Note (12/2015): Hi there! I'm taking some time off here to focus on other projects for a bit. As of October 2016, those other projects include a science book series for kids titled Things That Make You Go Yuck! -- available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and (hopefully) a bookstore near you!

Co-author Jenn Dlugos and I are also doing some extremely ridiculous things over at Drinkstorm Studios, including our award-winning webseries, Magicland.

There are also a full 100 posts right here in the archives, and feel free to drop me a line at secondhandscience@gmail.com with comments, suggestions or wacky cold fusion ideas. Cheers!

Quantum Entanglement


· Categories: Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Quantum entanglement: It may be spooky -- but at least it won't stink up your ride.
“Quantum entanglement: It may be spooky — but at least it won’t stink up your ride.”

At first, quantum entanglement sounds a little complicated. Entanglement occurs when two elementary particles — electrons or photons, for instance — interact in a way that links some property of those particles together. So if you measure the spin, say, of one electron, you also know the spin of the second, no matter where in the universe that other electron has gotten itself off to. It could still be in the same test chamber. It could be in Hoboken, New Jersey. It doesn’t matter.

There’s a way of thinking about this that makes quantum entanglement seem much simpler. Like all good scientific analogies, it involves Seinfeld.

Imagine the two electrons ride together to the laboratory in Jerry’s car. Specifically, the car parked by that valet who had the really terrible B.O. The kind of funk that couldn’t be cleaned out, and attached itself to everything that came near it — like Jerry’s jacket, or Elaine’s hair.

In this scenario, you clearly only need to measure one electron. If the first particle stinks, and you know they were both in the B.O.-mobile, then the second particle is going to stink, too. Maybe the second particle took a shower. Or sprayed on Old Spice. Or flew to Paris to bathe in perfume. It doesn’t matter. You don’t escape the B.O. car stench.

The key here is that the fates of the electrons were sealed at the time they interacted. If that’s the case, the distance between the two when they’re measured isn’t relevant — they were funkified together, back on the ride to work. This idea is called a “hidden variable” theory, and it makes quantum entanglement much, much easier to understand.

It’s also completely wrong. Which is a shame, because I’ve always thought science could use more Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

Using large-scale experiments and lots of complicated Greek-letter math, physicists have proven (or nearly proven, depending on who you ask) that hidden variables are not involved in quantum entanglement. For either particle, it’s impossible to know or predict the entangled property before it’s measured. But once it’s known, the corresponding property of the other particle somehow “knows” about this measurement, and locks into place. This happens immediately — or at least, thousands of times faster than the speed of light, which is theoretically impossible.

Or was, until bizarro quantum entanglement concepts were first debated back in the ’30s by scientists like Erwin Schrodinger, Boris Podolsky, Nathan Rosen and Albert Einstein.

(Incidentally, Einstein in particular rejected the idea of quantum entanglement, calling it “spooky action at a distance”.

I’m no particle physicist, but any time you describe a theory the same way you would a guy who touches himself while he watches you across the subway car, you’re probably not a fan.)

Besides being wicked weird, quantum entanglement is a hot topic in physics these days. Entanglement is the key to quantum computing, may unlock virtually unbreakable cryptography, could be the secret to photosynthesis and might even be responsible for why time flows in one direction.

Not bad for a phenomenon that’s spookier than subway creeps, and more confusing than permanent automotive armpit stank.

Actual Science:
LiveScience – How quantum entanglement works
National Geographic – Teleportation: behind the science of quantum computing
Wired – New quantum theory could explain the flow of time
Planetsave – Quantum entanglement experiment proves non-locality for first time
io9 – New evidence that plants get their energy using quantum entanglement

Image sources: NASA Science (entangled cartoon), Abnormal Use (smelly car), Popsugar and Brookhaven National Lab (Julia Scientist-Dreyfus), Live NY Now (subway creep)

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Absolute Zero


· Categories: Chemistry, Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Absolute zero: where the temperature itself is strange and unusual.
“Absolute zero: where the temperature itself is strange and unusual.”

You may think you’ve experienced extreme cold. Maybe you accidentally swallowed a whole popsicle once. Or walked into a blizzard with your fly unzipped. Maybe you have a regular bridge game with Betty Draper, April Ludgate and Cruella de Vil.

That’s super. But none of those things compare with absolute zero.

Absolute zero is a theoretical state of matter in which the enthalpy and entropy of a gas are at their lowest possible values. This sounds complicated, but “entropy” and “enthalpy” just mean the amount of energy in the system, and the disorder of that system.

(I can never remember which is which, because the words sound too much alike.

