Efficient Energy

Portland has stepped UP with a great idea that I swear I had 10 years ago: turbines in the water pipes!
 

 A big turbine for a big idea

Let's start with what the heck a turbine is and what it does - even if you know, you're probably not used to it looking like the above picture. Turbines rotate and generate electricity when a force pushes on them.

In this case, the turbine is directly powering a light bulb. (source)

But where does the force come from? Where does the ENERGY come from? There's a law of the universe called the law of conservation of energy - the idea of it is that energy always comes from somewhere and goes to somewhere, it's never created or 'used up.' So when we "create" electricity, we're really converting another type of energy INTO electricity, usually using a turbine of some kind. 

Every power source except solar power has the same basic principles: turn a turbine, generate electricity by converting that moving energy (called 'kinetic' - everything that's in motion has kinetic energy) into electrical energy. Hydroelectric (hydro = water) turbines use the motion of water to turn the turbine, windmills use wind (uh, duh!). Coal power plants use the heat from burning coal to boil water and the steam that rises turns a turbine - it's like a created wind. 

 

 Seems pretty simple when you put it this way, right? (source)

Even nuclear energy, which seems so fancy, uses the same principals as coal - just with nuclear reactions as the heat source instead of burning coal.

Why does turning things in a circle produce electricity though? The simple answer is that the rotation moves a magnet inside of a coil of wires, which makes the electrons slide back and forth - which is all that electricity is: the movement of electrons. The names are similar for a reason!

The meter is measuring the voltage, or electric potential, created in the wire (source)

One last thing I love to point out: we've been using water and wind power since before there was electricity! Water wheels and windmills date back over 2000 years, when people built massive contraptions to convert the available energy into something useful - what do you think they powered with these devices? Use the comment section to guess!

This is an animation from Skyrim, a game that is pretty as well as pretty fun

The Sun'll Come Out....Tomorrow...

Check out this beautiful timelapse video of a sunrise over Portland:

I really love this city.

Why do you think sunrises and sunsets are so red? Part of the reason has to do with why the sky is normally blue...and it's NOT the reflection of the ocean. It has to do with the size of blue and the nitrogen and oxygen atoms in the sky. Wait, did I just say the size of BLUE??

This is only visible light, which is only one small part of the electromagnetic spectrum

Light is categorized by its different sizes, and the blue wavelength size just so happens to be the exact same size as nitrogen molecules in the sky (around 450 nanometers, which is 450 BILLIONTHS of a meter, or .000000450 meters - pretty small). As the white light from the sun (which contains all the colors) hits the atmosphere, the blue scatters everywhere because it's the same size!

 

You get the most intense sunlight at noon, so wear your sunscreen! (source)

So that's why the sky is blue in the daytime, but what about sunrise and sunset? The steep angle means that the light travels through a lot more atmosphere before getting to people at the edge of the world where the sun is setting:

This atmosphere to earth size is NOT accurate, the atmosphere is much much thinner, but it gives the right idea. (source)

So:

Sunrise and Sunset work the same way. 

 Beautiful city (source has other great photos around Oregon)

Getting to space

Getting to space is HARD. REALLY hard. To lift stuff up to the Space Station costs $12,000 per kilogram (2.2 pounds), which is Not Cheap (read my last post about the ISS here). You've probably seen how that works before, but here's a little video of the Apollo 11 launch:

Let me know in the comment section if this doesn't work

Right now, the best technology we have is to burn an incredible amount of fuel to launch a rocket up in the air, fighting gravity the entire way. Here's another video of the Orion launch, a lot more recently:

They have to do a LOT of checks before they fire this thing off

Lifting against gravity will always take energy - that's a law of the universe. That's part of the reason that some people are currently planning a one-way Mars mission - the space ship can't get off the earth's surface with enough fuel to land on Mars and then take off again (read more about this crazy mission at this website). But maybe there's another way?

A space elevator! If we could somehow build an elevator out to space, that would take less energy because we wouldn't be riding a series of explosions off the surface of the earth. Check out a great breakdown of the possibility here!

Fun with Slinkies!

Most of you have probably played with a slinky before, but I bet you never noticed this:

This is a real thing, not an optical illusion

So what's going on here? How does the bottom of the slinky hold up? Basically, the bottom of the spring is experiencing an upward force from the top of the spring, and that upward force doesn't go away until the top has met the bottom. With normal objects, the whole thing drops at once, but springs' elasticity changes things. Check out this video for a more complete answer:

Physics!!

 

The Moon

Did you know that we always see the same side of the moon? Because of its rotation around the earth, you'd think that we see all parts of it as it orbits around, but the moon is actually a little lopsided so the same part always faces us. There's also no 'dark side' of the moon - different parts of the moon are lit all the time:

Notice how half the moon is always lit (inner circle), but how much gets reflected and viewed from Earth always changes (outer circle). (source)

So that's how much is LIT by the sun and gets reflected to the Earth, but it doesn't really show how we always see the same side. Look at this little gif of all the different moon phases, from a whole month's worth of different moons:

Watch the big splotch in the right hand side - it rotates a little but it's always facing us

Watch this video for a bit more explanation about how the moon's rotational period matches it's revolutionary period:

Watch to the end to see the light changing while the moon rotates

We always see the same side because the moon is kind of egg-shaped - it's a little heavier on the side closer to the earth, so that side always faces us! So what does that other side look like? NASA has a lunar orbiter that goes around the moon and has taken pictures of the other side:

There's some animation in here too, but it's still a good picture of that other side of the moon

I did another post on the tides last year, so if you want to know how those work check that out here.