title. Consider an infinitely long stick, with masses m initially placed along it (at rest) at distances d:   A constant force F is applied to the first, leftmost mass. Assume completely inelastic collisions. Can you compute, after a long enough time, the velocity of the initial mass? ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/04/physics-puzzle-balls-on-a-stick/ Here's a nice puzzle to challenge your understanding of simple electricity. Two students live in adjacent houses in the dorms (ignore the dodgy art, I can only draw as well as Microsoft Word lets me ... and yes, the weird beings are the students, courtesy of the Office Clipart). The lightbulbs in ... http://www.physicallyincorrect.com/2008/03/physics-puzzle-the-bulbs-and-the-students/