I also mix up Mindy Kaling with Michael Keaton. Which makes reruns of The Office pretty confusing — and Beetlejuice ten times scarier.)

In more familiar terms, absolute zero would be -273.15° Celsius, or -459.67° Fahrenheit, either of which will shrink it right up inside you in a hurry. It’s also zero Kelvin, which is a lot easier to remember. On the other hand, it’s 288 Kelvins outside right now, which is approximately zero help in telling me whether or not I need a coat. Or to zip up my fly.

(Notice that in the Kelvin scale, there are no degrees. That’s because in extremely cold temperatures, that little circle thingy folds completely in on itself and disappears.

See? When you’re flirting with absolute zero, even the measurement units get shrinkage.)

While absolute zero isn’t physically possible to achieve — stupid sexy laws of thermodynamics — you can get pretty close. As in, trillionths of a Kelvin close. Scientists can do amazing things with window fans and ice cubes, apparently.

And when they do, spooky quantum mechanical things start happening.

One of these is superconduction, where electrical resistance in supercooled materials suddenly drops to zero. Another is superfluidity, where viscosity gives up in the cold and goes home. Weirdest of all (and sometimes superfluid) are Bose-Einstein condensates, an entirely distinct state of matter which was first predicted by Albert Einstein and a pair of surround-sound speakers.

(I kid, I kid. Bose was an amazing guy — self-taught, genius and deservedly celebrated. Maybe I should have said “first predicted by Satyendra Nath Bose and a subpar bagel chain”.

Or neither? Probably neither. Moving on.)

Oddly, it’s possible to create a system with a temperature below absolute zero. Oddlier, this system is not only “hotter” than it was before, it’s also hotter than anything else in the universe, based on the physics of heat transfer.

I’d like to tell you this is just like freezer burn. I would. But I don’t think it’s anything like freezer burn, and I have no idea how it works. (And some scientists challenge whether it’s true at all.)

Maybe science thermometers are circular, so the bottom of the scale connects back to the top? Like how some people are so ugly, they’re attractive? I don’t know. Ask an ugly quantum physicist.

So the next time you find yourself trapped in a walk-in freezer (244 Kelvins), sunbathing in Antarctica (190 Kelvins) or drifting in the cold vacuum of space (2.73 Kelvins), just remember that it could be worse. It could be absolute zero.

Well, not quite absolute zero. But really, really close.

Actual Science:
PBS / Nova – Absolute zero
New Scientist – What happens at absolute zero?
UColorado Boulder / The Atomic Lab – Temperature and Absolute Zero
Science News – Hottest temperature ever measured is a negative one
MIT News – It’s a negative on negative absolute temperatures

Image sources: French Tribune (freezy zero), Betty Draper Looking Pissed (just what it says), Candy-Coated Razor Blades and FanPop / The Office (Mindyjuice! Mindyjuice! Mindyjuice!) and Business Insider (“Shrinkage!”)

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Scanning Electron Microscopy


· Categories: Biology, Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Scanning electron microscopy - almost as exciting as... well, you know.
“Scanning electron microscopy – almost as exciting as… well, you know.”

“Scanning electron microscopy” is one of those sciency terms that looks a lot scarier than it actually is. To make sense of it, you just have to break it down, word-by-word. I start at the end and work my way backwards.

(Science is usually more fun that way. Like Harry Potter novels. Or nine-layer dips.)

So, start with “microscopy”. This is just “microscope” with a fancy-sounding “y” glommed on the end. Scientists sometimes add “y” to words to make them sound more impressive — like oncolog or rhinoplast or chemistr, for instance. But don’t be fooled; “microscopy” just means “doing stuff with a microscope”. And “microscope” means “machine that makes tiny things look bigger”.

And if you ask what “tiny things” means, we’re going to talk about your sex life. Don’t be a smartass.

Next is “electron”, which is an especially tiny thing that zips around atoms. Electrons have other properties, of course, like spin and charge and favorite How I Met Your Mother episode, but the important things right now are these: electrons are fast, unbelievably tiny — like, seriously, sextillions of the things in a grain of sand tiny — and can be shot in a tight beam like a skinnier, less murderous laser.

That just leaves “scanning”, which brings everything together. The beam of electrons is shot at the sample inside the microscope.

(Technically speaking, these electrons are said to “bombard” the target. Or in the words of one esteemed science educator:

“Bombardment! Life is pain, son! Bombardment!! My post-doc lasted seventeen years! Bombardment!! Science is a cruel and less-lucrative-than-anticipated mistress! Bombardment! BOMBARDMENT!! BOMBARDMENT!!!”

Yes. “Bombardment”. Thanks.)

Then the beam scans back and forth across the surface, like a printer over a piece of paper. Only instead of shooting ink (or dodgeballs), it’s electrons. These electrons excite the atoms they hit, which sends other electrons pinging off the surface. Scientists detect these “secondary” electron signals to determine the contours of whatever’s being scanned.

Sort of like a hot blind girl feeling your face to figure out what you look like, only with electrons instead of fingers. Also, most microscopic targets are more attractive than Kenneth Parcell. Which is probably good.

This technique is often used to view fixed biological samples (think “teeny critters in formaldehyde”) or the surfaces of materials like crystals or computer chips. But you can see almost anything in a scanning electron microscope, provided you can suck all the water out of it and, if needed, micro-coat it with a conductive material to provide lots of surface electrons.

(For instance, some scientists want to look at spiders. And gold is conductive and easy to layer on. So our universe now contains an actual, once-living gold-plated spider, like a villain in some arachnoid James Bond flick.

Science says, “you’re welcome“.)

By using electrons instead of light, scanning electron microscopes can magnify up to 500,000 times. So you can view bacteria and snowflakes and insect feet and grains of rice in stunning detail, down to a scale of one nanometer.

Which is a little better resolution than the monitor you’re reading this on. Yes, even if it has that “retina thingy”. Trust me.

So don’t get tripped up by the long words and fancy syllables. “Scanning electron microscopy” isn’t something frightening. After all, who’s afraid of a little bombardment?

Bombardment! Bombardment!! BOMBARDMENT!!!

Actual Science:
NanoScience Instruments – Scanning electron microscopy
How Stuff Works – How scanning electron microscopes work
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – SEM Lab gallery
Wired – Absurd creature of the week (tardigrade [w/SEM images])

Image sources: NPR (sperm and egg), Kissing Suzy Kolber (“Bombardment!!”), 30 Rock / NBC (via Netflix) (Kenneth face), Wikipedia (Goldspider)

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Neutrinos


· Categories: Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Even when they're plush, neutrinos are badass.
“Neutrinos: never seen, never heard and there’s one behind you RIGHT NOW!”

Scary question: what do neutrinos, ninjas and Bigfoot have in common?

Even scarier answer: Almost everything.

For starters, neutrinos are shrouded in mystery. They were first predicted decades ago, but there’s a lot we still don’t know about them. What’s a neutrino’s mass? How fast do they move? How many types are there? Boxers or briefs? Do they like gladiator movies?

We know none of these things about neutrinos. Just like ninjas and Bigfoot.

Neutrinos are mysterious because they’re extremely hard to detect. They pass right through air, liquid, solids — even the earth itself. Neutrinos make no sound, give no advance warning and make only the slightest disturbance as they pass.

Sound like any feudal Japanese assassins or Sasquatches you know?

Paradoxically, though, neutrinos are basically everywhere. They’re created by processes including nuclear fusion, like in stars or supernovae or a really intense Dave Matthews Band gig. If you put your hand up to the sun, one trillion neutrinos will pass through it every second.

(Of course, if you put your hand anywhere else, they’ll still pass through it. You can put your hand under your butt in the dead of night, if you want; it won’t make a bit of difference.

Neutrinos don’t care. They do what they want.

Like ninjas. Like Bigfoot.)

This abundance does make neutrinos unique, though. If a trillion ninjas were nearby, you’d already be too dead to read this. And a trillion Bigfeet would stack ten thousand deep in the Montana woods, and someone would eventually notice the pile. Or the smell. Plus, there’d be a lot more idiotic beef jerky commercials on TV. Pretty hard to miss.

Neutrinos are hard to detect because they rarely interact. With no electrical charge, tiny mass and near-light speed, neutrinos are a pain in the ass to catch up to. Researchers only find them when one in a hugetillion pings off a molecule in an underground pool of laboratory water, or a detector array built into an Antarctic ice sheet. Short of running smack into the heart of an atomic nucleus, a neutrino could go undetected forever.

Like ninjas’ and Bigfeet’s long lost subatomic brother.

Of course, anything mysterious and spooky needs a nemesis. For ninjas, it’s pirates. Obviously. For Bigfoot, a zoom-lens Nikon. And for neutrinos, it’s the antineutrino — which some theories say is also a neutrino.

So, a particle that rarely interacts, can barely be seen and is also its own opposite. Maybe neutrinos are actually more like Batman. Or the Unabomber. The Batabomber? Possibly not.

Anyway, for such an antisocial particle, neutrinos get invited to an awful lot of physics parties. Scientists use the kind from supernovae as cosmic warning signals. Astronomers want to use them to “see” stars on the other side of light-blocking cosmic dust and gas. Neutrino property measurements could provide evidence for or against competing particle physics models. Neutrinos from the Big Bang could be some (or all) of the “dark matter” cosmologists have been trying to find. They can be used to monitor nuclear reactors. It’s possible (but not so likely — but still possible!) that neutrinos travel faster than the speed of light.

Yeah. They’re kind of a big deal.

In conclusion, neutrinos. A lot like ninjas, and also Bigfoot. And possibly Ted Kaczynski in a Batman mask. Only better.

Actual Science:
Ice Cube South Pole Neutrino Obwervatory – All about neutrinos
Geek – Was the universe fathered by sterile neutrinos?
Phys.org – Massive neutrinos solve a cosmological conundrum
Physics World – Neutrinos could detect secret fission reactors
xkcd – Lethal neutrinos – what if?

Image sources: Ars Technica (neutrino event), Particle Zoo (ninja neutrino plushies), AdWeek (Bigfoot posse), Chris Is Why I’m Skinny and Gentleman Sparks (Batabomber)

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Coronal Mass Ejection


· Categories: Astronomy, Physics
What I’ve Learned:

Coronal mass ejection -- don't cross the sun, or it'll set the whole building on fire.
“Coronal mass ejections: sometimes the ratio of badass to sunshine is too big.”

Here’s the thing about the sun: it’s always working. At night, you go to bed. You don’t see the sun, so maybe you think it’s sleeping, too, or out hitting on Class G babes at some seedy stellar hot spot.

But no.

While you’re drooling on your pillow, the sun is pulling double shifts on the other side of the planet. There are sidewalks in Saigon to warm, Tibetan teahouses to light, and those crystal waters lapping the Great Barrier Reef aren’t going to dapple themselves, the lazy bastards.

So the sun takes care of that business, and then reaches back around to tickle the other hemisphere, without so much as a lunch break. It’s tireless. It’s also unpaid, has no insurance, commutes a hell of a long way and occasionally gets so worked up it sets something on fire. Basically, the sun is our solar system’s Milton Waddams. Do not touch the solar stapler.

Instead of torching a building, though, the sun lets off steam with coronal mass ejections.

(Technically, it lets off plasma, which is to steam approximately what ghost chili extract is to Arby’s Horsey Sauce.

As the saying goes: if you’re going to eject substances in public, at least make it impressive.)

In addition to plasma and fused hydrogen and other ridiculously hot things that make napalm look like a cold water spritzer, the sun also creates intense magnetic fields. When two oppositely-directed fields come together — like a perfect storm of being relegated to the basement and having your precious Swingline swiped — something snaps.

On a good day, this might cause a solar flare — those impressive leaping arcs of fire you see in astronomy photos, curling off the surface of the sun. Solar flares are idiots. They put on a big show, like an undersized bully or a fresh business school graduate, but there’s no oomph. It’s all flash and no substance; solar flares are like the Cirque du Soleil of… well, the soleil.

Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, on the other hand, will bite a planet in the ass. Also spawned by magnetic reconnections, CMEs are solar flares’ bigger, hotter, angrier brothers. And they’ll come at you, on average, like a billion tons of bricks riding a magnetized solar wind at over a million miles an hour. Because, on average, that’s exactly what they are.

(Except for the ‘brick’ thing. But plasma is scarier, anyway. You don’t fight off alien hordes with “brick rifles”. I’m just saying.)

When they slam through the Earth, coronal mass ejections wreak havoc on satellites, electric lines and radio transmissions. They’re like EMPs on steroids, whose steroids also took a bunch of steroids. The Jose Cansecos of electromagnetic phenomena.

Coronal mass ejections are also responsible for auroras, which are dancing lights near the North and South Poles that indicate our atmosphere is getting the shit kicked out of it by high-energy solar particles. Auroras are cosmic “Check Engine” lights, only much prettier and artsy-fartsy.

So I guess a CME has a little Cirque du Soleil in it, too. Just don’t say that to its face. Next time, it might decide to set you on fire.

Actual Science:
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center – Coronal mass ejections
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center – The heart of space weather observed in action
EarthSky – What is coronal mass ejections or CME?
RedOrbit – Sun’s coronal mass ejections behave like Crab Nebula’s gas tendrils
ABC Science – Plasma plume defends Earth

Image sources: RedOrbit (coronal mass ejection), ZDNet (Milton Waddams), Obscure Gamers and FunnyJunk (Ash shooting bricks), General Depravity (aurora borealis)

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